vineyard more or less to him?  But prosperity had spoilt him; he must needs have every toy on which he set his heart, and he was weak enough to fret that he could not get more, when he had too much already.  But he knew that he could not get it; that, king as he was, Naboth’s property was his own, and that God’s everlasting Law stood between him and the thing he coveted.  Well for him if he had been contented with fretting.  But, my friends—­and be you rich or poor, take heed to my words—­whenever any man gives way to selfishness, and self-seeking, to a proud, covetous, envious, peevish temper, the Devil is sure to glide up and whisper in his ear thoughts which will make him worse—­worse, ay, than he ever dreamt of being.  First comes the flesh, and then the Devil; and if the flesh opens the door of the heart, the Devil steps in quickly enough.  First comes the flesh:  fleshly, carnal pride at being thwarted; fleshly, carnal longing for a thing, which longs all the more for it because one cannot have it; fleshly, carnal peevishness and ill-temper, at not having just the pleasant thing one happens to like.  That is a state of mind which is a bird-call for all the devils; and when they see a man in that temper, they flock to him, I believe, as crows do to carrion.  It is astonishing, humbling, awful, my friends, what horrible thoughts will cross one’s mind if once one gives way to that selfish, proud, angry, longing temper; thoughts of which we are ashamed the next moment; temptations to sin at which we shudder, they seem so unlike ourselves, not parts of ourselves at all.  When the dark fit is past, one can hardly believe that such wicked thoughts ever crossed one’s mind.  I don’t think that they are part of ourselves; I believe them to be the whispers of the Devil himself; and when they pass away, I believe that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who drives them away.  But if any man gives way to them, determines to keep his sullenness, and so gives place to the Devil; then those thoughts do not pass; they take hold of a man, possess him, as the Bible calls it, and make him in his madness do things which—­alas! who has not done things in his day, of which he has repented all his life after?—­things for which he would gladly cut off his right hand for the sake of being able to say, ‘I never did that?’ But the thing is done—­done to all eternity:  he has given place to the Devil, and the Devil has made him do in five minutes work which he could not undo in five thousand years; and all that is left is, when he comes to himself, to cast himself on God’s boundless mercy, and Christ’s boundless atonement, and cry, ’My sins are like scarlet, Thou alone canst make them whiter than snow:  my sin is ever before me; only let it not be ever before Thee, O God!  Punish me, if thou seest fit; but oh forgive, for there is mercy with Thee, and infinite redemption!’ And, thanks be to God’s great love, he will not cry in vain.  Yet, oh, my friends, do not give place to the Devil, unless you wish, forgiven or not, to repent of it to the latest day you live.