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scripture exhorts you to depend upon Christ, to give you all the knowledge you need. What can induce you to make application to him, if not the declaration, that he left the bosom of the Father to declare him? What can encourage our utmost confidence of success, if the manner in which his Church publishes their success fails? "The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true." He hath given us not only our intellect, which distinguishes us from the world of animals, for this was ever common to all men; he hath given us not only the revealed word, which deluded pretenders have as well as we; but he hath given us, say the faithful in Christ, the spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of himself, the truth. They who bear this testimony were once as ignorant and dark as you can be. When blind Bartimeous cried out, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me, that I may receive my sight," they that stood by said, "Be of good comfort, rise, he calleth thee." But the same compassionate Saviour addresses thee, thou child of ignorance, from his glorious high throne, in terms no less kind: "I counsel thee to buy of me eye-salve, that thou mayst see;" have the knowledge of God, and a right judgment in all things. Light, not only to see the way of life, but to discover and baffle the devices of the enemy: for before Christ all things are naked, even the deepest counsels of the destroyer, and all his cruel snares. He knows how, with equal ease and certainty, to confound his force, and infatuate the author of all subtlety and malice. He came to ruin all his contrivances against the faithful, according to the name of glory first given him, Bruiser of the Serpent's Head. How worthy then is this matchless person to be trusted with unshaken confidence for our instructor and guide all our days, to

deliver the godly out of every temptation and preserve them safe unto his own kingdom!

SUNDAY XIX.

CHAP. XIX.

The Ground for Faith in Christ to turn us from all
Iniquity.

NATURALLY blind, we are also slaves to an earthly, sensual, devilish spirit. This sad truth is often felt in remorse, shame, loss, and many incon veniences. Then we wish ourselves free; and, confident in our own strength, determine no more to yield. But the very next temptation adapted to our beloved lust prevails as easily as did the former; so that, soon disheartened by repeated foils, we give up the all-important contest, we begin to palliate and excuse the ignominious slavery, which we find no heart to shake off.

This is the state of man. And, take notice, experience concurs with scripture to prove, that no share of good sense, or superior learning, or good education, give men power to resist their corrupt nature, any more than savage ignorance. The most these advantages can do, is only to gild those shackles they can never break, and slightly conceal from the superficial eye of a fellow-creature what still galls and defiles the inner man.

This subjection to sin is grievous to a soul born again, as the infamy of vassalage to a free citizen. Enlightened to judge aright, you will long to have your iniquities subdued; and, without strength in

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yourself, you will gladly implore deliverance from such tyrannical oppression. In sure and certain hope of this deliverance, God commands you to depend on the Lord Jesus Christ. To justify your dependence, a display is given of his power, such as makes the slightest suspicion of miscarriage unreasonable to the last degree. For the ancient prophets, describing his majesty, call him, "The Lord of Hosts. the Lord mighty in battle, who has the earth for his footstool, and heaven for his throne; the light for his garment; the clouds for his chariot; the thunder for his voice; and all the legions of angels for his servants.

And, lest his deep abasement of himself should weaken our idea of his mighty power to save, we have a very particular relation of the wonders wrought by him in the days of his flesh. Innumerable multitudes of diseased and impotent people were brought to his feet, and by his word instantly made whole, every one of them. The dumb and deaf, the blind and dead, his energy restored to the blessing of life, or the full exercise of all their faculties and powers. The whole creation he commanded with absolute sway. Though winds and storms are mighty, yet Jesus of Nazareth rebukes them, and they are hushed into silence. The waves of the sea rage horrible, yet sink at his word into a perfect calm. Death and the grave, to mortals inexorable, cannot one moment detain their prey, when Jesus saith, "Lazarus, arise." The powers of darkness, though more mighty than diseases, storms, and death, crouch before him, and adore him as their Lord.

Further, to encourage sinners to confide in him as a deliverer from the tyranny of sin, Jesus, when on earth, carried about with him many monuments of his saving power. Publicans, the worst of men,

harlots, the most infamous of women, he separated from their inveterate lusts, giving proof, in each of these instances, that no one can be so enslaved to sin and Satan, but he can make them free indeed. After preaching this transporting truth with his own lips, and confirming it day by day during his ministry, he displays his power to the height at the very hour of his death. Behold him hanging on the cross, his vissage frightfully blotted and mangled, his whole body covered with marks of scorn, swelled with strokes of violence, bedewed from head to foot with his own blood! Is he a deliverer from sin? Can he save? Hearken, though thus low himself, his power and grace destroy in a moment the dominion of sin and Satan, in the utmost strength we can possibly conceive it. He says to the dying malefactor, who turned to him with the prayer of faith, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, this day shalt thou be with me in paradise." I will carry thee up with me into heaven, as a trophy of my victory over Satan, and will show thee there as part of the spoils which shall adorn my triumph over hell. He snatches this abandoned wretch as a brand out of the fire, an earnest of the everlasting salvation of all who should ever call upon him. He snatches from the very jaws of hell one who seemed not only void of grace, but past it; and in an instant sanctifies that heart, which had been for many years the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

In this conquest, the Redeemer acted with a double view, to prove himself the Messiah; and gave an indisputable warrant for sinners, even the chief, to call upon him, that they may be saved.

Should it be said, the Redeemer's death and burial indicate his weakness, Christians reply, he lay in the

grave, not as a subject, but as a conqueror; he came there to draw out the sting from the king of terrors; and on the third day from his death, triumph as the resurrection and the life, in whom whosoever liveth and believeth shall never die. The language of his resurrection was full of power: it spoke again, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise: Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Isaiah xxvi.

These ample testimonies of decisive authority prove the power of Jesus, and present him before our eyes as a fit object of unreserved dependence for deliverance from the power of sin. And they are still corroborated by declarations both in the Old and New Testament. Hear how every doubt is answered, and all desponding thoughts reproved.

"Say to them that are of a fearful heart, [under a lively view of their own weakness, sins, and corruption] Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence, he will come and save you," Isaiah xxxv. "Behold! the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work is before him; he shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth," Isaiah xl, and xlii.

Confident of the certainty of these declarations, St. Peter addresses the Jews, though a people abandoned to all wickedness, and tells them, that "God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless them, by turning every one of them, who shall call upon his name, from their iniquities.

See how magnificently St. Paul describes the exceeding greatness of Christ's power to save from

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