matism? "They take up all of them with the angle ;" and when their prey is secured, they fling it from them with a smile of bitter mockery.

The reviler of God's temple and of his word casts his angle into the busy stream of society, and allows the tempting bait to float among the unheedful and unsuspecting, who bask in slumbering security upon the shoals of time, as if this life were a period of mere quietism, and there was nothing to be looked for beyond it but that appalling blank which can only be the last desperate refuge of a spiritual despair. These are but too easily caught and "seduced from that simplicity which is in Christ." They are pleased with those plausible subtleties, the dangerous logic of which is nothing but the evanescent blossoming of this world's wisdom, and whilst the fragrance "comes into their nostrils," as a fresh perfume from spicy shores, and the flower looks full and tempting, they promise themselves the rich harvest of fruit which never comes;the blossom withers, the illusion vanishes as the visionary palaces of the desert, and all becomes

vanity and vexation of spirit." He who "follows a multitude to do evil" will, like the first murderer, roam through the world with a brand upon his brow, invisible indeed to the dull eye of unbelief, but perceptible to those who are "after God's own heart," and shunned by them as the

wretch upon whom the plague-spot has written, with frightful distinctness, the dark characters of death. He who is seduced by such as would fain aim at disseminating a new philosophy, and arrogantly cry "tush, God will not regard it," quits the "fat pastures" of righteousness for an atmosphere of moral contagion, in which he is momentarily imbibing the seeds of spiritual excision. The profligate triumph over their victim; the godly mourn for him; for, like Babylon of old, "his judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies."

It is in truth sad to observe with how ready an acquiescence many listen to the voice of the Tempter from the mouth of his agents, who in fact promulgate his behests, while they fancy they are securing the accomplishment of their own. Have we not examples recorded by an inspired hand of the awful effects of listening to the voice of those who would persuade us to quit the path of acknowledged duty for a mazy way which, though spangled with objects that attract the eye and entrap the senses, terminates only in darkness and desolation? What was the result of Korah's conspiracy, and the end of those who followed this refractory Levite? "The earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods; they and all that appertained to them went down alive into

the pit, and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation." A certain punishment will, either here or hereafter, overtake those who desert the service of the living God," who giveth to all men liberally," for that of impotent and sinful men. What shall we think of the unhappy delinquent who casts off his allegiance to an omnipotent and eternal God, and clings to the transitory creature of a few brief years, who, like himself, has dared to provoke the penalty of expulsion from heaven, for the assurances of a sickly and forlorn hope, which are to light him on his way to a vague-to a doubtful hereafter! What shall be the feelings of the seducer and the seduced, who must all meet at the last solemn inquest, when the dead shall be quickened and be summoned with the quick to judgment! That lies hidden in the dark womb of the future, but it is nevertheless a subject deeply interesting to those who aim at disseminating doctrines at variance with moral and religious truth.

What energy do these sinners frequently exercise in their vocation of spiritual seduction? They beguile the light-hearted and the weak; "they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag." The metaphor is a strong one, but admirably characterizes the operations of those crafty spoilers who, while they are stirring the mire at the bed of the stream, take care

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not to disturb the current which runs smooth and tranquil above. They generally labour in deep but troubled waters, where the bottom is hidden by the feculence and rapidity of the torrent. They drag, that is, they do all in their power,—they concentrate the whole of their mischievous energies, to accomplish what they are bent upon; and as they have "an evil heart of unbelief," they do much serious injury.

If the righteous exercised the same earnest zeal in doing the will of God which the unrighteous do to perform the will of Satan, how different would be the spiritual condition of man! But what languor, what coldness, nay, what indifference in godliness: what activity, what heat, what energy in wickedness! Can we wonder then that the latter so greatly prevails? Do we not hear urged every where around us, with all the energy of a most earnest persuasion, arguments which have a tendency to subvert our confidence in that God "without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy," "to make shipwreck" of our hopes, and thus to wrap us, with all our affections fresh and warm within us, in the frozen zone of despair? How large a multitude of men do we meet, professing christianity, who still deny much, nay most, of what it teaches, and affect to look upon religion as a mere bubble blown by the weak and timid for death to burst! The principles inculcated by such teachers are

as pernicious as they are deluding. While they ostensibly uphold morality, they stigmatize religion, thus involving the one in the wreck of the other. Virtue cannot live where religion is dead. The former cannot fructify where the latter is barren. Where virtue survives religion cannot be extinct, and though it may not appear to exist, its seeds are nevertheless in the heart, and only require to have the soil stirred around them to bring them into vigorous fecundity.

An irreligious moralist is a paradox repugnant at once to reason and to truth. Where a man affects morality in the absence of all religion "he turns the truth of God into a lie," for a profanation of God's law and a denial of his word are the worst of immoralities. Such persons stand in a position of direct and acknowledged iniquity, "professing themselves to be wise, they become fools," "being vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts are darkened." Still so plausible are their pretensions, garbed as they are in the specious robe of an empirical virtue, that they delude many who approach them with beguiled confidence, taking shelter under the security of their assumed moral integrity. Thus it is that these upholders of the delusive doctrine of abstract good in man, deceive the unwary by "making a fair show in the flesh :" thus "they gather them in their drag; therefore they rejoice and are glad.”