tion of lively feeling should put in question their sincerity, and lest their very "prayer" should be deemed " an abomination before God."

Yet assuredly there is danger that this participation in the outward duties, without the inward and life-giving spirit of devotion, may end, if it did not begin, in hypocrisy. The means may soon be mistaken for the end; "the form" substituted for "the power of godliness;" and the deceiving and deceived heart may forget its own hollowness in the loud tone and orthodox language of its professions. The seeming worshipper, himself cheated into a belief of his own sincerity, may at length, with the Pharisee, thank God for his observances and offerings, when he ought to be "smiting upon his breast," and asking forgiveness for "the iniquity," the dread iniquity of what ought to have been "his holy things.' He may pride himself upon services, the very remembrance of which should fill him with shame, and humble him to the dust. This is the last exhibition we shall present of" the deceitful heart." May the guilt which it involves, and the consequences to which it naturally leads, tend to open the eyes and awaken the repentance of those "who have a name to live, while they are counted dead before God."

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CHAPTER III.

THE DECEIVED HEART.

"He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot turn again and deliver his own soul."

"If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

"Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived."

ERRONEOUS principles are often esteemed but little dangerous, provided the heart be right in its intentions and feelings. The kind and accommodating creed of modern liberalism makes it a matter of minor importance who is worshipped, or how he is worshipped, if there be only sincerity in the worshipper. Now, the great difficulty in the way of this pseudo charity is, that it proves so much, and extends so far, as to equalize all truth and falsehood, all right and wrong. It sets out, moreover, with a supposition which in itself involves an impossibility: for the heart is not and cannot be right, when it is subject to the warping influence of erroneous and debasing views, when it enshrines principles that are radically wrong in its holiest sanctuary of feeling, guards them with

its most watchful jealousy, and embodies them in action with its most fervent enthusiasm, and its most active zeal.

"He feedeth on ashes," said the evangelic prophet, in reference to the maker and worshipper of idols, whose folly he had so sarcastically and inimitably exposed; "a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" If the reader will be at the pains to consult the forceful chapter in which these words occur, he will doubtless acknowledge that the keenness of the satire is proportioned to the fatuity and heinousness of the offence. It furnishes us with a case admirably in point. Those against whom it directs its pointed sarcasm were doubtless sincere. A species of zeal sent them out to the forest to choose their tree, cheered their labours while they were "making it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man." With a liberality worthy of a better cause, they lavished the silver and the gold for its covering and adorning. There was piety in their hearts when they knelt before its shrine, and fervour in the supplications which they there poured forth, in the sacrifices which they unsparingly offered. We see the confidence of assured belief in their system stamped upon their every word and act. Sensitively alive to the honour of their chosen idols, shocked at the very idea of unbelief in their power, prompt to

punish disrespect to their altars as sacrilege, they. would have been ready, if need required, to war or to die in their cause. According to a fashionable hypothesis, then, their unquestionable sincerity should have excused and sanctified their manifest delusion; and they should have been as much accepted when they bowed themselves, in the darkness of their benighted understandings, before" the stocks and the stones," "called upon Baal," or "poured out drink-offerings to the queen of heaven," as though they had been worshipping Jehovah with a rational and an holy worship. Yet what is the fact? What saith the inspired record? After all this laborious zeal and costly devotion, it gives the disparaging comment, that they are feeding on ashes-that a deceived heart hath turned them aside-" that these makers of graven images are all of them vanity," and "that their delectable things shall not profit." Here then is the case of men who were sincerely and systematically devout, while every step in their course was a new remove from truth, from God, and from salvation. The blindness of the mind deceived and perverted even the willing heart; and this deceived heart, acting on false principles, and under a gross delusion, turned them into the pathway of error and death; and the delusion so increased and thickened around them, that they could "by no means deliver their own soul," nor even ascertain that there

was a flaw in their principles, a lie in their right hand."

This may possibly be imagined an extreme case; resulting entirely from the fact of their having forsaken the true God. But we think that it may be shown that similar results follow from all error, in a proportionate degree, even when men ignorantly or improperly worship the true God. Incorporate falsehood or mistake with the principles of action, and "the deceived heart" must turn men aside from the truth; and in exact proportion to the grossness of the error will be the improbability of its discovery and renunciation.

To exemplify this; let one mistake the spirit of true religion, and the character of God; blindly supposing that error, however unintentional, justifies the utmost fury of persecution; and at once he will make the religion of mercy a plea for deeds of cruelty. There is on record the case of one who " verily thought with himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth;" and we have the assurance of the same Jesus, verified by the subsequent history of the world, that times and occasions would come, "when whosoever killed his disciples should think that he did God service."

Let another act under a wrong impression of the divine supremacy and sovereignty, with an unfeigned abhorrence of all interference with God in his arbitrary work; and this man will suffer his