for all sin and all error. The spirit of self-excuse, which began with the first sin that defiled the earth, still continues to deceive its inhabitants. There is still the same shifting of the blame from the personal offender to some primary instigator, some remote agent, some proximate accessory. Things as well as persons, human events, or supposed superhuman agencies, are seized upon as the convenient scapegoats of human iniquity. One pleads the iron force of destiny or of necessity; another solaces himself with the pleasing thought that, at the worst, he is haplessly bound around with a chain or combination of circumstances which he cannot break; another, that he was misled by the counsels or example of human corrupters; and another, that he was tempted by the arch-deceiver; so that, were we to admit every plea that is offered in bar of judgment, in extenuation of self, we should find no original, independent, responsible transgressors in the world; and when the Judge should come to institute an inquiry, and to mete out retribution, there would be no subjects for punishment, but many objects of great compassion. 1. By such vain conceits and fallacious reasonings, however, "let no man deceive himself." In a restricted sense, subordinately to the watchings of his good providence, and the monitions of his good Spirit, God has made each of us his own keeper, and intrusted to his personal care the conservation of his own happi

ness. We are individual and independent agents, and each one shall bear his own responsibility, and be answerable for his own sin. "The father shall not bear the iniquity of the son, nor the son that of the father." The tempter shall not screen the tempted, nor shall the enticing leader bear the guilt of his deluded. follower. The attempts of others, indeed, to lead us astray will be charged to them as their sin, but the yielding to those attempts will be imputed to us as ours. No man can be com pletely deluded by others who does not first deceive himself. So that, after all the subtle reasonings of ingenious self-defence, "the deceit ful heart," acting upon itself, is at last in fault.

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We have pronounced this reaction of the heart upon itself to be unnatural; and assuredly it is so. We read (whether truly or fabulously, it matters little) of serpents, which, in the agony of a wounded body, or in the impotency of unavailing rage, turn their fangs upon themselves, and infuse their own venom into the life-blood of their own veins, to their speedy death. Man, instigated by the "Old Serpent," that "murderer from the beginning," occasionally lifts up his arm, not merely against a brother's life, but to shed the more sacred blood which courses through his own veins. Nature shudders at the act, and society, indignant and abhorrent at its perpetration, casts out the selfdishonoured corpse from all the decencies and charities of Christian sepulture-from all the

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sacred associations and sympathies connected with consecrated ground-from that city of the dead, which the calls and actings of God, and not the rashness of man, has peopled. Now we can view it in no other light than as a suicidal act, when the spirit, the heart, thus turns its venom upon itself, poisons the springs of its own purity and happiness, and, at last destroys its own spiritual life.

There are two great classes of these self-deceived, that is, of those whom the "deceitful heart" misleads. The one are abused unconsciously by this deceptive heart; the other are wittingly and willingly deceived-accessaries to the fraud that is practised upon themselves. The first are either ignorant of their danger, or heedless of its prevention. They are honest in intention, and apparently resolute in purpose. They neither design evil, nor suspect its possibility.. Even when warned of that possibility, their language is, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do these things?"

In regard to all the evidences and warnings of spiritual danger, they seem to be blind, and deaf, and "slow of heart to believe." In this spirit they go forth adventurously, if not presumptuously; and in the same spirit they fall grievously, causing the "enemy to blaspheme. The tempter of their souls comes to them in an hour that they think not of," in a place where they least expect him, in a guise which they could not suspect, and with honeyed words

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of persuasive eloquence, and alluring baits of enticement which they cannot resist. He seems to them to stand in the very Eden of God; he is "transformed (to their eye) into an angel of light," he seems to speak to them the language of heavenly wisdom, to counsel them for their good, to urge them to their happiness. The evil and deceitful heart within them is leagued with him for their delusion, whispering that his counsel is just, and that the way of enjoyment is made plain before them. What wonder, then, if, in an evil hour, they should stretch forth the hand, and "pluck and eat;" and if, coming too late to "the knowledge of evil" as well as "good," their eyes being opened to perceive that they are " 'poor, and helpless, and naked," they should cower amid some of the pitiful subterfuges of earth, as though the eye and the arm of Jehovah could not reach them there; and, called forth by his piercing interrogation, addressed to them through their conscience, "Where art thou?" "Why hast thou hid thyself?" "What hast thou done?" they should feel with bitterness, and plead in extenuation, sensible to themselves that the plea was vain-that the heart to which they trusted was deceitful above all things," and that they had become the victims of its guile!. Yet of these the sin is comparatively venial. They fall rather through infirmity and surprise than through deliberation; and when they come to themselves," when they awake from

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their delusion, "as one awaketh out of wine," feeling that they have been disgracefully overcome, yet scarcely knowing how they have been overcome, they are generally filled with shame and confusion; and humble themselves before God and man. They "repent and do their first works," and God, we may scripturally trust, will accept their repentance. Their personal and bitter experience of the deceitfulness of the heart will, we may hope, make them more stable in the way of righteousness. Having received the record of pardon, when they had deserved and expected the sentence of death, there is ground to believe that they will "go and sin no more."

There is, however, another class who are willingly and wittingly deluded by the deceitful heart; to whom the deception is pleasant, as it seems to enlarge the boundaries of indul gence. These cheerfully lend themselves to the work of self-infatuation. It costs them more of time and trouble, and searching of heart, to force themselves into the belief of a lie, and the practice of sin, than it would, to receive and weigh the varied evidences of the truth, and to learn the discipline of righteousness. "The deceitful heart," instead of being resisted and regulated, is nourished and cherished, and encouraged to repeat its flatteries and falsehoods. Now it is possible, after many doubts and misgivings, at last to settle down. into a delusion that is comparatively