that the true method of converting heretics is to burn them-to tread them under foot as venomous adders-to exterminate them; who was his counsellor but the devil? And whence was it that while this doctrine of devils was rampant in Italy, Spain, and France, the spirit of the age was so imbued with it that it infected protestant Switzerland; and that the very Puritans who escaped from it in the old world, did not wholly escape from it in the new? And when the spirit of exclusiveness in some departments of the church of God, by which the ministry and ordinances of other departments, that do not suffer in comparison with those who thus proscribe them, are denied their "divine authority?" Such doctrines can hardly be expected to make any very deep impression upon the minds of thinking men. It is difficult to perceive how they can be seriously inculcated, did not melancholy facts teach us that the mind of man is subject to unaccountable delusion. It is lamentable delusion-delusion that has been silenced, again and again silenced by sound argument—and yet it remains. It is a castle in the air. It has no more foundation in the word of God, than Pool's fancied dragon had in the clouds. I pray that the subjects of it may be "kept from falling," and that God would deliver them from the snare of the fowler. Whence, too, the epidemic terror of witchcraft and sorcery that

has left such a stain, not upon Rome only, but upon the fairest portions of Protestantism; but from that dreadful hallucination to which the adversary has been permitted sometimes to incite the superstitions of the best of men?

Nor is this all. Our own day has witnessed the Deceiver's power, by the misdirected zeal of good men, and the machinations of those that are bad. He has endeavored to prescribe rules and a moral machinery for the work of God; and by his oftpractised artifices, has got up those unhallowed excitements by which the unwary and unstable have been misled to their own undoing. One piece of fanaticism has thus very naturally succeeded to another, until there are not wanting those who boast of their sinless perfection; and other some are led away by the ravings of an insane prophet, who prates of that of which he knows nothing, and of which the omniscient Saviour has said that angels themselves are ignorant. To these we might add those latitudinarian doctrines, by which such multitudes are "carried about by the cunning craftiness of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive." The religion of forms without the power of godliness ever has been, and still is the religion which flourishes only under the auspices of the Deceiver. That disheartening stupidity, too, which, in defiance of returning Sabbaths, and the faithful instructions of God's ministers, and the

admonitions and rebukes of divine providence, has superinduced the sleep of death in the world, and a dreamy, lifeless inaction in the church; what is this but the work of the Enemy?

We could easily extend this tragical survey. The adversary has always had a well-fortified kingdom in this world, and it is now lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes. Evidence is not wanting of his character as the Deceiver, and of the extent of his deception.

If there is any one thought which has filled my own mind with solicitude in the course of the preceding illustrations, it is the fear that men would throw the criminality and responsibility of their wickedness on this great Deceiver, rather than, in all self-reproach and humiliation, take them upon themselves. This is just what he would have them do; it is one of his own cherished sophistries. It is not easy to make an impressive representation of his power without seeming to furnish something like a palliative for human wickedness. "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat!" But the excuse is no extenuation of the crime, plausible as it may seem. While it is no crime to be tempted to sin, unless men themselves solicit the temptation, yet is there emphasis in the words, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." A conscientious fear and hatred of iniquity, and an humble reliance on God, will quench

all the fiery darts of the fowler. We may have no truce with an enemy who is so alert in the arts of seduction. One there is who is not only able "to keep us from being tempted above what we are able to bear," but "with every temptation to make a way of escape;" who "knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptation," and who has himself taught us to pray daily, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." The counsels of heavenly wisdom are, "Be sober; be vigilant; for your adversay, the devil, goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." Be sober, lest you tempt the tempter; be vigilant, because your foes are subtle, and aim their envenomed arrows in the dark. To those who are the people of God, the days of temptation will soon be over; nor should it surprise them if the enemy should yet "come down in great wrath, knowing that his time is short." It is but a little longer, and the issues of the conflict will be announced in the exulting gratulation, "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ!" With those who are not the people of God, time is also urging its rapid flight, and if the chains of temptation and the bonds of iniquity be not speedily broken, they will feel the bondage forever.

Are we not also called upon by the previous thoughts to appreciate the importance of moral

and religious truth as the great and appointed means whereby the power of the adversary is to be successfully resisted? There is nothing this Deceiver has so much reason to fear as the truth of God. Plain, honest truth, Bible truth, is the only successful antagonist to a system of measures and efforts whose only success depends on subtlety and deception. Truth penetrates those dark chambers of the human mind which have so long been the lurking-places of this foul fiend; dispels the mists in which he remains enveloped and undetected; discloses his hideous and ugly form; drives him out from all classes of human society, and ultimately destroys his influence in the world. The devil cannot long retain possession of the heart, or the community, that loves the truth of God. His element is darkness, or dim and misty speculation. He shrinks with instinctive repulsiveness from a pure atmosphere, and a sky beautified by the illuminations of heaven. It is frightful to see what a space in an ignorant mind one false notion can fill, and to what a series of errors, and what active power of mischief it can give rise; and on the other hand, it is delightful to see how wide a place one great truth can occupy, and to what a train of truths it gives birth, and what elevating and reforming influences it exerts.

How constraining, then, are the obligations on the church of God to extend his gospel to every