wilt thou hide thy face!" "Make haste to help me, O Lord; make no tarrying, O my God." Is this the language of persons delivered out of all their trouble? Is this the mighty privilege of being a Christian, to be in deeper distress than ever? Is this all the advantage of being brought out of dark-: ness into light, to discern more clearly our wretchedness, and to perish with our eyes open?-Tell us, O ye ambassadors of God, for we are eager to know, What is the deliverance which Christ preached to the captives? We are captives ourselves, and long to be delivered; "even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies" from death, and our souls from hell; and " are all here present before God this day, to hear whatever things shall be commanded thee of God."

Now, I shall endeavour to illustrate our deliverance by Christ, in the same particulars by which I set forth our captivity by Satan.

1. He delivers us from confinement.

You may remember we observed, that Man in his natural state was under arrest, a prisoner to divine Justice; the law, conscience, and death, all putting in their several claims, and rigorously insisting on immediate and full satisfaction; and worthless, helpless, hopeless man, having nothing to expect but wrath and fiery indignation; when the all-condescending Jesus came and preached deliverance to him.-Recollect it, O my soul! canst thou ever forget it? Are not all the particulars of that surprising event still strong in thy remembrance? How, unsolicited, unexpected, unthought of, he burst open thy prison-doors, and singled

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 appeared, 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, contiDually 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.

are

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 wis dom 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 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 pallat 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

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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 "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, at 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 but 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 sooner. #1

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