"fiery darts" in his quiver,--and who has warred against the Church, with alternate success and defeat, for more than fifty centuries. But there is One stronger than he. There was enmity, according to the prophecy, between the serpent and the woman; and the conflict was prolonged through many ages; but the day of triumph came at last. The promise which followed that prediction lived on and never died. "The seed of the woman came, and "bruised" the serpent's "head." On the cross the Son of God "conquered principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly." And now secretly He helps his saints. Secretly He and his good angels stand by their side and give them strength in the evil day. refuge many a time from the

Secretly they take pursuing foe, and from the world where he has a thousand auxiliaries, and abide safely and happily "under the shadow of the Almighty."

O may we learn the blessedness of that shelter ! May we not shut our eyes to the danger, but escape it by the power of faith! May we guard jealously the precious seed of which he, the arch-plunderer, would rob us, and bury it in our heart of hearts! May the "word of Christ dwell in us richly,” and bring forth fruit a hundred fold, to the praise and glory of our common Saviour!

SERMON II.

THE PURSUING ENEMY.

NUMBERS XXXii. 26. 23

“Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Also GENESIS Xxvii.-The whole chapter.

(Second Sunday in Lent.-Morning.)

I NEED not dwell on the circumstances which prompted the announcement contained in my shorter text. Suffice it to say that Moses is the speaker; as an inspired Prophet he declares the future respecting one particular offence against which he warned a portion of his countrymen; and without doing any violence to the passage, or stretching the words beyond their legitimate meaning, we may take them as declaring a general law of the Divine government, and including not one individual case, or class of cases, but ten thousand more which are repeated from age to age.

It is true for ever that men's sins pursue and overtake them, that disobedience to God's righteous laws never proves gainful on the whole, and in the

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long run, that the harvest of the wrongdoer is

We know that the Things are not set so

reaped one day, though the ripening time may come long after the sowing time. final reckoning is not here. straight that we could suppose the work of retribution to be accomplished, even if Revelation were altogether silent. But still the Book of Providence, carefully studied, is full of warning and instruction; showing us, in ten thousand instances, that trouble and perplexity,-loss of health, loss of credit, loss of friends,-shame that bows the head, and woes that wring the heart,- some or all of them, are the appointed penalties of transgression. Often the thoughtless look on and wonder; while the thoughtful and devout say, again and again, "God rules, then, in this world, not Chance; and His justice may tarry often, but never sleeps."

The first Lesson for this morning has led my thoughts in this direction. Let me carry yours back to that most humbling scene in Isaac's chamber. Let me beg you to follow out what was then wickedly done to its results. Let us see how each of the guilty parties sinned and suffered. And then let us deal with the whole subject practically, by way of enforcing some lessons of a solemn and useful kind.

The saddest part of the story is that all this was done by members of the chosen family. They who should have been patterns of holiness are found to be offending deeply against God, and each other

We see culpable weakness in Abraham's son,-the famous child of promise. We find guilt of no common kind in her who was carefully selected, years before, to be his bride, and who had succeeded to Sarah's place as the mother of the patriarchs. Israel himself, who gave his name to the favoured people, appears in the character of a double deceiver, the duped party in one case being a blind old father; and the plea, which doubtless reconciled him to the fraud,-that of his seeking only what was his by God's grant, and by purchase from his brother, being one on which every honest mind cries shame. We do not conceal the fault of any one of the parties, or offer the smallest excuse for them. Let the scoffer scoff if he will, and speak lightly and profanely of the Book which records such deeds on the part of God's chosen witnesses when the world was covered with idolatry. We do but answer, "The Book commends not the deeds. The Book makes no secret of the failings of the righteous. The Book approves and sanctions only what is just and true at all times and under all circumstances. The Book gives its open or silent testimony in favour of honesty and fairdealing, while it tells of the crookedness and deceit which worldly men practise more or less every where under the sun. And if holy men, or men specially favoured by Heaven, go astray into forbidden paths, that shall not daunt us as if all were false, and nothing true in men's professions of godliness, but shall only deepen our views of the universal infection,

and make us doubly watchful against the great Deceiver."

But let us look at this household, I say, and examine the plot, and its agents, and design, and issue. Isaac, not really near his end, but supposing, apparently, from dimness of sight and other growing infirmities, that his end might be near, longs to give his blessing, his special blessing, and with it all the privileges involved in the birthright, to his favourite child. Esau, not Jacob, was nearest to the father's heart. Upon Esau, therefore, he meant to pronounce the benediction which should stamp him as the favoured man of that generation, the inheritor of the Promise, which belonged to Abraham first, and to one selected descendant in each age afterwards. afterwards. God never said it should be the first-born. God had said that in Isaac's house "the elder child should " serve the younger. Yet, unmindful of the prediction, or wilfully misapprehending it,—not meaning, we must suppose, deliberately to go against God's purpose, but assuredly failing in that spiritual discernment and singleness of purpose which became his place and character, the patriarch chooses out Esau, the cunning hunter, for the blessing, and, rather strangely, combines the announcement of his purpose with talk about the venison which he loved. That little household, it seems, was a divided household; each parent had a favourite child; there had been much of strangeness and confusion and in

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