the conduct of Christians during their present disciplinary and preparatory state. The fact is distinctly asserted, that the "devil, their adversary, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. This assertion is made, that they may be induced to resist him; and, that in order to their successfully resisting him, they may be sober, and watchful, and steadfast in the faith; and they are enburaged, under the sufferings in which the attempts of their powerful, and crafty, and cruel, and active adversary may involve them, by the consideration, that such sufferings have been the common lot of the faithful in all ages, that they have been enabled to endure them, and in due season have been delivered from them, and by the promise of a divine support under, and a glorious triumph over, them. To these interesting topics, then, it is my intention to turn your minds, in the remaining part of the discourse. The Christian's adversary; the Christian's duty in reference to this adversary; and the Christian's encouragement while engaged in performing this duty.

I-THE CHRISTIAN'S GREAT ENEMY.

Let us first, then, consider the statement made respecting the Christian's adversary. "Your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." There are two questions which here require attention. Who is this adversary? and what is here stated in reference to him?

CHAP. I.—WHO IS HE? THE DEVIL.

To the first question, who is this adversary? the answer is, he is "the devil." The word translated devil, properly signifies accuser, slanderer, calumniator, and is given to the chief of evil spirits as an appropriate designation. The same being is termed "satan," a word of similar meaning with devil, signifying enemy or accuser; "the wicked one," to mark his depravity generally, and especially his malignity; "belial," a term signifying low, abject, describing both his character and situation; "the tempter;" "the god and the prince of this world;""the chief of the demons;" "beelzebub," the lord of the flies, "the prince of the power of the air;" "apollyon," the destroyer; "he that hath the power of death;" "the great dragon;" and "the old serpent." 1

With regard to this very remarkable being, our information, all of course derived from revelation, though very limited, is abundantly distinct. He is a being of the angelic order, formed, as all intelligent beings were, and must have been, in a state of moral integrity, who, at a period anterior to the fall of man, in consequence of violating the Divine law, in a manner of which we are not informed, was, along with a large number of other spirits, who, it would appear, in consequence of being seduced by him, were partakers of his guilt, cast out

1 Chron. xxi. 1. Job i. 6. 2 Cor. iv. 4. John xii. 31. Rev. xii. 3, 9.

Eph. vi. 16. 2 Cor. vi. 15.
Matt. xii. 24. Eph. ii. 2.

Matt. iv. 5. 1 Thess. ii. 5.
Rev. ix. 11. Heb. ii. 14.

of heaven, his "original abode," placed in a state of degradation and punishment, and reserved to deeper shame and fiercer pains "at the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." Through his malignity and falsehood, man, who was innocent, became guilty; man, who was holy, became depraved; man, who was happy, became miserable; man, who was immortal, became liable to death.

Over the minds of the human race, while they continue irregeneate, he exercises a very powerful, though not physically irresistible influence, “working in the children of disobedience, and leading them captive at his wil;" and even over their bodies, he has in many instances exercised a malignant power. He exerts himself, by his numerous agents, infernal and human, in counteracting the Divine benignant plan for the salvation of men. Error, sin, and misery, in all their forms, are, ultimately, his work; his animating principle is hatred of God, and his leading object the maintenance and extension of the power of evil.

During that period of holy light and happiness, the millennium, to which the church and the world have so long looked forward with eager desire, his power and opportunities to do evil will be greatly diminished, if not entirely taken away. In the period immediately preceding the general judgment, he will again manifest his unchanged hostility to the benignant designs of God respecting man; and when the mystery of God is finished, will, along with those angels and men who have chosen him for their leader in preference to God, be cut off forever from all intercourse with the unfallen and restored part of the intelligent creation, and "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power.'

CHAP. II.-WHAT IS HE?

§ 2. He is an adversary-their adversary.

