without honour. How are they numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the saints!"*

SERMON XIX.

ON THE SNARES OF THE DEVIL, AND MEANS OF ESCAPING THEM.

MATT. vi. 13.-But deliver us from evil.

ANY attempt to elucidate a passage in a prayer which every Christian uses privately in his closet, and which the wisdom of our church has directed to be used in every separate office, will justly claim your serious attention.

I mean not, however, to arrogate the merit of making a new discovery, when I inform you, that the words, deliver us from evil, have been commonly misunderstood. They have been supposed to convey a petition for a deliverance from evil in general, moral, and natural; and indeed, in this sense, the meaning is comprehensive, and such as must receive the sincere assent of every mortal.

But it is justly observed, that the original signifies a petition for deliverance from the power of the evil one, and ought to be translated-deliver us from THE EVIL ONE;-from Satan, the adversary of mankind, from whom all the sin and misery of man derive their origin.

In this age, in which many make pretensions both to wit and philosophy, without any just claim to common sense or common honesty, attempts have been made to ridicule or reason away the belief of an evil spirit; and there seems to be cause for surmising, that *Wisdom, v. 4.

they who believe not in the existence of Satan, are equally incredulous on the subject of all revealed religion. It is indeed certain, and beyond possibility of dispute, that the Holy Scriptures declare the reality of evil spirits and fallen angels, and of ONE, who is eminent among them, as their chief or tyrant. So that he who ventures to reject the belief of Satan, the adversary of God and man, must at the same time reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

They are, however, many who cannot induce themselves to avow a total disbelief of the Gospel, who yet would explain away the doctrine of devils as merely allegorical and figurative. They choose to be Christians; they are shocked at the idea of professing infidelity, yet they would fashion the Gospel according to their own ideas of propriety, and accept such doctrines only as quadrate with their own prepossessions.

Before I proceed any farther on the interesting subject which I have chosen for your present meditation, I will desire you to recollect those plain texts of Scripture, which no ingenuity of interpretation can so far distort, as to prevent them from declaring plainly, the actual existence and great power of the evil one.

You cannot require a repetition of the history of Adam's fall, and of the part which Satan acted in effecting it. You cannot require to be informed, that Christ was to bruise the head of the serpent; that is, the Devil and you must be credulous indeed, if you will believe that the Devil, so often mentioned in the New Testament, is only an allegorical personage.

It is the doctrine of the Scriptures, however it may be derided by minute philosophers, that the Devil and his angels, or evil spirits, have their present habitation in the circumambient air; from

which convenient situation they survey mankind, and take every opportunity of seducing, corrupting, and leading them to destruction. Satan himself is called by St. Paul, the prince of the power of the air. This situation constitutes their place of exile from heaven. This is the prison in which God hath reserved them unto the judgment of the great day. And the angels which kept not their first estate, saith St. Jude, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. For God spared not the angels, as we read in St. Peter, which sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; or, as it is interpreted by Joseph Mede, having adjudged the angels that sinned to hell torments, "he delivered them to be kept, or reserved, (in the airy region, as in a prison,) for chains of darkness at the day of judgment."

But to discover the local residence of these evil beings, is not of the greatest consequence to us. Our first object with respect to them is, to be convinced of their real existence, and the greatness of their power. I could produce many other passages, which tend to prove, that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places; but you need only open the books of the Gospel to find them yourselves.

The grand adversary is called, "the god of this world, the prince of this world, and the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."*

I proceed to the practical consideration of my * Ephesians, ii. 2.

subject, from which I hope you will receive some imperfect hints, which may assist you in escaping the snares which the great adversary is continually placing in the path through which we are compelled to travel in the pilgrimage of life.

I pretend not to account for the mode in which the evil being acts on the human mind. I am no less ignorant of this, than the most ignorant of my hearers. It is one of those secret things which belong unto the Lord, and the knowledge of which is not allowed to man; because it would evidently serve no valuable end, and merely contribute to gratify a vain curiosity. But that evil beings are able to influence the mind, is evident; not only from Scripture, but from actual experience of that which passes in our own minds, and in the conduct of mankind in the transactions of life.

Who is there that has not frequently and habitually acted in contradiction both to his conscience and his reason? And to what will he ascribe his deviation from a rule which himself acknowledges to be a right one, and to deserve his observation? To his passions, perhaps; and it is indeed true that his passions will occasion sudden sallies, and temporary misbehaviour; the result of surprise and violent emotion. But they will not cause a long, a cool, a deliberate course of wickedness, in opposition to better knowledge. To account for such wickedness, we must have recourse to the influence which the Devil is allowed to exercise over those who neglect the proper means of resisting and subduing his dominion. I see and approve better things, says the wretched slave of Satan, but I follow worse. Why; but because he is dragged in chains by the enemy and tyrant, who has led him captive, deserted as he was by the shield of faith, and the armour of grace?

There sometimes appear among men, such abandoned creatures, as seem to delight in evil for its own sake, and to whom iniquity and all uncleanness are joys congenial with their nature, independently of any worldly profit, or carnal pleasure, which they may hope to derive from it. They wallow like the unclean animal, which has been so often an emblem of moral impurity, in all filthiness, which to them is grateful as the rose to the smell, or the rainbow to the eye.

To what is such depravity to be attributed? To early neglect, to bad company, to evil communication, which has opened the heart for the reception of the evil one in the tender years of infancy, when whatever takes possession is not easily displaced. The heart appears to be entirely possessed by the Devil, under his absolute disposal, so as to be hurried on with blind precipitation to all that is detestable and ruinous. These are they who are so frequently brought to the human tribunal; murderers, robbers, not from passion or sudden temptation, but delighting in blood, and glorying in successful deceit. These are they who are guilty of crimes not to be named; these are they who delight in diffusing mischief among their fellow-creatures, in corrupting and seducing all who are within their sphere of influence, and who not only refuse to pay to God the adoration due to him, but set omnipotence at defiance, and deride the power that can annihilate them with a nod, or, which is infinitely worse, doom them to eternal condemnation.

We stand aghast when we hear of such enormous wickedness, and thank Heaven that we are free from it. But let us not trust in ourselves with presumptuous confidence. There is not a crime of which human nature is capable, into which we, as partakers