free in those points wherein their bondage is their greatest calamity.

Previously to adverting to a few of those most important points, we may observe, that there are some things wherein the truth merely, the truth simply admitted in the understanding, goes far towards effecting the emancipation; things where the chief strength of the enslavement is in a delusion on the judgment. Some such things have happily left us, as a nation, in a great measure free. It would not be impertinent to specify here (for it was an evil bearing mischievously on religion) that faith in judicial astrology, which bound and oppressed the minds of many of our ancestors. It interfered fatally with the right notions and feelings respecting the government of divine providence, yet held a strong and gloomy dominion in multitudes of minds, in ages not far remote; and not the vulgar only, but some of the thinking and learned, and even some that professed to revere the true religion. Now this gloomy tyranny had nearly its whole strength in the belief of its slaves, and therefore could not survive the belief, that the heavenly bodies had a power of good and evil over human affairs; and therefore under the operation of increasing general knowledge, and of direct science, it has been annihilated.

We may add another example in idolatry, in its grosser forms. Let men simply admit into their understandings the truth that the objects in surrounding nature, or the figures themselves have made of metal, stone, wood, or clay, are no gods, and there is an end of the idolatry! It may at the same time be the fact that even this simple intellectual conviction has seldom been effected but through the intervention of the true religion. In the case again of the popish superstitions, let the mere truth become apparent to men's understanding, let them become convinced in opinion

that such and such practices are erroneous, and they will so far be "made free." (Recount a few points.)

It is very true with respect to such things as have been here specified, that it was a matter of very great and tedious difficulty to obtain the admission of the truth into men's understandings. So implicated and combined had the delusions become with their passions, habits, interests, and institutions. But still, as soon as the truth really was admitted the thing was done. It is true enough that these forms of tyranny under which men's minds have been enslaved, came to attain their dominion over the understanding through an operation on the passions, interests, or fancy, while the reason was dark, feeble, and submissive. But they could never have established their dominion without beguiling the judgment, without possessing themselves of the reason of man, such as it was; and after it was unbeguiled, these things had not in them that which could still and, by another power, hold the mind a slave.

But though men's minds should, through the power of truth, enjoy a full freedom from all such modes of slavery as these, there are other ways in which it may be most deplorably held in chains. What is it but a sad captivity if there be something that fixes the soul in alienation from God? And even thus it is, by the corrupt state of our nature. The Bible says so, a hundred times over; but if it did not, there is the evident matter of fact. The mind naturally does not love God. It does not love to think of him; it turns away from the unwelcome subject; it does not love to perceive and acknowledge his presence in all places and times. It does not seek communication with him. It does not find nor seek its happiness in pleasing him. It revolts from his will and commands. It has not the least wish to go to a world, where it might have a fuller manifestation of him, and be more intimately in communion

with him. But all this would be the glorious going out, if we may so express it, of the soul toward its supreme good; toward its perfection; its noblest exercise, its divinest felicity, the verification of its liberty! But then there is something that malignantly holds it back, and presses and degrades it down. And what a dreadful bondage is that! How inexpressibly desirable is something to "make it free!" It is "the truth" that must "make it free."

But here the case is not as in those forms of mental bondage we specified before. The truth merely admitted in the understanding, however distinctly and decidedly, will not suffice. Without it, certainly, nothing can be done, but alone it will leave the great work uneffected. The truth appropriate to the purpose must be that God is transcendently worthy of all love and devotion-the infinite perfection. of all excellences united-and that it is the happiness, as well as duty of his rational creatures, to be devoted to him in adoration, affection, and willing obedience. Well these truths may be presented to the understanding with luminous evidence; it may see that the evidence is decisive, and that is to admit conviction. But still, the moral part of the soul, the affections, the will, may not come into the assent; the moral part is held still under a malignant and adverse dominion; the soul therefore is not "made free." And here is the grand and urgent occasion for the Spirit of God to work, to transfuse a new and redeeming principle through the moral being, and then the man is free! The freed spirit feels that a hateful, direful enchantment is broken, and flies to its God.

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Again, the love of sin is a miserable and dreadful enslavement. Suppose a man bound by some strong coercion in a servile connexion with a malignant but specious lord who sets him to one occupation and another, with a mockery of making it delightful at first, but still turning it into

painful drudgery: showing him dainties, letting him taste and then snatching them away, or mingling something bitter and nauseous; smiling and acting the villain; overruling and frustrating him in any design or attempt at escape; subjecting him to still greater grievances the longer he remains; and at length reducing him to utter degradation and contempt! This is but a faint simile for the slavery of sin. It is a wretched bondage. It lets not the man have any command of himself. It pleases him, but as by way of holding him fast to plague him. And after it pleases him less, through loss of novelty and a less lively. relish, it seems to retain a still firmer hold of him. How much of "the truth" is forced on him by his own wretched experience, in vain! Still "the truth" is the grand mean for his rescue. But not the mere dry admission of it in his understanding; for that may be, and his chains be on him. still. He may, in this sense," hold the truth in unrighteousness. There must be the agency of the Spirit of God, making an irresistible application of the truth, making it go through all his moral being; creating an aversion to the very nature of sin, as well as a horror of its consequences; and then what a glorious emancipation! To behold the legion of the former tyrants prostrate, and the chief monster (the great besetting sin) as if struck with heaven's lightning!

We might again name the old topic, the predominant love of this world. It were endless to dilate on this, regarded in the light of a sad slavery, and why so, but that the proofs and modes are endless? But take the plain comprehensive idea, an immortal spirit so set upon that which can be nothing to it longer than the lapse of a few fleeting years, as to disregard and lose the happiness of eternity! In this there is so much truth habitually trifled with, that the liberation is a most mighty work for the truth to ac

complish. It is for the Divine Spirit to present and keep the two objects manifest before the mind in their stupendous contrast, and at the same time to impart a new principle of preference; without this latter, the mind would only be overpowered by that contrast; its real taste might remain the same.

One other form of bondage, for the truth to deliver from, is often spoken of in the New Testament, namely, that which some thoughtful, conscientious, anxious minds suffer, in not having come clearly off from the ground of the divine law as that of their acceptance with God. They attribute great importance and value, and some undefined degree of efficacy, to both the sacrifice and the righteousness of Christ. But still as God's government and judgment are constituted upon his perfect and eternal law, that continually comes in upon them, and presents its menaces and its terrors. And well might they be terrified, even to utter despair, if this were the ground of their acceptance with God. But here comes in the evengelic truth which declares us totally removed off this ground for justification and salvation, because on it salvation is plainly and absolutely impossible. "The truth" declares a new and extraordinary economy, in which it is appointed that the Mediator's merit is all-sufficient and alone. And this is to be laid hold of, and relied upon by faith; thus a glorious freedom will be effected.

Lastly, there is the bondage of the fear of death. This bondage needs no illustration. Look at the general feelings of mankind; let each reflect on his own! But imagine these feelings substantially reversed. Is not that a sublime freedom? The Christian truth and He that brought it from heaven, came to confer this freedom. Combine in thought all these kinds of freedom, and think whether we shall be content to live in miserable captivity! Think