freedom and liberty the Son of God, the Avenger of our blood, offers and prefents you with it is a liberty never enough to be wondered at, that ever the Son of God should have taken our nature, a nature inferior to that of angels, in order to his having the right of redemption as our Kinsman and Avenger, who had violate the law, trampled upon the authority of his Father; that he should come from Edom and Bozrah dying his garments with his own blood, and the blood of his enemies, in order to our release. Oh, máy we not cry out with admiration, as the church doth in the ft verfe, "Who is this that cometh !" O who would ever thought that he would have undertaken fuch an expedition, on our behalf! And then will you, confider, that this diberty we proclaim to you, it was purchafed with a great fum, as that captain faid, Acts xxii. 28." With a great fum obtained I this freedom." It cost our Kinfman dear, not filver and gold, but the very blood of his heart. It is the most real freedom; it is not an imaginary thing, no, " If the Son make you free, you fhall be free indeed." It is a glorious freedom; you fhall be preferred unto the glorious liberty of the children of God, you fhall be fellow-heirs with the general affembly of the firit-born, who are all heirs of God, joint-heirs with Chrift. And your li berty fhall not laft for a day; a year, or an age, but it shall lash for ever; you thall have a final difcharge and: manumiflion, neither fin nor Satan fhall any more have dominion over you, if you will accept of this liberty that our Kinsman and Avenger of our blood offers and proclaims to you. Indeed Satan and fin may tempt you, and endeavour to reduce you under your former flavery, but they fhall never be able, no man, no devil, fhall ever be able to pluck you out of the hands of our Kinfman; you shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto falvation. O Sirs, fhall not fuch a liberty be greedily accepted? Unto all 1 fhall only add, that although the Son of God paid dear for this liberty that he proclaims to you, yet you have it for nothing; no terms, no hard condition required of you, only accept of freedom, and you fhall be free indeed: no money, no price, only go forth.

Mot. 3.

detain you in

Confider, Sirs, that the devil he has no law-right to in his captivity; he lost his right when juftice was fatisfied by the blood of our Kinfman. What right has the jailor to keep a perfon in prifon when the judge is fatisfied by a friend, and the debt completely paid to the creditor? So that it is wrongous imprifonment, especially after the King's proclamation of liberty is iffued out. But I will tell you more, the devil, as he has no right, fo he has no power to detain you prifoners or captives againft your own will. Indeed the devil

bas

has blinded the understanding, and fo perverted the will, that they are volunteers in his fervice, they willingly walk after his commandment; but the devil can force no man's will; if once you were but willing, heartily willing, to be liberate from Satan's bondage, the bufinefs were done. O Sirs, put your wills in the hand of our Kinfman, that, according to his promife, he may make you willing in the day of his power. But O what encouragement is it to you to accept of freedom, that the devil has neither right nor power to detain you his prifoners contrary to your own will !

Mot. 4. By accepting of this liberty, you will make glad the heart of Chrift, and make our Kinfman fee the travel of his foul. He travelled in foul in order to obtain our freedom from the power of fin and Satan ; yea, he travelled till his foul was exceeding forrowful even unto death: O! will you you be founkind, after all his hard and fore travel, as to deny him that fatisfaction which he defires fo much, namely to fee you fairly freed from the hands of Satan? And, on the other hand, it will affront him, it will grieve him to the heart, if you remain in your chains under the power of Satan, refufing to be delivered from the power of that enemy, after he has invaded his kingdom, and destroyed him through his own death O how did he weep over Jerufalem, who refused the relief and freedom that he proclaimed to them in the days of his flesh! he said with tears, "O that thou, even thou, in this thy day, hadft known the things which belong unto thy peace! He would have gathered them, as the hen gathers her brood under her wings, but they would not.”

Mot. 5. You will gratify the devil, if you reject this offered liberty, and give him an occafion of infulting over our glorious Redeemer, as if his bondage were better than Chrift's liberty that he has been at fo much coft to purchafe. And O, can you find in your hearts to furnish that enemy with an oppor tunity of upbraiding our glorious Redeemer? But, on the other hand, if you accept of this liberty and freedom which Chrift offers you, it will gall the enemy at the very heart ; for, as I was faying in the doctrinal part, it is a day of galling vengeance unto Satan, when he fees a poor creature going out of his prifon, and going in to Chrift's fide. So then, would you do the devil a dif-fervice (I am fure you owe him nothing), then accept of the freedom and liberty which our glorious Avenger purchased with his blood, and proclaims to every one of you in this glorious gospel.

To all which I fhall only add, that if you do not, your rain is of yourselves, and your blood fhall be upon your own head. how juft will your condemnation be, who had liberty in

your

your offer, and yet choofed rather to continue in the devil's chains! Surely your bonds cannot mifs to be made stronger, and your condemation shall be more just than that of the devil himfelf; for the devil never had liberty offered him, other wife he would accept of it with all his heart; but for finners under the drop of the gospel, they had life, liberty, and falvation proclaimed to them, and yet preferred death to life, bondage to liberty, damnation to falvation.

