mutably and forever true, Satan is immutably and forever false. False declarations, false names, false reasonings, false quotations of Scripture, false promises, and hopes of impunity in sin which he knows are refuges of lies, are his ordinary, if not his universal and uniform resort.

It is worthy of remark, that in his influence upon the minds of men, he is wont to assail the most demonstrable truths. Mr. Locke observes of a certain class of propositions, that "they are those clear truths, that either their own evidence forces us to admit, or common experience makes it impudence to deny." This shameless effrontery is the true character of the great Adversary. There is no truth more fully established than the indissoluble connection between sin and suffering. This is the great ordinance of the divine kingdom, and on this depend all its order and harmony. The laws of the physical creation are not more firmly established than this great law of the moral creation. It were just as rational to believe that heavy bodies do not fall, that light does not shine, that cold does not contract, that heat does not expand, and that fluids do not seek a common level, as that sin does not engender suffering.

Yet has the Deceiver set himself from the beginning to disprove and disallow this fundamental principle of the divine government. Scarcely had this great law been pronounced by the lips of un

erring truth, than he had the shameless effrontery to call it in question, and give it a bold and flat denial. Thou shalt "not surely die!" Wonderful discovery! and found only in the depths of those deceptions which are nourished in the bosom of the "crooked Serpent." His first, and with the exception of his menaces and terrors, his last resort, is to inject this delusion, either in unmingled, or diluted forms. His great strength lies in his powers of deception. With all his gigantic intellect, he would accomplish little without these artifices. This is his character; this is his nature; this is his work; the work for which he has the talent and the heart.

CHAPTER X.

The Extent of the Deceiver's Suares.

The

THAT We may perceive somewhat of the assiduity and success with which this arch-Deceiver has cultivated his powers, we propose in the present chapter to advert to the EXTENT OF HIS DECEPTIONS. Scriptures speak of "the depths of Satan," and of his amazing power. They represent him as a "roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour;"-as "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it ;" and as "deceiving the nations," and the "whole world."

His powers of locomotion are not known to us, nor are they to be comprehended by human organs. As a spirit, he is possessed of wonderful activity. Milton well represents him as an archangel ruined." The angel Gabriel flew from the supreme heavens to this world, a distance far beyond the starry firmament, during the time that the prophet Daniel was employed in uttering a short prayer. Nor is there any reason to believe that the activity

of infernal spirits is less than that of these celestial beings. He who "maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming fire," has given to these invisible ones of the world of darkness, powers of moving from place to place, which, while we have no means of ascertaining, are so great, that when combined with their subtle artifices, would render them still more fearful engines of evil, but for him who restrains the wrath of devils as well as men. Not only are the measures of this common foe planned with wonderful adroitness, but from his amazing activity, laid out upon a large scale. He is the great moral juggler of the universe. This earth is spread out before him like a vast chessboard, every part of which he has been studying for 6,000 years. There is not a square of it which his eye has not surveyed; not a king, nor bishop, nor knight, nor castle, nor pawn, nor the meanest figure that has a part in the great game of life, with the power and value of which he is not acquainted, and which he knows not how to make use of to the best advantage, both for the purposes of defence and attack. If there were but less proportion between his skill and the value of the stake for which he plays, his indefatigable assiduity would not excite so much alarm. The stake is infinite; the skill, blessed be God, falls short of that which is infinite; he is a creature, though probably the greatest of creatures. Yet though

a creature, it is no ordinary place that he occupies; no common powers that he possesses. It is no small game that he is seeking after. His aim is to blind and infatuate men by millions, and make his victims as the sand of the shore. He does not indeed overlook individual and isolated man; nor suppress his exultation when he circumvents the poorest and meanest of our race. But his eagle eye is fixed upon the nations, and for nothing does he utter a louder shout of triumph, than when he has them hoodwinked in his hands, degraded and enslaved.

Among the various ways in which he aims to do this, we will direct our attention, in the first place, to the extensive prevalence of those institutions and customs by which large portions of the human race are held under his dominion. If every age every age is distinguished by some peculiarity of moral character, it is for the most part a peculiarity in wickedness. Any one who has observed the amazing power which corrupt institutions and customs exert upon the character of the world, will not doubt that they constitute a part of that moral machinery by which this Deceiver retains the minds of men in inexorable bondage. Men and nations who would recoil from a sinful act, are cheated into upholding a sinful custom. Institutions and customs which, proposed for the first time, would strike the mind with horror, cease to be revolting when, by their