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while it forbids all dependence upon them. It does not require us to cast them away, but only to lay them where they ought to be laid; not as the foundation of our hope, but at the feet of Christ. Let law-breakers and law-despisers remember, that though duties will not save them, yet the neglect of them will be their destruction. Every one that heareth these sayings of mine, says our Lord, and doeth them not, shall be likened to a foolish man which built his bouse upon the sand and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that bouse: and it fell, and great was the fall of it. Matt.. vii. 26, 27.

Let me be dead unto the law,

Nor thence my hope or comfort draw:
Its threats no more excite my fear,
While Christ my refuge still is near.

A perfect rule it still remains,
And all its power as such retains ;
A cov'nant form no more it bears,
Nor dark nor gloomy aspect wears.

No righteousness I thence derive,
Nor think to say, "Do this and live :'
Yet would I not indulge despair,
Though I can find no safety there,

That help it cannot now afford,
I seek in my expiring Lord;
His blood at once atones for sin,
And makes my sinful nature clean.

The danger of Self-deception.

SERMON XVII.

GAL. vi. 7.

Be not deceived.

MAY we never forget this most interesting and

solemn caution! We hope indeed that we are partakers of grace, that God is our Father, Christ our Saviour, and that heaven will be our home-but suppose we should be mistaken! My soul trembles at the thought! Let us not take for granted that upon which our eternal happiness depends, without the most serious enquiry and the fullest satisfaction. Man is both deceitful and deceived; and being so, it is difficult to undeceive him. We are apt to deceive others, and to deceive ourselves. We have also to do with a deceitful enemy, who for his cruelty is compared to a lion, and for his subtlety to a serpent. He has wiles, and depths, and devices, of which we need to be aware. He deceived man in a state of innocence, and there is much greater probability of his success since the fall. Sin has furnished him with fit matter to work upon, and he will improve every advantage. Every thing around us is deceitful. Riches are so they raise lofty expectations, and then disappoint them: they promise contentment and satisfaction, but fill with pain and uneasiness.

Favour is deceitful. The favour of great men, and even of good men, is so; and indeed all other favour but that of God. The heart also is deceitful; yea, deceitful above all things: who can know it? We cannot know the hearts of others, and have but an imperfect knowledge of our own. Were it not for the deceitfulness of our own hearts, neither a deceitful world nor a deceitful tempter could prevail against us. Yea, the heart is not only itself deceitfal, but is full of deceivers. Every lust, every sinful principle and habit is a deceiver, and prevails more by art and intrigue than by force and violence. Sin also is said to be deceitful: it acts in a way of insinuation, not appealing to the understanding, but working itself into the affections; first intoxicating the mind, and then polluting it. When any one has deceived us, we generally take care that he shall not deceive us again: but though our corrupt hearts have deceived us a thousand times, yet are we in danger of being still deceived by them, and there is therefore great need of the caution in the text: Be not deceived.

1. Consider some of the instances in which we are liable to be deceived.

Men in general have mistaken apprehensions of the character of God. They think him to be such a one as themselves, are indifferent whether they keep his law or break it, and whether he be pleased or displeased; they think that he is neither so just nor so holy, so faithful to his promises, nor so punctual in executing his threatenings, as his word represents him to be. We are also much deceived about our fellow creatures. We call the proud happy, and regard the poor as miserable: we look at the outward appearance, and are often mistaken with respect to the real character of men: we despise those whom

God honours, and applaud those whom he condemns. But above all, we are in danger of being deceived about ourselves. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness. We imagine that we excel in beauty, when we are nothing but deformity; and come to a throne of grace with, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men, when we ought rather to lift up the Publican's cry, God, be merciful to me a sinner!-More particularly, we may observe,

. Those are certainly deceived who entertain lessening apprehensions of the evil of sin, saying of this and the other transgression of God's holy law, as Lot did of Zoar, "Is it not a little one, and my soul shall live." Many have been led into this error under the notion that some sins are venial, while others are mortal; whereas no sin is mortal, if truly répented of; and none is venial, if we live and die in a state of impenitence. The distinction of great and little sinners may be more readily admitted, than that of great and little sins; for though some sins are more highly aggravated than others, yet every sin, objectively considered, is an infinite evil, and deserves everlasting punishment. To every transgressor it may be said, Is not thy wickedness great, and thine iniquities infinite? Those therefore are grossly deceived who think lightly of sin; and it cannot be but at the same time they have low thoughts of God. Such never rightly considered the purity of the divine nature, nor the extent and spirituality of the divine law: they neither view sin as it stands opposed to the perfections of God, nor as exhibited in the sufferings of Christ. They are utter strangers to the influence of the holy Spirit, whose office it is to convince the world of sin, both as to its direful effects and evil nature. Those who make mountains of their duties, and trifles of their sins, imagining that God is greatly beholden to them for the one, and

but little offended with the other, are awfully mistaken. Pardon mine iniquity, says David, for it is great. This is a singular plea, but it is a prevailing one: the penitent does not lessen his guilt, but enhances it, when he pleads for mercy. Psal. xxv. 11.

2. Those are deceived who think that the wrath of God against sin is represented in too strong a light. We may fear the displeasure of men more than we need to do, and it often happens that they have not power to punish equal to their wishes: but it is not so with God, nor can our apprehensions rise too. high: Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath-Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the day that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken, and will do it. Fear will sometimes form imaginary dangers, and magnify real ones; but it is not so in this case. Look back to the manner in which God promulgated his holy law: the earthquake, thunder, lightning, darkness, and fire; the mountain shaking, the people trembling, Moses himself affrighted: and if this was the case in the giving of the law, what must it be when God shall come to punish the transgression of it! Then not a single mountain only, but the whole earth shall be in flames. Terrors shall

seize not only one nation, but all those nations which know not God, and have not obeyed the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh what a crying will there' then be to the mountains and to the rocks, to fall on them, and hide them from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb! But all will be in vain: the Judge is inexorable. He that made them will not have mercy upon them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour. The wrath of God is as much above that of man as God himself is stronger than man; and if the wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion, what must it be to meet the incensed Deity! Do not those then de

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