children to grow up in ignorance and crime; violating express commands, which bade him "train up a child in the way in which he should go," and "bring up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," from a mere speculative idea, that it is impious to work before God works, or with him when he does work. These children will become, perhaps, the very "children of Belial," while upon himself will rest the guilt and the curse of poor old Eli; and when that curse lies heavy on him, amidst the crushings of his hopes, and the blight of his prospects, and the ruin of his house; instead of repenting him of his parental neglect, he will perhaps comfort himself with the thought that he has left all to God, and try to reason himself into a forced and stoical acquiescence with what he deems the decree of God against their salvation, when he ought to be weeping over his own connivance at their undoing, and thinking how far " their blood may be required at his hands!"

Here certainly it is the mental error which deceives the heart-and the deceived heart which furnishes the mistaken principle of action—and the mistaken principle of action which leads to condemning results. We might, in a similar manner, trace the course of many other common mistakes in religion, but they all tend to the samé point, and convey one and the same caution. In them all we are only struck with the danger and

the mischief of having "the heart deceived," by the specious but false reasonings of the head: of having it do wrong, with all the good intention, and zeal, and engagedness of supposed doing right.

And in this kind of self-deception there is something very hopeless. When men sin from the love of it, there is hope that their transgressions may stare them in the face-that the bitterness of the fruits of iniquity may cause them to "eschew evil and do good." But not so in this case. The conscience which should guide them is itself deceived. "The light that is in them is darkness, and how great is that darkness!" They sin conscientiously-sin on principle. The offence is religiously committed; and it is a part of their religion to retain and to glory in it. In all such cases, if there be change, it must come from without and not from within. The soul would resist the first breathings of doubt, the first incipient desires for a change, as treason against its principles, as a sin against its light. So that, unless some providential circumstances should compel their attention to the evidence of truth, or unless God should specially enlighten and move them by his good Spirit, the honest votaries of error seem doomed to have its chains riveted for ever. And this will account satisfactorily for the perpetuity of many of those delusions which seem so gross, that we naturally wonder that they have not fallen

by their own weight--so unsound through all their parts, that their adhesion during so long a period is a very mystery. It is piety, mistaken piety, that has thrown around them an imaginary sacredness-guarded them with jealous vigilance-propped up their weakness with the pillars of her own strength, and kept them together by her powerful

cement.

If such be the crippling power of error, if it thus maims the whole intellectual and spiritual man, incapacitating him for efficient and profitable action, how devotedly should we all cling to "the truth as it is in Jesus," and implore and follow the guidance of that good Spirit, who alone can 86 guide us into all truth." Suffer not, O Lord,

a deceived heart to turn us aside" from the path of thy commandments, but keep us by thy word and Holy Spirit, "that we may have a right judgment in all things, and evermore rejoice in his holy comfort, through thy Son, our Lord."

But again; the heart may be deceived by the corruption of the life.

This, if not so hopeless of cure as that already noticed, is certainly more guilty. We may hope that God would "show mercy" to those who "sinned ignorantly and in unbelief," who cherished the wrong, believing it to be the right; but no extenuation suggests itself to the most benevolent heart for that delusion which originates in a confirmed love of iniquity. Let the debasing

effect of habitual sin once have triumphed over the original convictions of rectitude, so that what was once acknowledged to be sinful is deemed innocent, and, unless there be some sudden and powerful stroke to break the spell, some startling providence, or some unusual appeal of the grace of God, the grossness of perception, and the deadness to feeling, will increase with every year's continuance in sin. I tremble for that man whose arguments are his lusts; who has held "the lie in his right hand" until he would sooner lose that right hand than relinquish it; whose heart is deceived; because he dreads to have it undeceived. "There is more hope of a fool than of him." He is sunk in the imbecile helplessness of a paralyzed spirit, and he wants not merely the energy to seek, but the heart to desire, renovation. Let all, then, guard with peculiar care against that worst of delusions, which is reflected back to the mind from an evil heart, or to the heart from an evil life. It is hard indeed to dissipate the mystic influence of superstition, and to convince him who worships an idol, believing it to be God, that it is only wood or stone. But he who cares not what it is, and worships it only because he delights to sit at its impure feasts, and to mingle in its licentious rites, will probably worship it to the end, and resolve that it shall be his god, because it is the pander to his evil appetites, and the patron of his unhallowed indulgences!

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CHAPTER IV.

THE GENERAL DEPRAVITY OF THE HUMAN HEART.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."

"How shall he be clean that is born of a woman?" "Whence hath this man all these things?"

"Behold! I was shapen in iniquity."

"Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul teries," &c. &c.

THE native corruption of the human heart is not a matter of mere opinion, but of fact: to be decided by the evidence of facts. Its theoretical discussion, as a mere speculative tenet, has served "to darken counsel," while it needlessly multiplied words. The direct appeal to experience and to facts relieves the subject from much of its seeming perplexity, and brings it within narrow and well-defined limits.

That corruption does exist, that moral evil is in the world, is not denied. Few, if any, would contend for absolute human impeccability. Should any carry their views to that extent, the test of our Lord, "Let him that is without sin among