thee out from among the multitude, thou knowest not why; and smiled upon thee, and embraced thee; and then, turning to thy highly-incensed Judge, said, with a voice of mingled majesty and mercy, "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put it to my account: I, Jesus, have writ it with my own hand, and sealed it with my own blood: I will repay." How he then proceeded to blot out the hand-writing of ordinances, and cancel all the numerous bonds that were in force against thee. How he hushed the thunderings of the law, by saying, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.. I will fulfil all righteousness; I will magnify the law, and make it honourable." How he next quieted the clamours of thy raging conscience, and poured wine and oil into its bleeding wounds; and, by shedding his own blood, prevented the effusion of thine. Death was the last enemy that kept its hold, and still strongly insisted that, pursuant to an ancient sentence, "the soul that sinned should die :" but Death also was silenced and destroyed, when thy all-victorious Deliverer turned himself, and said, "O, Death, I will be thy plague: since it is expedient that some one must die, I will lay down my life for these sheep; I will disarm thee of thy sting, and I will abridge thee of thy power: I will cut short thy reign; I will destroy Death, and him that hath the power of death, that is, the Devil." And then, all thine accusers going out, one by one, and Jesus being left alone, and thyself, like a selfconvicted criminal, standing in the midst; remem, ber, O my soul, how he looked up, and asked, "Where are thine accusers ?" and when none sp. peared, said, " Doth no man condemn thee? neither

do I condemn thee: thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace."

O Christians, have you ever felt transport equal to what you felt, when you left your prison, and followed him to the Temple, "walking, and leaping, and praising God?" You have not forgotten this: your enemies will not let you forget it: Satan, the accuser of the brethren, is perpetually suing this cancelled bond upon you; the law is, continually demanding satisfaction for breaches long since. repaid, not by you, but for you; conscience tears open wounds that were long since healed; and death assumes the name and air of the king of terrors: so that, if you had not your discharge to produce; if you could not recur to that evermemorable transaction; if you could not distinctly recollect, and with some tolerable confidence affirm, that at such a time, and such a time, you had some undoubted tokens of the Divine forgiveness and favour; you would never be free from the most tormenting fear.

Now, to be delivered from those awful charges and threatenings; to see our Judge smile, and to hear Conscience bear witness in our favour; to be able to look our worst enemy in the face undaunted, and to "give every one that asketh us, a reason of the hope that is in us;" to walk through the wilderness of life, and the valley of death, and "fear no evil:" is not this to be free indeed? Does not this deserve the name of deliverance?—I presume, Christians, there are few days in which you do not perceive its inestimable value; and that those seasons of temptations and distress frequently occur, in which you would not for all the world

have had the passage left out of your Bibles; "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? it is God that justifieth." (Rom. viii. 23.)

2. From darkness.

A prison, we observed, is generally a dark and gloomy place; and so is a natural man's understanding, till the "Day-spring from on high" visits him. People are said to sit in "the regions and shadow of death," till He, who is the Light and Life of men, comes among them. Hence, also, conversion is represented by his "calling us out of darkness into his marvellous light." And here, by the way, we may take notice of the infinite wisdom and tenderness of the Redeemer in accomplishing our deliverance; that he does it by degrees, giving us here a little, and there a little," as we are able to bear: as when he healed the man that was born blind: had it been instantaneous, the variety of the objects, and the dazzling splendour of the sun, would have confounded, and perhaps destroyed, this newly-given, light; for which reason. the cure was more gradual and safe. When he first opened his eyes, he had very imperfect ideas of the objects around him: he saw" men as trees walking.". So it is with us: "When the Lord turned again our captivity, we were like them that dream :" we seemed to be born into a new world; ten thousand things presented themselves before us, with which we were entirely unacquainted, or of which we had formed very mistaken apprehensions. Now had the Sun of Righteousness broken out upon us all at once in his meridian brightness, the light would have overpowered us: he therefore at first, perhaps, only put the clay upon our eyes-darkened all the

objects of sense-and left us with this general declaration, "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." Then, when he found that we were in some measure dead to the world, and of an humble, teachable disposition, he bade us 67 go and wash in the Pool of Siloam: we went, and washed, and came seeing." And, oh how were we startled at ourselves, when we first perceived our natural deformity, guilt, and danger; when our eyes were opened, and we knew that we were naked! How we looked, and wondered, at the dreadful precipice on the brink of which we had been dancing; and looked and wondered, again, t our miraculous escape! With what rapture did we first gaze on the glory of God, as it shone "in the face of Jesus Christ!" How did all the glory of this world lessen in our eyes, till, at length, we "looked, and lo, it was not; yea, we sought it, but it could not be found;" and we perceived that we had all this while been pursuing shadows, hewing out broken cisterns, and spending our money and our labour for that which neither profiteth nor satisfieth. The beauty of holiness, the folly of sin, the worth of the soul, the value of salvation, were all as evident as the sun at noon-day: and all we now wondered at, was, that all the world did not see it too, and that we ourselves did not see it

at

sooner.

3. From our fetters.

It was further observed of the natural man, that he lay in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; in absolute subjection to Satan, not daring, and indeed not able, to resist his most imperious orders. In this condition we lay, when Christ

came and preached" deliverance to the captives;" and then those iron fetters, which burthened and galled us, were no more than Samson's cords when the spirit came upon him. We resisted the devil, and he fled from us: we crucified the world; and the world was dead to us, and we unto the world: we denied all ungodliness: and, in short, escaped out of the " snare of the fowler ;" and came off "more than conquerors, through Him that loved us."-What a happy state is this!-to be delivered from that yoke, "which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear ;" and to have no king but Jesus, whose " yoke is easy, and whose burthen is light;" whose "service is perfect freedom;" and whose wages, or rather whose "gift, is eternal life!" What a particular consolation was it, Christians, when we were first released; and the devil came down in great wrath, because he knew that he had but a little time to reign, and raged, and stormed, as if he would have torn us from the arms of Jehovah himself! How it revived and animated us, and inspired us with new vigour and joy, to find it written, "He shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly!" (Rom. xvi. 20.) Nay, and even now, Christians, in our daily conflicts with remaining corruptions-which, though their power is broken, are yet continually troubling us, and making sad inroads upon our purity and peace; and we are almost ready to give up all for lost, and submit again to the base usurper-I say, even now it is the highest satisfaction and support to our op pressed and sinking spirits to hear him say, "Sin shall not have dominion over you." (Rom. vi. 14.) This puts new life into us: we renew the combat