thine; and to thee I cheerfully furrender them. The work of thine own hands fhall be thine by my free and full confent; and I renounce all claim to myself that is not dependent upon and fubordinate to thee.' Again, the providence of God towards you has made you his abfolute property; and on this footing he claims your fervice. You could no more fupport yourselves in being, than you could give being to yourselves at firft. Who but he has preferved you alive for fo many months and years; preferved you fo frail and precarious, furrounded with fo many dangers, and expofed to fo many wants? Whofe earth have you trod upon? Whose air have you breathed in? Whofe creatures have you fed upon? The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, Pfalm xxiv. 1. and confequently all the fupports and enjoyments, all the neceffaries and comforts of life are his. Show me the mercy, if you can, which you created. Mention the moment, if you can, in which you fupported your own life, independently of the Almighty. Show me that property of yours, if you can, which is fo independent upon you as you are upon him. This moment, if he fhould withdraw his supporting hand, you would inftantaneously become as entirely nothing as you were ten thousand years ago. If he fhould now ftrip you of all that is his, and only leave you what is originally your own, he would leave you nothing at all. The earth and all its productions, the air, the light, and your very being would be entirely vanished, and your place would be no more known in the creation. O! that you knew, O! that you felt, O! that you practically acknowledged how entirely you are dependent upon God! And dare you call yourselves your own, when you cannot fupport yourselves in being or in happiness one moment? O! renounce fo haughty a claim, and this day give up yourselves to God as his. A fon honoureth his father: and fince God is your Father, where is his honour? The dull ox knows

his owner, and the ftupid afs knows his master's crib; and will not you know and acknowledge your divine Benefactor and Preferver? He has nourished and brought you up as his children; and dare you rebel against him?

Thus you fee the divine right to you may be made. good upon the footing of creation and Providence. But this is not the foundation of right which the apostle here has in view, or which I would chiefly infift upon. The ground of claim that he has here in view, is that of redemption by Jefus Chrift; ye are not your own, fays he, for ye are bought with a price. This is a ground of claim ftill more endearing. You are God's not only because he made you, because he preferved you, but because he hath bought you; bought you, faith St. Peter, not with corruptible things, as filver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. What an expenfive purchase is this! a purchafe by blood! not by the blood of bulls and of goats, not by the blood of man, but by the blood of Jefus, which St. Paul does not fcruple to call the blood of God himself; the church of God, fays he, which he has purchased with his own blood. Acts xx. 28. This was the immenfe ranfom; this is what the apoftle calls a price, by way of eminence in my text; ye are bought with a price; a price fo vaft and distinguishable, that it may eafily be known without being particularly defcribed; every christian must know it, if he is but told that it is the price with which he was bought.

The words buying, purchase, ransom, redemption, and the like, occur fo often in the account of our falvation by Chrift, that they deserve a particular explication.

They are sometimes taken in a proper fenfe, and fometimes in an improper, in the facred fpriptures. I fhall particularly confider the word redeem, which moft frequently occurs as a fpecimen of the reft.

To

To redeem in a lax improper fenfe, fignifies in general, to deliver from oppreffion and mifery, in whatever way the deliverance is effected, and not neceffarily implying that it is effected by a proper payment of a price. So you very often read of the Ifraelites being redeemed from flavery in Egypt; and on this account God affumed the title of their Redeemer. In this lax sense of the word we have been redeemed by Jefus Chrift: redeemed, that is, delivered from flavery to fin and Satan. Our freedom from fin is called redemption by Christ in the facred language. So in Tit. ii. 14. the apoftle fays, Our Saviour Jefus Chrift gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. It is by Chrift's freely giving himfelf a facrifice for us, that the influences of the holy fpirit are procured to mortify our corrupt difpofitions, and fubdue the power of fin, and thus to free us from our fordid flavery to its ufurped jurifdiction. Sin has still retained its power over fallen angels: through the space of at least near fix thousand years, notwithstanding all the punishment they have already fuffered for it, and notwithstanding all that they have feen of the wonders of divine Providence, and the amiable and tremendous difplays of the divine perfections, they fin on, ftill impenitent and unreformed, and will do fo for ever. But many a finner of the race of man has been recovered to a state of holinefs and happiness, and been freed from the tyrannical dominion of fin. And the reafon is, Jefus did not give himself for the fallen angels, but for the fallen fons of Adam: for thefe, but not for the former, he purchased fanctifying grace; and this makes the difference. While the former are hardened more and more in wickedness in the furnance of hell, the fallen offspring of Adam are purified by his fpirit, and made a peculiar people, a people distinguishable from all others by their purity and zeal for good works, and peculiarly his above all others. St. Peter

