believe the devil, operating on the natural passions of men, has deceived many: he can shew a shining robe as well as a cloven foot. Some, whose convictions are real and deep, he will engage with dreadful assaults, and follow hard with fiery darts. He can also turn himself into an angel of light, and act on the other side of the question. In this dress he operates on the fleshly passions of many, and fills them with pity for all who bear his image, but arms them with malice against God, and against those who shine the brightest in Christ Jesus. This unscriptural love appeared in Jezebel the queen: she fed four hundred prophets of Satan at her own table; but would not suffer a sound prophet of God to live upon earth. When the judgments of God fell on her favourites for witchcraft, her tender passions flowed so rapidly for those miserable wretches, that she would expose her soul to all the vengeance of Heaven in avenging their blood: "Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, so let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time," 1 Kings xix. 2, 4.

However, she was mistaken; she could not make the life of Elijah like one of them, because he was a chosen vessel; nor could his own prayer, put up in a pet, alter God's irrevocable decree. Nay, though he requested to die, confessing that he was no better by nature than his fathers, yet his prayer was not answered, because he asked amiss. He neither dies according to Jezebel's threatening, nor

in answer to his own prayer, but goes to heaven a new way, according to God's pre-appointment. As these bowels of charity sounded so much in Jezebel for the basest of mortals, we have great reason to believe that they were stirred in her tender bosom by that spirit with whom she was so familiar. It appears to me that both her title and her possessions, together with all her religion, came from Satan; and, by the portrait the Holy Ghost has drawn of her, she was the mistress of witchcraft, the nurse of wizards, a murderer of saints, an enemy to Christ, a banquet for dogs, and a portion for devils.

This universal charity, tinctured with rebellion against God, has often, under the temptations of Satan, wonderfully appeared in many eminent saints of God. Various are the suggestions of Satan to such as fear the Lord, and generally suited to the person's state of mind and disposition: but all operations that beget hard thoughts of Christ, rebellion against him, or lessen in the least our esteem of him, are sure to come from the devil and ourselves: "There is no wisdom, nor understanding, nor counsel, against the Lord," in his word, Prov. xxi. 30. When this snare has been laid in the council of Satan, in order to get God's servants to harden their faces against him, God has generally, in a reproving way, broken it, and delivered his poor saints out of it. But it appears one of Satan's strong holds to many; and I fear that many live and die in it. That soul shall never be said to be

circumcised to love God with all his heart, whose tenderness is discovered in behalf of the wicked, and hardened against God and his elect.

1

Samuel himself, a man begged of God by his pious mother, and devoted to him from the cradle; a prophet, whose word never fell to the ground, and one of the brightest characters in the whole Bible, seems for a while entangled in this net of Satan. Samuel found that Saul, who became a proverb for appearing among the prophets, whom he had anointed, at the command of God, with oil out of a vial, to shew the brittleness of his kingdom, and his slippery foothold; to whom God gave another heart for government and war, 1 Sam. x. 9; but not a new heart, as a saint receives; and knowing he was turned into another man, 1 Sam. x. 6; but not a new creature in Christ, 2 Cor. v. 17; the thoughts of God's rejecting Saul from being king so moved the bowels of natural compassion in Samuel, that he sits up all night weeping for Saul, till the reproofs of Heaven stop the torrent of his tears. "Samuel, how long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?" 1 Sam. xvi. 1. "" I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath," Hosea xiii. 11. If these affections for Saul had flowed from a divine influence, surely God would not have rebuked them.

David himself seems at one time to be entangled in this snare, and discovers it in a strange petition. He orders Israel to be numbered; and God com

manded that each soul who was numbered should pay half a shekel for his head, Exod. iii. 13; as an offering to God, who had raised them from one as good as dead, to be as the stars of heaven for multitude, and as the sand by the sea-shore innumerable, Heb. xi. 12. This appears to be done as an offering, to acknowledge the faithfulness of God. to his promise, in multiplying Abraham's offspring; seventy thousand appear idolaters; or, in other words, they loved their money more than their God: they pass the poll, but could not afford their half shekel. Justice draws her sword, and cuts off the seventy thousand at one stroke. At the sight of this, universal charity is stirred up in the heart of David, dictates a desperate petition, and asks an irreverent question: Let thy sword be on me, and on my father's house; but, as for these sheep, what had they done? 2 Sam. xxiv. 17. However, when David got a little more into his right mind, he seems to drop his affections for idolatry, and lets them centre in their proper object: "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?-I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Paul himself, our great and blessed apostle, seems to be caught in this web; but he soon finds the snare broken, and he is delivered. "I could [says he] wish that myself were accursed from Christ; for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh."

And this was fleshly affection with a witness, blown up to an amazing height; even to wish himself accursed from Christ for their sake. Howbeit, God sent him a few stripes, bonds, and imprisonments, from his fleshly brethren, in order to wean him, and then he appears with a becoming zeal for his God: "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema maranatha," 1 Cor. xvi. 22.

It appears to me that Moses was for a time taken in this snare, while encamped in the wilderness. Israel had made a calf, danced round it, and worshipped it; and they must all be pardoned to a man, in answer to a petition put up by Universal Charity. "And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt, forgive their sin; and, if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." But the success of this prayer shews that the Holy Ghost did not dictate it; this evidently appears by the answer: "And the Lord said unto Moses, whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold mine angel shall go before thee: nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them. And the Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf," Exod. xxxii. 31-35. I believe that petition in the Common Prayer Book came from the same quarter, "That it may please