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The one has purchased for himself a name which fhall expire only with the world; the other happily for the world, is already dead while he liveth.

III. THE third univerfal character of human nature, to which the gospel most happily adapts itself, and by which it demonftrates its divine original, is fubjection to bondage. Jefus Chrift is the great Deliverer of mankind, as he is the great Teacher and Interceffor. We speak not here of that civil bondage and oppreffion, under which the grearer part of the human race have groaned and travailed in pain together, from the beginning until now. This is truly deplorable; but Chrift's kingdom is not of this world." He came not to ascertain fecular right, but to confer everlasting privileges; He came not to raise up the throne of David which was fallen, nor to shake and overturn that of Cæfar which still ftood; but to establish an univerfal empire of " righteousness and peace and

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joy in the Holy Ghoft," of which there fhall be no end. He came to command, and to work deliverance, from a bondage to which the tyrant and his victim, the oppreffor and the oppreffed, the flave and mafter are equally subjected-" the bondage of corruption; the dominion of the

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prince of the power of the air, the spirit that "worketh in the children of difobedience."

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came to deliver mankind from the power of death, through the fear of which men were all their lifetime fubject unto bondage.

1. EVERY man is in a state of subjection to the corruption of his own nature; he has forged fetters for himself, and habit makes them fit fo eafy, that at length he feels neither pain nor shame from his condition; and the generality of the cafe reconciles him entirely to his own. And what is the ignomy of those chains which gall the body, compared to the " fleshly lufts which war against

"the foul?" This is the kind of deliverance which it was predicted He fhould accomplish, a prediction which He read aloud in the public fynagogue and applied to himself, and indeed which it was the great end of his miffion to fulfil. For to no purpose is ignorant man inftructed, and criminal man pardoned, if he remained the flave of fin; to no purpofe is the poison repelled, and its effect counteracted, if the patient defperately fwallow repeated mortal dofes. Now, corrupted man is that defperate fuicide patient, armed with deadly poifon, to deftroy all that renders exiftence a bleffing. The Jews vaunted their freedom as Abraham's feed, while they wilfully refifted the truth, and were devifing the murder of an innocent perfon. Strange idea of liberty, for a man deliberately to fhut his eyes that he may

not fee, and to gratify his own unruly paffions, at whatever expense to another, even that of life itself. "If ye continue in my word, ye shall "know the truth, and the truth fhall make you "free. Whofoever committeth fin, is the fer"vant," it ought to have been rendered "the flave, "offin. If the Son therefore fhall make you free, fhall be free indeed."

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2. MAN has another powerful tyrant with whom to contend, who takes advantage of his internal weaknefs and depravity, who leads men captive at his will, and, unhappily at their own: who affumes the form of a friend, transforms himfelf into an angel of light to deceive the nations: who fhews men the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, and promised to beflow them on his deluded votaries; who proposes riches to the covetous. pleafures to the fenfual, honor and power to the ambitious, and men fall down and worthip him, fome from hope fome from fear. To. deny the exiftence of fuch a being, is exprefsly to acknowledge his power, and to laugh the idea of his influence to fcorn, is to afford a proof of its awful extent. The danger

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arifing from this quarter is, that no danger appears. The great adverfary finds it not to his purpose to retain his formidable character of a "roaring lion going about and feeking whom

"he may devour;" he has foftened it down into his original character of serpent, faying, “ye " shall not surely die, ye shall be as gods." To diffolve the fatal delufion, to deftroy the works of the devil, to diminish, to shake, and at length totally to fubvert his empire, to rescue the world of mankind from his yoke, was the great end for which the Son of God was manifefted, and for this end he fent forth his witneffes to the utter-·

moft part of the earth, even "to open men's

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eyes, to turn them from darknefs to light, and "from the power of Satan unto God." And, wonderful mode of triumph! the feed of the woman in giving his heel to be bruifed, crushed the ferpent's head. Jefus, "by dying deftroyed "him that hath the power of death, that is the "devil;" which leads for a moment to contemplate the Saviour of the world as conqueror of,

3. A THIRD formidable adversary, but the last enemy which shall be deftroyed, even death.It is the approach of this foe which clothes the other two in all their terror, which elicits remorse from the recollection of the paft, and excites "a fearful looking-for of judgment," in the profpect of futurity. Even in the arms of diffolution, man feels himself immortal, but what is immortality without hope, immortality clouded

with more than difmal apprehenfion? Prifoner of hope lift up thy head, the enemy though formidable, is not invincible. Jefus hath "abo"lifhed death, and brought life and immortality "to light. Being juftified by faith" in Jesus "we have peace with God, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God; the day of our redemption draweth nigh."

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Hear the voice of

the Son of God and live: "I give unto them "eternal life; and they fhall never perish, nei"ther fhall any pluck them out of my hand: my "Father which gave them me is greater than all; "and none is able to pluck them out of my Fa"thers hand-I am the resurrection, and the "life; he that believeth in me, though he "were dead, yet fhall he live and whofo"ever liveth and believeth in me, fhall never "die."

AND thus Jefus of Nazareth approves himself the best friend of the human race, in all the refpects in which ignorant, guilty, miferable man ftands in need of a friend. Thus the gospel proves its divine original; proves that it is of him who made man, who knows what is in man, and what is good for man from its univerfal, and complete, adaption to the conftitution and frame of the human mind; it illumines what is dark, and ftrengthens what is weak; it brings peace to the

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