so much their enemy as to alter his purpose. What is necessary for them, and suited to their wants, that he will do, and nothing else. If they are in darkness, he will call them into his marvellous light: if they are in the way of death, he will show them how to come out of it: if they are deservedly under his curse, he will have mercy on them, and remove it from them; but cannot suffer them to continue in it without giving them warning of their danger, and offering them his help. See now what God does and will do for his people; what they are by putting themselves into his hands, and what you should wish for yourselves if your eyes were opened to discern between good and evil. If you were taken captive by an enemy, bound hand and foot, and without any means of relief in your power, you know what would be deliverance to you in this condition. If you were sick of a deadly distemper, you would wish for a cure; if you were under a sentence of death for any crime you had committed, you would joyfully accept a pardon. But what is this to the sentence of eternal death we are under, to the natural corruption which holds us in it, to the sin which brings it upon us, cleaves to our souls and bodies, and leads us blindfold into the pit of destruction? And yet such is our unhappy condition, till the mercy of God meets with us; such is the deliverance he works for us, and, with all the kindness and compassion of a father for his perishing children, invites us to accept of. And if this, in every particular of it, is the state of mankind before they have obtained mercy; if we are all without exception blind, sinful, condemned, and helpless; you must perceive at once, that recovery from it is the very thing we want, and the greatest blessing which can be vouchsafed us. Consider these words of Christ-"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to prea ch the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the

broken-hearted, to proclaim deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord;" Luke, iv. 18, 19. What a melancholy account is this of Satan's kingdom in the world, and of the hard bondage in which he holds the miserable sons of Adam! What a poor slave would be in the dungeon of a prison, galled and bruised with the weight of his chains, and without the least glimmering of light, that we are, one and all, in respect of our spiritual condition. Sin hath cast us into prison, loaded us with heavy chains, and covered us with darkness as much as if our eyes were put out; and there we are, bound over to death, till God's time comes for our deliverance, expressed here by "the acceptable year of the Lord;" which is an allusion to the year of jubilee among the Jews, when all debtors and servants, by the law of Moses, were to be released. You may refuse all your lives to see yourselves in this light; but it is an exact picture of our natural state, if Christ knew what was, and what he came into the world to do. As sure as we are born, we are in sin, blind in sin, and under a sentence of condemnation for sin; and if you ask a proof of this, you may easily find it in yourselves. I beseech you, observe; the most high God acquaints us with his will, spreads his law before us, says positively, This thou shalt do, this thou shalt not do, and we break through all restraints, and venture to disobey him what is this but sin? And why are we so prone to disobey him, and trample upon his authority, but because we are corrupt in the deep ground of our natures, and have a law in our members warring against the law of God? Take notice again that we are as blind as corrupt; we do not see sin where it is, nor hardly the guilt of any sin. Though the Scripture is as full and clear in the point as possible; though we learn from

thence that one sin of the first man brought death into the world, and know by woful experience that every child of man dies for it; though, besides the sentence we are under for Adam's sin, we have innumerable transgressions of our own to answer for, and cannot but understand that sin is the same, and God the same now that they were then; yet it is hidden from us as much as ever, and we will not be persuaded of its deadly nature, God's hatred of it, and will to punish it: what can this be but utter blindness? And if God is just, and true to his word, what can the result be but condemnation? Blessed be God, he can and will release us from it; he does deliver many, and has always a people in the earth. He is now waiting to be gracious to every one of you; and whatever your sin is, present blindness in it, or slavery to it, you may obtain mercy from the Lord, and experience a happy alteration of your condition. And a great deliverance and a happy change you must needs think it, to have your eyes opened to see the power that sin has in you, together with the curse which attends it, and then to be freed from it. If there is such a thing upon earth as being the people of God, and some are not so, you must needs be full of thought to which of these two sorts you belong; you must be dead to all consideration, if you do not see blessing unspeakable on one hand, and nothing but danger and misery on the other. I am telling you what that danger is, and how great the misery of such a condition, on purpose that you may avoid it, and resolve without delay to have your portion with the people of God. Bethink yourselves, and do not wilfully shut your eyes against the light. Not a people! Why then you are the very persons this day and hour whom Christ speaks of, spirits in prison, lying in darkness and the shadow of death. You are without God in the world; whatever you are doing in it, whether you gain or lose,

rich or poor, getting up and lying down, you are under his curse, and he beholds you continually as his enemies, and vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. When the first man had forfeited all right to the favour of God by his one act of disobedience, he relieved him from the dread he was under, and raised his drooping spirits, by telling him, that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head;" Gen. iii. 15, that is, undo the unhappy effects of his sin, and work a great deliverance for him and his posterity; but in this you have no share. You choose to continue in death; and that very sentence which God pronounced upon him is still in force against you, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," i. e. he should be liable to eternal death. For the sentence of bodily death was executed upon him, notwithstanding the promise which God had given him; and therefore the meaning of that promise must necessarily be, that if he accepted mercy, he should not die eternally. Will you not accept it? Will you die eternally? Not a people! Then sin is unknown, unfelt, and unfeared. Then it has dominion over you. Then you are the children and people of the wicked one, and death will deliver you up to him as his right for ever. See, I say, what you are on the wrong side of your work which God has given you to do in the world. Deal no longer deceitfully with your souls. It is a dreadful thing to be unconcerned for them, whatever it is that hinders you, or to be always mistaken about our state, however it happens. Think well, think over and over again, what it is to be a people. The people of God! "Happy," sure, "are the people that are in such a case, yea, blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God;" Psalm cxliv. 15; blessed in their going out and coming in, blessed in all they do. Those, I mean, who, when the question is put to the soul, what they esteem their treasure, and covet as their portion,

can answer at once, The Lord and his goodness. We all know that he is every man's best friend, and none can be so senseless as not to own it; and that the best thing we can do for ourselves is to make him so, by taking him for our God; but this is sooner said than done. And yet the text has no blessing for us till we both think and say it unfeignedly. For God's people is a willing people. If they are so at all, it is by their own consent and free choice; and there is no idol in their hearts which they bow down to more than him, nothing in the world which they prefer to his favour. These are the blessed of the Lord. His nature, his will, his word and promises, are all engaged for their security, that they shall never lose what they have set their hearts upon, never be disappointed of their hope, and that "all things shall work together for their good;" Rom. viii. 28. Prosperity or adversity, health or sickness, the frowns or favour of the world, the good things of life which corrupt, the crosses which fret and gall the spirits of other men, are thankfully received, or well endured, and nothing shall by any means hurt them. For why? they are the people of God; and whatever comes to them from his hand cannot but be intended for their good, is dispensed to them with unerring wisdom, with all the kindness of a never-failing friend, and all the love of an indulgent father. They know they may trust all their concerns in his hands, and lie down in peace, having an eye watching over them which never sleeps, and almighty power to guard them. And, what is the crown of all, they can meet death, if not wholly without fear, yet with a well grounded hope, and look beyond it to that happy time when they shall sin and sorrow no more, be freed from all their wants, and put in possession of all their wishes. For this is the great end of God in taking them for his people, and the great end which they have in view in