Let us now inquire, in the second place, what is said of this extraordinary being in the passage before us. He is the Christian's adversary; "your adversary the devil." He is "the adversary;" the friend of none, the enemy of all. Enmity, malignity, is the very element of his moral being. He hates God, and men, and holy angels; and the only tie apparently existing between him and his subordinate agents, is a common enmity against God, and all that is God's. He is the adversary of all men. He has deeply injured the race; and he does not pity, but hate, those whom he has injured. Murderer, manslayer, is his name from the beginning.1

But he is peculiarly the adversary of that portion of mankind, who have been led by the good Spirit to revolt from his usurped dominion, to place themselves under the guidance of the Captain of the Lord's host, and to become fellow-workers under him in the accomplishment of his great enterprise, which is "to destroy the works of the devil." Both as individuals and as a body, true Christians are the objects of the peculiar enmity of the evil one. This is the truth which is taught us in the Apocalypse, when we are told, that "the

1 John viii, 44. Ανθρωποκτόνος.

dragon persecuted the woman who was clothed with the sun, and had the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; being wroth with her, and making war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ." "They were," as Archbishop Leighton says, "once under his power; and now, being escaped from him, he pursues them, as Pharaoh with all his forces, as a prey that was once in his den, and under his paw; and now that it is rescued, he rages and roars after it." His object is the destruction of the christian cause; the cause of truth and holiness, of God's glory and man's happiness; and therefore he cannot but be the adversary of those who seek to promote that cause. He exerts himself, by craft or violence, to induce them to abandon that cause, by doing which their sharing his destruction would be secured; or, if he cannot succeed in this object, he endeavors to make as miserable as he can in this world, those whom he knows he will have no opportunity of tormenting in the next.

Of the manner in which their adversary manifests his enmity to them, we have a very picturesque account in these words, "As a roaring lion, he walketh about seeking whom he may devour." Under the influence of inflamed malignity, which will not let him rest, compared to the lion's appetite for blood, sharpened by hunger, he, in the exercise of his power and craft, both of which are indicated by the figure, the lion being at once strong and wily, is constantly endeavoring to do them mischief. It is highly probable that the apostle had immediately in his eye the attempts which the wicked one was then making, by means of his agents, both infernal and human, to produce those fearful persecutions on the part of the Roman pagan empire, by which the faith and patience of the saints were so severely tried, by which multitudes were induced to make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience; turning back to perdition, becoming his prey, body and soul, forever. And multitudes more, who were faithful to the death, and obtained a crown of life, were, "by the devil, cast into prison, and suffered tribulation:" "they had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings: they were stoned, they were slain by the sword; they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and in caves of the earth." While I have little doubt that this is the immediate reference of the words, they bring before the mind certain general truths respecting our great spiritual enemy, of which it is of great importance that Christians, in all countries and ages, should be habitually mindful. They lead us to think of him as subtle, active, cruel, and powerful.

§ 2. He is a subtle adversary.

This passage leads us to think of our great adversary as subtle. The lion, like all other beasts of prey, is endowed with a high degree of sagacity, to enable it to discover and surprise its prey. When David would convey to our minds an idea of the cunning of his enemies, he compares them to the lion. "He sitteth in the lurkingplaces of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the inno

cent.: his eyes are privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones." The figure naturally thus suggests the idea of subtlety. This is one of the leading thoughts, too, suggested, when the devil is represented as the old serpent: for "the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."

Subtlety is one of the most striking characters of our great spiritual enemy. He originally belonged to that order of beings whose wisdom is proverbial-"wise as an angel of God;" and, when he lost. his moral purity, we have no reason to think he lost his intellectual energy. It took a new direction, but with unabated force. From the change of its object, it ceased indeed to deserve the name of wisdom. The appropriate appellation henceforward was craft or subtlety. We have a melancholy proof of his cunning, in the method he followed in his successful attempt to deceive the mother of mankind. With what consummate address does he whet her curiosity, quiet her fears, and flatter her vanity, till he has accomplished his great purpose, the ruin of our race! Ever since he obtained that victory over our first parents, he has been engaged in tempting their children; and the experience of nearly six thousand years, added to his natural cunning, must have rendered him expert indeed in the art of deceiving, that he may destroy. Accordingly, we find the apostle terming those suggestions, by which he endeavors to lead men astray from God, "the wiles, the devices of the devil."2

3

He has no power indeed of obtaining directly a knowledge of the human heart. That is the peculiar prerogative of Him who made it. "I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins." But he carefully observes our conduct, and shrewdly draws conclusions respecting our prevailing dispositions. His temptations are regulated by the information he thus obtains. He suits the snare to the habits of the bird he means to entrap. He draws the voluptuary into the way of iniquity by the lure of pleasure, the avaricious by the promise of gain, the ambitious by the prospect of glory. He goes round about his victims, that he may espy where is the quarter in which they are weakest, or least afraid of attack, that he may assault them there. He takes advantage of everything in their temper, age, and condition, to give effect to his suggestions.

He keeps himself as much as possible out of view, and manages his approaches so as, that when danger is at length apprehended, there is scarce a possibility of escape. He even occasionally transforms himself into an angel of light, and employs as his instruments, often while they themselves are unaware of it, the very persons from whom we would have been the last to suspect any hazard.

Sometimes he gets possession of the citadel of the heart as it were by storm, without allowing opportunity or time for repelling the assault. At other times he proceeds by sap and mine; and, without alarm to the conscience, effects his nefarious purpose. But it were endless to enumerate all the subtle devices by which Satan endeavors 2 Rev. xii. 9. Gen. iii. 1. Eph. vi. 11.

1 Psal. x. 8-10.

3 Jer. xvii. 10.

to disturb the peace and retard the progress of the saint; to prevent the repentance, and to secure the destruction of the sinner. Enough has been said to show, that the figure chosen by the sacred writer is in this respect a significant one; and that the lion, in his arts for securing his prey, is a truly, but an imperfectly, descriptive emblem of "him who beguileth Eve through his subtlety", and has deluded, and is deluding, so many millions of her sons into those ways of error and sin which lead down to the chambers of eternal death.

§ 3. He is an active adversary.

But our great sipritual enemy is not only subtle, he is also active. The lion ranges far and near in quest of his prey. The lion of hell is here represented as walking about, seeking whom he may devour. "Whence comest thou?" said Jehovah to Satan, when he, as the accuser of the brethren, appeared in the midst of the sons of God. "Whence comest thou?" The answer was, "From going to and fro through the earth, and from walking up and down in it." The malignant exertions of the wicked one seem to be unintermitted. Langour and fatigue appear to be feelings to which he is a stranger. In the book of Revelation, he is represented as "accusing the brethren before God, day and night." 2 He is probably the more assiduous in his labors of malignity, as he knows that the period for his active exertions is limited. We cannot doubt that he is aware of the doom that awaits him; that, after a fixed term of ages, he is to be cast into the lake of fire, in the abyss of woe, and kept there under chains, which no created power can, which the uncreated power will not, unloose for ever. He has nothing approaching to satisfaction but in propagating sin and misery; and he knows that this is to come to a close. The devil is come down among men, having great wrath, knowing that his time is short," or limited.

In realizing to our minds the activity of our great spiritual foe, we are not to think of him merely as an individual. No doubt he is a very active being; but this is not all. He is the chief and prince of unnumbered depraved spirits, who own his authority, prosecute his designs, and obey his commands. Their name is legion; for there are many of them. This gives him a species of ubiquity, and enables him to do what no individual created power and activity could accomplish.

His operations are often really continued when they seem to be intermitted. The mode of conducting them is changed, but the work is not abandoned; and, if he does suspend them for a season, it is but that he may recommence them with a greater probability of success. This remark holds both with respect to those who are yet his willing slaves, and to those who have escaped from under his thrall. When the unclean spirit goeth out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, but finding none. Then he saith, I will return again to my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he finds this empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself,

1 Job i. 7.

2 Rev. xii. 10.