alfo

alfo ufes the word redeem in the fame fenfe, to fignify deliverance from fin. Te know, fays he, that ye were redeemed from your vain converfation by the precious blood of Chrift. 1 Peter i. 18, 19. This is a very glorious redemption indeed, much more illuftrious than the deliverance of the Ifraelites from the Babylonish captivity and Egyptian bondage; which is fo often called Redemption.

Again, Jefus Chrift has redeemed; that is, delivered his people from the guilt of fin; and confequently from the wrath of God, and the punishments of hell. He obtained eternal redemption for his people. Heb. ix. 12. Jefus delivered us from the wrath to come. 1 Theff. i. 10. All the faints that are now in heaven, and all that shall be added to their happy number in all the future ages of the world, are indebted to him for their great, their everlafting deliverance. To Jefus they owe it, that they have the actual enjoyment of complete happiness, and the fure profpect of its everlasting continuance, instead of feeling the vengeance of eternal fire. To Jefus they owe it, that they rejoice for ever in the smiles of divine love, inftead of finking under the frowns of divine indignation. To Jefus they owe it, that they enjoy the pleafures of an applauding confcience, instead of agonizing under the pangs of guilt, and the horrors of everlafting defpair. To Jefus they owe it, that their voice is employed in fongs of praise and triumph, instead of infernal groans and howlings. To Jefus they are indebted for all this; and they are very fenfible of their obligations; and their everlafting anthems acknowledge it. St. John once heard them, and I hope we fhall hear them ere long, finging with a loud voice, Thou art worthy; for thou waft flain, and haft redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. Rev. v. 9. These are they which were redeemed from the earth, and from among men, as firft-fruits unto God and the Lanib.-Rev. xiv. 3, 4.

Thus

Thus you fee that taking the word Redemption in a lax improper fenfe, as fignifying deliverance, though without a price, that we may be faid to be bought or redeemed by Jefus Chrift. But if we take the word in a ftrict and proper fenfe, it fignifies a particular kind of deliverance; namely, by the payment of a price. And it is in this way that Jefus redeemed his people. He gave himself, fays St. Paul, a ranfom for all. 1 Tim. ii. 6. And himself has told us, the Son of man came to give his life a ransom for many. Matt. xx. 28. Now a ranfom is a price paid to redeem a thing that was forfeited, or a person that was held in captivity and flavery. So to redeem an eftate, is to pay a price equivalent to it, and fo to recover it. To redeem a prisoner or a captive, is to lay down a price as an equivalent for his liberty. In this fenfe Chrift bought his people with a price, or redeemed them with his blood as the ranfom. This will lead us to conceive of his work in our falvation in various views.

He is faid to redeem us to God by his blood. Rev. v. 9. This implies that we were loft to God, because justice required we fhould be given up to punishment, and God could take no pleasure in us. We were loft to God, juft as a criminal delivered up to juftice is loft to his family and his country. But Jefus pays the ranfom to divine juftice with his own blood; that is, he bears the punishment in his own person, which juftice demanded of the finner; and hereupon the poor, helpless,loft finner is recovered to God, becomes his property again upon the footing of mercy, and recovers the divine favour which he had loft. The bleffed God, as it were, recovers his loft creature, receives him with delight from the arreft of juftice safe and unhurt, and rejoices over him as redeemed from eternal death. Now, like the Father of the prodigal in the parable, he gives orders for public rejoicings through all the heavenly court, faying, It is meet we fhould make merry and be glad, for this my Son was VOL. II. dead,

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