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fallen. David said, "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, and not into the hand of man." What, then, must be the state of those who fall into the hands, not of man, but of Satan himself?

Such thoughts as these are very requisite at all times; but particularly in these days, when many Christians hardly ever contemplate Satan and his angels as actual powers now existing in the world. Alas, how few are there who think of Satan as they ought to think! How many, in considering their own conduct and way of life, never so much as take into their calculation whether or not, or how far, Satan has now, or ever has had, an influence within them! And leaving out so great an element as this, how can their calculations come right in the end? that is to say, how can they direct the course of their life aright? Surely Holy Scripture has set forth to us the power of Satan and his angels for some great purpose in regard to our souls; and if we never meditate upon that power, nor endeavour to acquaint ourselves with it, the leaving it out from our thoughts will in the end produce a difference in us. Our carelessness and want of real earnestness will by degrees lead us into temptation; and God will not take thought for us, to deliver us from the Evil One, while He sees that we take no thought for ourselves. On the other hand, the really earnest Christian, who values his own soul, will not cease endeavouring to acquaint himself with the length, and breadth, and depth,

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and height of Christianity, and with the nature of his own position in the world, in regard to both visible and invisible things; and thus ascertaining the extent of his danger, he will also learn to feel how mighty that power is by which alone he can come off the conqueror— the power, namely, of the Holy Ghost, Who is given him, and Who is able to work exceeding abundantly in us above all that we ask or think. He who lives a daily life of faith and prayer, he who is continually on his guard, he who has weighed well to how great a state he is called, how great things are expected of him, and what a mighty power is given him to work with, or rather to work within him,—he, and he alone, will ever escape the temptations of Satan. All others must fall into his snare, whence year by year it will become more difficult to escape, and at last impossible. From which so dreadful a state may God of His mercy preserve us all; through Christ our Lord! Amen.

SERMON XV.

THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN.

HEBREWS iii. 13.

"Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."

Ir is customary to talk of the ease with which we are deceived by appearances. To be deceived, to find out that we have been deceived, to determine never to be deceived more, and then to be again deceived more than ever,-this is the usual circle in which our life goes round. We are deceived by our hopes; we are deceived by our fears; we are deceived in our views of evil and good; we are deceived in our calculations of what will be best for ourselves and others. We are constantly mistaking things for what they are not. We grasp at objects which we think real, but which, under our very touch, turn into shadows. All things are transformed before our eyes, while we think them the same. Our own senses deceive us: we are deceived in judging of distances; we are deceived in judging

of time; we often fancy that we hear sounds when all is still; we mistake one sound for another. Then look further out of yourself into the world which surrounds you. How repeatedly are you finding yourself to have been deceived in many points of which you thought yourself certain at the time! How constantly are the circumstances of life changing! Many are deceived by their enemies; more by their friends. Our very charity is deceived by false objects, and our pity given where it is not deserved. Some persons, it is true, are more sharp-sighted than others, and are not deceived so often; yet not rarely their very sharpsightedness deceives them-they overreach their mark.

Hence it is that so many murmurings and complainings have arisen concerning the deceitfulness of things. Men cry out, that the world is full of deceit, that it is a perpetual illusion; and for a time, while the sting of their disappointment is fresh in them, they think that they can never be again deluded. With this feeling they rise in the morning, and before night discover the very notion, that they could no more be deceived, to have been in itself the greatest deception of all.

There are those doubtless present who more or less have found this to be the case with themselves. Some observe the events of their life less than others, and, in the absence of reflection, may fancy that they have never been deceived. This is

almost a greater deception than all the rest put together. To be deceived again and again by the visible things of this world; by the invisible workings of our own hearts, and of him within them who is the god of this world this is the lot of man, this is the experience of all ages. Now we see as through a glass darkly-now we know but in part; and he who thinks that he is never deceived, is in that very thought his own deceiver.

Seeing, then, that we thus live in a state which is continually subjecting us to deceit of one kind or another, I would, in the next place, call your attention to one particular deceit, which, above all others, is most dangerous, yet least regarded, the deceitfulness of sin; and, from finding how much we are daily deluded in the common round of our life, let us be prepared to expect that, in this particular also, we may be not a little deceiving ourselves.

The words of our text are, "Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." In another place we are told that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." And, again, of Satan our Lord declares that he is "A liar and the father of it." If there be any one thing to which deceitfulness is attributed by the word of God more than to any thing else, it is to sin. Sin takes a thousand forms of deceit; she alters her shape so as to suit every human being; she beguiles men in every variety of ways possible.

1 Jer. xvii. 9.

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