spirit, and dignity of mind. Vain pomp, luxury, and extravagance, are styled taste, elegance, and refinement. Sordid avarice, and love of money, calls itself prudence, frugality, and good management. Levity, folly, and even obscenity, is often called innocent liberty, chearfulness, and good humour. So great is the deceit, and so secure does the fin ly un. der its disguise, that a minister may preach with the utmost severity against these several vices, and the guilty perfons hear with patience or approbation, and never once think of applying it to themselves.

This deceit discovers itself also by its counterpart. How common is it to stigmatize and disparage true piety and goodness by the most opprobrious titles. Tenderness of conscience, is, by many, reproached under the character of preciseness and narrowness of mind. Zeal against sin, and fidelity to the fouls of others, is called fourness, moroseness, and ill-nature.. There was never yet a faithful reprover, from Lot in Sodom to the present day, but he fuffered under the reproach and flander of those who would not be reclaimed. I might easily run over many more inftances in both these kinds; for, to say the truth, the whole ftrain of fashionable conversation is often nothing else but an illufion put upon the mind, that it may lose its horror of vice; and it is greatly to be lamented, that this is done with fo much success. In many cafes, young persons especially, are inspired with a hatred and aversion at true and undefiled religion, and that under the most plausible pretences. Many, my brethren, there are who are far from thinking it themselves, and yet fall under the denun

ciation of the Prophet Ifaiah, v. 20, -24. 'Wo < unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that * put bitter for fweet, and sweet for bitter. Wo un⚫ to them that are wife in their own eyes, and prudent in their own fight. Wo unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to * mingle strong drink: which justify the wicked for ' reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him. Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame confumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their • blossom shall go up as dust; because they have caft • away the law of the Lord of Hosts, and despised • the word of the holy One of Ifrael.

(3.) But the highest degree of this branch of the deceitfulness of fin, is, when it not only puts on a decent and lawful appearance, but assumes the garb of eminent piety and worth. There is nothing impossible in this. As Satan sometimes transforms himfelf into an angel of light, so some of the greatest fins will take the name, and arrogate the honour, of the most distinguished virtues. I do not here mean the cafe of grofs hypocrify; that is foreign from the present subject. Hypocrites know their own infincerity well enough, and only put on an appearance of piety, to deceive others. But even when there is no known or deliberate hypocrify, fin may infinuate itself under the appearance of the most important duties. Men may indulge the most hateful passions with the greater liberty, when they think they are doing what is acceptable to God.

The cross of our blessed Master is full fraught with instruction of every kind. It gives us, particularly, a striking example of what I have now said. His enemies, who perfecuted him with unrelenting malice through his life, and at last prevailed to have him hanged on a tree, did it, (some, no doubt, from a pretended, but) many of them, from a misguided zeal for religion. He was crucified as a deceiver, and a blafphemer; and that in this they were mifled, appears from the language of his prayer for them on the crofs, Father, forgive them; for they know * not what they do.' What a conviction should this give us of the deceitfulness of fin; that the greatest fin that ever was committed on earth, was yet confidered, by the guilty, as a duty!

Let us alfo confider our Saviour's remarkable prediction on the same subject, and how often it hath been fulfilled: John xvi. 2. 'They shall put you • out of the synagogues; yea, the time cometh, that • whofoever killeth you, will think that he doth God • service.' My brethren, think a little on the many dreadful perfecutions which good men have endured for confcience fake; the terrible tortures they have been exposed to, in which the utmost invention of the human mind has been employed to aggravate their distress. Think, in particular, of the horrible tribunal of Inquisition, which is, to this day, in full authority in countries not very distant; and does it not inspire you with the highest detestation of the bloody tyrants? But there is another reflexion not fo frequently made, yet at least equally proper. How great is the deceitfulness of fin in the human heart,

that can make men suppose that such atrocious crimes are acceptable to God? Yet they certainly do so, Neither would it be possible for them, so entirely, to divest themselves of every sentiment of humanity, if they were not inflamed by the rage of bigotry and false zeal. Let not any imagine, that these are dreadful crimes, but which they are not in the least danger of. We ought to maintain the greatest watchfulness and jealousy over our own spirits. It may very easily, and does very frequently happen, that an apparent zeal for religion is more than half composed of pride, malice, envy, or revenge.

Nor is this all. In the above cafes, by the treachery of the human heart, fins are changed into duties, and, in many others, every day, duties are changed into fins, by the perverfion of the principle from which they ought to flow. Many a fober, temperate person oweth his regularity more to a luft of gold, than to any sense of duty, and obedience to God. The defire of praise, or the fear of reproach, is many times a restraint more powerful than the apprehenfion of eternal judgment. Men may put ore duty also in the place of another, and by that mean's convert it into fin. Nay, with regard to all our duties, we may be tempted to place that trust and dependence on them which is only due to our Redeenier's perfect righteousness; and, instead of acts of obedience, make them idols of jealousy before God.

How great then the deceitfulness of fin, which is capable of putting on fo many and so artful disguises, and even to counterfeit true piety, which stands in the most immediate and direct opposition to it!

There are more ways than I can possibly enumerate, by which men deceive themselves, and become obstinate and incorrigible in what is evil, by mistaking it for what is good. Justly does the Apostle, in this passage, warn Christians against being hardened; for if sin can hardly be restrained, even by the most constant vigilance, and the most steady resistance, what progress will it not make, what strength must it not acquire, when it is approved and cherished, nay, when it is profecuted with all that care and attention which ought to have been employed for its utter destruction?

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2. In the second place, The deceitfulness of fin, appears from its forming excuses for itself, and thereby extenuating its guilt. That it is natural for finners to form excuses for themselves, and endeavour to extenuate their guilt, daily experience is a fufficient proof. Nay, it is ufual to observe, how able, and ingenious, perfons, otherwife of no great capacity, are in this art; even children difcover the greateft quickness and facility in it, and are no fooner challenged for any thing that is amiss, than they are ready to produce an apology. The disposition, indeed, feems to be hereditary, and to have been handed down to us from the first parents of the human On their being challenged for their difobedience, each of them confeffes the fact, but immediately adds an excufe, Gen. iii. 11, 12, 13. Haft ⚫ thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, * that thou shouldest not eat? And the man faid, • the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord