: in rejecting these charges of hypocrisy, we should be refusing to listen to the voice of the Spirit. And this apprehension is increased by the artfulness of Satan, who, when he assumes the garb of an angel of light, and accuses us of insincerity, adopts the very language of Scripture (for which he knows we have a profound reverence), and veils under it his perfidious attacks : so that we begin to say within ourselves, “ Is not this the voice of God which speaks to me, and applies to me such and such passages of his word ?” We may further add, in confirmation of this, that in speaking of Egypt as a deceitful support, which, instead of profiting those that trust in it, only turns to their confusion, Satan says many strong things, and uses almost the very terms which the Almighty himself employs. When threatening Egypt by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord says, “ When they took hold of thee by the hand, thou didst break and rend all their shoulder; and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest and madest all their loins to be at a stand.” xxix. 6, 7. When the accuser of the brethren thus taxes us with self-righteousness and want of sincerity, we must, as in the former case, in an humble dependance upon Christ, confess that he may have some reason for his accusations; and we should regard them as a serious call to strict selfexamination. It is good to receive a salutary suggestion, even from an enemy; and Satan himself may unintentionally become the means of making us renounce our own righteousness more thoroughly, and take the Lord Jesus Christ more entirely for our all. When he attacks the sincerity of our confidence, it is a time to cry, “ Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief! Lord, increase my faith! Give me grace that I may be rooted and grounded in Christ, and established in the faith, abounding therein with thanksgiving.” Col. ü. 7. It is by thus turning the attacks of the wicked one into matter for prayer, that we utterly confound him; for his object is not to lead us to pray, but, on the contrary, he manages his arguments in such a manner as to make us believe that prayer is useless. “ Thou art a hypocrite,” he says to us; “thou hast no real trust in God, and as God heareth not the prayer of the hypocrite, and as his promises are only made to faith, it is useless for thee to present thyself before him.” Weak believers do not always perceive that this is the language of the “father of lies," who exaggerates every thing, and aims at making us confound weak faith with the utter absence of faith, and designing to crush it altogether, applies to a weak faith those passages of the Bible, which speak of unbelief and hypocrisy. Is it not a gross calumny to say of a soul that feels its ten, dency to trust in its own righteousness, that fears it, and prays to be delivered from it, that it is sunk in selfrighteousness, and that there is no sincerity in its faith? Is it not to be the father of lies, to say of one who trembles lest he should be deceived with regard to his faith, that he is a hypocrite, and seeks to impose upon God by pretending to place his confidence in him? But Satan is artful, and knows well the character of those whom he addresses ; and as he hardens some in hypocrisy by persuading them that what is said in the Bible of hypocrites has no reference to them ; so he endeavours to terrify others, whose consciences are tender, by continually upbraiding them with their hypocrisy. But “ the wicked worketh a deceitful work," and these painful doubts which the believer experiences as to the sincerity of his faith, invariably turn to his advantage. They are the furnace in which the gold is tried and purified from the remains of its dross, and the child of God comes out of them more sincere, more strongly a rooted and grounded in Christ, and more deeply impressed with the seal of the Spirit. When God allows his children thus to pass through the furnace, he sets limits to the temptation; he tempers the heat of the fire to the strength which he has given them, and foreseeing, in the purifying of their faith, the happy issue of the trial, he can apply to them the language which he addressed to his people of old :-" Though ye have “ the ye be as the wings of a dove, covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.” Ps. lxviii. 13. We are now come to the third argument of Rabshakeh, and as there are no bounds to the insolence and falsehood with which Satan inspires those whom he employs as his instruments, you will not be surprised to find the Assyrian general imputing to Hezekiah, as a crime which deprived him of all claim to the divine protection, bis zeal in destroying the high places, where the idolatrous worship had been performed, during the preceding reign : “If ye say unto me, We trust in the Lord our God ? is not that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and Jurusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar in Jerusalem ?” Were any one to doubt, that Rab-shakeh could have had the audacity to put such a construction on a pious action, and to go so directly against evident and wellknown facts, we would invite him to consider what passes every day around him, and in his own heart. Are not the intentions of the people of God continually misunderstood and suspected ? Is not their zeal in the cause of God frequently made the subject of the most grievous misrepresentations ? Do not their enemies venture to calumniate them in opposition to the most palpable facts, and to ascribe to them motives a a and actions which their general character proves they must shrink from with abhorrence? When Satan finds a believer of a tender conscience, he continually endeavors to torment him by throwing suspicions upon the motives from which he acts. He will say, “ thou art influenced by pride. With all thy zeal, with all thy pretended faithfulness, and with all thy strictness in separating the precious from the vile, the clean from the unclean, thou art but a Pharisee, straining a gnat and swallowing a camel ; thou hast but a name to live, instead of real, vital godliness ; thou art doing more harm than good to the cause of religion, and art a stumbling block to those whom thou wouldest bring to Christ." Such is the language which he uses when he would harrass and distress the tender and scrupulous believer. On the other hand, when he meets with one who is meek and forbearing-one who seeks to win souls by love, and avoids as much as possible every thing that might wound or give pain; he adopts a different mode of address, and says: “ Thou art weak and timid, and regardest thine own interest more than that of Christ; thou courtest the approbation of men, and the reputation of being moderate.” “ John the Baptist comes neither eating nor drinking, and they say he hath a devil; the Son of man cometh eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a friend of publicans and sinners." My brethren, this is a trial through which you must expect to pass, and you should therefore lay your account to be wrongly judged and misunderstood of others. The Lord himself forewarned his disciples that men would “persecute them, and say all manner of evil against them falsely for his sake.” Mat. v. 11. The church of Smyrna, which the Saviour addresses in terms of unmixed approbation, and to which he bears a witness, that in the midst of its poverty it was richeven that favored church had to bear the calumnies of those who “said they were Jews and were not, but were of the synagogue of Satan." Rev. ii. 9. When the walls of Jerusalem were building, the enemies of God's people endeavored to damp the ardor of Nehemiah's zeal, by repeating to him the false reports which were afloat about him, and which they had invented themselves. “ It is reported among the heathen," said they in their letter to him, “and Gashmu saith it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel, for which cause thou buildest the wall, that thou mayest be their king according to these words ; and thou hast appointed prophets at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah : and now shall it be reported to the king according to these words ; come now, therefore, and let us take counsel together. Neh. vi. 5—7. We see from the conclusion of this miserable accusation, that the object of it was to intimidate Nehemiah and shake his confidence, and to make him discontinue his work, by engaging him in disputes with his enemies. It is well for us to be acquainted with this device of our great enemy, and to bear in mind that he unweariedly endeavors to divert the builders of the temple from their work by his arguments and insinuations, and that from time to time, “the people of the land weaken the hands of the people of God, and trouble them in building." Ezra iv. 3. We should remember that our Lord himself was accused of deceiving the people, of wishing to make himself a king, of forbidding the people to pay tribute to Cæsar, and that Satan even ventured to suggest to him a doubt of his being the Son of God, saying, “ If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” |