comparison we are to take so little heed of the one, and to devote our chief care to the other; that in the one we should behave as strangers and pilgrims, to the other we should look as to our home. Here then let us comply as far as rightly we may with the demands of them that bear rule. Here let us promote as far as lawfully we can, that social order, that genuine liberty, whereby the persons and property of the peaceable and the poor, are protected against the assaults of the violent, and the oppression of the proud. But there let us lay up the treasure we most value, thereon set the affection we most deeply feel; and unto God who there ever reigneth, let us render that which is most truly his, the subjection of our will, the tribute of our love, the prayer, the thanksgiving of our souls.

SERMON XII.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

2 COR. 3. 17.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

YOU can hardly help to have heard lately much talk about liberty, about its nature and advantages, and the means of securing it. It may be well therefore for a Christian congregation to consider what the Gospel says on the subject; and for the Christian minister to lay before you the rule of your duty herein. And this he is especially inclined to do, by the consideration, that the Gospel and its ministers are thought by many, who know but little of them, to be at enmity with that reasonable freedom which all so justly love.. The Gospel, however, is called by the apostles themselves the "law of liberty,"

(James 1. 25. 2. 12.) and "the glorious liberty of the children of God." (Rom. 8. 21.) Christians are told, (Gal. 5. 13.) 66 ye have been called unto liberty." Christ himself is described by Isaiah, as one who came to give "liberty to the captives." (61. 1.) And in the text here we find it generally asserted, that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

This being the first aspect of the matter, as set down in the word of God itself, we are next to see whether the texts are altogether misapplied, whether in Scripture a different thing is meant by liberty from what is here supposed to be proclaimed. And certainly the liberty chiefly intended by the inspired writers is a freedom from the bondage of sin, is the being delivered from the yoke of satan, the being placed in such a situation of access to divine grace, as that we need not serve sin unless we choose. This is the first and highest liberty. This the most true freedom man can attain unto. In proportion as sin is the worst of evils, and Satan the most hateful of tyrants; in

proportion as his service is grievous and degrading, and the misery he would lay on us is more horrible than any oppression this world can produce; in such measure is it the most desirable of all liberty to be redeemed from his power, and set free to serve God our Saviour.

But besides this high and spiritual kind of liberty, a liberty of which no state of society can deprive the faithful Christian, a liberty attainable and enjoyable alike under the worst or under the best of governments; besides this liberty, the apostles by their use of the word appear also very plainly to approve and recommend that which we now commonly mean by Freedom. For first observe, that they use it generally, that is without limitation, as in the text, amongst a people so fond of civil liberty, that they would be sure to understand these expressions in its favour. Which St. Paul would hardly have left room for, if it had been a notion remote from the truth. And next let it be considered, that the using freedom so often, as a figure most apt to represent the

Gospel dispensation, makes it at least probable, though it does not exactly prove, that literal freedom, such as the word means in the state, is, when rightly understood, a blessing to mankind.

But further we may remark, that St. Paul especially applies the notion of liberty by way of distinguishing our condition under the Gospel, from that of Israel under the Law of Moses. And this

any one may clearly see to be the application of the "liberty" in the text, any one who attends carefully to the whole passage where it occurs. Turning to the third chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians, you will see, that in the sixth verse St. Paul begins to draw a comparison between the Old and New Testament, between the law of Moses and of Christ, calling the former the "ministration of death," and the latter the "ministration of the Spirit ;" and, again, calling the former" the letter," and the latter "the spirit." Of the former he says, that Moses put a vail over his face," that the children of Israel could not stedfastly