Object. You prefs us to accept of liberty from Satan's bondage; but what if Chrift never defigned or decreed that liberty for me, if I be not among the elect I shall never get free of my bondage. Anfw. This objection is just one of the wiles that the devil makes ufe of to diffuade Ginners from attempting to get free of his fervice and dominion; it is a mere fophifm, and when it is rightly confidered, it is as weak as water: for it is just all one as if a company of prifoners lying under fentence of death, when their prifon doors are opened, their jailor. bound neck and heel, and the king's proclamation intimate to the prifoners to come forth; I say, it is just as if the prisoners, in this cafe, fhould begin to fay, Though the prifon be opened, and the king's proclamation read in our hearing; yet we do not know if the king has an intention or defign in his heart that we fhould take the advantage and make our escape, we do not know if he intends that we fhould lie continual prifoners; and therefore we will just lie ftill where we are. Who would not reckon the prifoners a company of madmen who would argue at fuch a rate? Why, how is the king's mind to be known but by his overt act or proclamation? So here the devil tells you, that you need not accept of liberty from fin and Satan, because you do not know if Chrift has defigned this liberty for you. Why, how fhall you ever know the mind of Chrift but by his word, his proclamation of grace, which is the very picture of his thoughts and defigns? O Sirs, look ay into the heart of God, and the defigns of God by his words of grace, his acts of grace, his proclamations of grace; and if you do, you shall find nothing but grace and love, and mercy in his heart to you: but if you will take the devil's way, and look to God's heart and fecret thoughts, without looking to his words, and believing what he speaks to you, there is no help for it, you fhall perish with the devil.

- Objects. You bid us accept of freedom from Satan's bondage;' but alas our bands are fo strong that we have no power to hake them off, or accept of this liberty. Anfw. The question' between Chrift and you is not, Are you able to quit the devil's bondage and flavery? But the question is, Are you will

ing? And if you be but willing to be made free, all the devils in hell cannot detain' you. 3

Object. There indeed lies the ftrefs of the matter, my will has got such a woful caft, that I cannot get it bended toward this offered freedom. An/w. If the iron finew of the obftinate will be too strong for thee to bend, put it in the hand of Chrift thy bleffed Kinfman, that he may do the work for thee, "Thy people fhall be willingneffes in the day of thy power." And O it is a fweet evidence of a foul already made willing, that he is groaning under the fenfe of the backwardness of his heart to yield to the call of Chrift. And for your encouragement to put your obftinate will in his hand, you have him bound by promife to do the work, even to take away the ftony heart, and to give the heart of flesh, that is, to mafter the enmity and obftinacy of the heart and will against him: O plead the promife, believe the promise, put him to his word, and purfue him upon his word before a throne and court of grace; for he never faid nay to a person that took this method. And then it is the pleasure of Chrift to take vengeance upon Satan, by driving out the devil's poifón of enmity and obftinacy from the heart of the finner. And therefore let the words of my text be a ground of faith to you as to this matter, For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come. Lord blefs his word.

The

Is. lxiii. 4.-For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

THE FIFTH SERMON ON THIS TEXT.

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Y fecond exhortation from the doctrine is this, If it be fo that our bleffed Goel, our kind, Kinfman and Redeemer, has avenged our quarrel upon Satan, by invading his kingdom, counteracting his projects for our ruin, by laying his first-born, by wrefting the keys of death and hell out of his hand, and laying him under chains of darkness, unto the judgement of the great day, and the like; I fay, has our Kinfman done all s in the refentment of our quarrel against that enemy? O

then let this encourage you to put your truft under the fhadow of his wings, commit the keeping of your fouls, and of all your everlafling concerns, unto him, for our Kinsman careth for you; if he had had no care about us, or kindness for us, would he ever have spent his blood, and dyed his garments in our quarrel? O Sirs, whom will we ever truft, if we do not truft him, who came travelling in the greatness of his ftrength, to engage with, and deftroy the powers of hell, for the injury they had done us? O how excellent is that lovingkindness which excited and engaged him to undertake this expedition! What amazing love to loft finners of Adam's family breathe in these words, when viewed as a threatening against the powers of hell, The day of vengeance is in mine heart! Now, I fay, the duty, and the firft duty, that this grace and love of our glorious Kinfman fhould engage us to, is to confide and trust in him. This is the very leading defign of the gofpel, and of the whole revelation of the word concerning Chrift; and therefore be exhorted to fall in with it, and truft this kind Friend that sticks closer than a brother. This is a matter of the laft importance and concern to every one that hears the gofpel, and upon which the happiness or misery of the precious foul through an endless eternity doth depend; therefore, to clear the exhortation a little, I thall obviate and answer a few questions.

Queft. 1. What is it that you call us to, when you bid us truft this kind Friend, this Redeemer of our blood?

I answer, . It neceffarily fuppofes a deep and hearty concern about falvation or deliverance from that thraldom, bondage, and mifery that we are brought under by Satan and his firstborn fin. O Sirs, you who never yet faw yourselves to be the devil's prifoners, under the power of the guilt and filth of fin by virtue of a broken law, and who were never brought under a deep and hearty concern how to make your efcape, crying, with the jailor, "What fhall I do to be faved?" whatever may be your pretenfions of trufting in Chrift, they are but all hypocritical and notional; for "the law is our school-master, to lead us unto Chrift, that we may be justified by faith.”

2. This truft has in it a cordial approbation of the perfon and undertakings of our bleffed Kinfman and Redeemer, in order to our freedom and delivery from this bondage to fin and Satan, an approbation of it as a method worthy every way of Infinite Wisdom, and of all others moft fuited and adapted to the glory of God, and fafety of the finner. Whenever a finner is awakened, and hath his eyes opened to take up his loft and ruined condition, thefe two questions very naturally caft up, viz. How fhall God be glorified? and how fhall ever I be VOL. II. faved

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