resorted to ward off the thoughts of death, have failed in the trying hour to pacify conscience, and the death-bed of the sinner has presented a scene of the most harrowing description. And if the curtains of the sick-bed were drawn, if the friendly guards were removed, and we were permitted to receive the dying confessions of those who have lived without God in the world, we could produce more numerous examples. Certain it is that the most careless and undaunted of the votaries of sin have their moments of alarm, indicating too surely the state of bondage in which they are held. That man cannot be said to be, for a single hour of his lifetime, free from the fear of death, who is liable every moment to be seized with terror at its approach, to startle at its shadow whenever it crosses his path, and to be filled with consternation when it overtakes him. In him the curse has truly taken effect, "Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life." 1

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II. Of the deliverance from this misery. Through death,” i. e. his own dying, "he delivered" or ransomed "them who, through fear of death, were all their life subject to bondage." On this part of the subject we shall not at present dwell particularly.

The deliverance is twofold-from death itself, and from the fear of death, through which sinners are kept in bondage. It was the promise of Christ, "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; Ö grave, I will be thy destruction." But this could not be effected by mere power or force. Sinners were legally and justly doomed to death, and a ransom behoved to be paid to justice. This ransom was the life of the Redeemer. By becoming their surety, assuming their nature, and taking their place, he became obnoxious to death. "The Lord laid on him the iniquities of them all ”—inflicted on him the punishment due to them. The death which they had incurred, he endured in all its extent not merely the separation of soul and body, but the second death. It was not necessary that his punishment, like theirs, should be eternal, because his sufferings and death had an infinite value in them, arising from the divinity of his person. But the cup put into his hand, and which he drank, had all the essential ingredients of that which was prepared for them. Accordingly, he suffered in his soul, not only from the malice of men and devils, but by the hand of his Father, as a righteous Judge, pressing sore on him. He fell under the fear of death, and was bound with its cords, though it could not make a slave of him, nor reduce him to despair. "In the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared." In the prospect of his death, "he began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy," and cried

1 Deut. xxviii. 66.

2 Hos. xiii. 14.

8 Heb. v. 7.

out, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." He not only suffered from the terrors of death, but endured its stroke. And by dying he satisfied divine justice, expiated sin, and obtained eternal redemption for his people. Meritoriously he perfected their deliverance on the cross; and this was judicially declared by his resurrection from the dead, when God loosed the pains of death, and justified him in the Spirit.

By his death, the apostle tells us in the preceding verse, our Lord destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." All the power which Satan possessed was owing to sin-this was the sceptre of his dominion. By the expiation of sin, Christ undermined the throne of Satan. These words, "It is finished," uttered on the cross, and accompanied by the act which verified them, "bowing his head and giving up the ghost," were like the handwriting on the wall to Belshazzar, Mene, Tekel. They carried the sentence of death into the conscience of Satan; he felt his strength taken from him, his kingdom departed. After this, he had no power by death to injure one of those for whom Christ died. Though allowed to inflict on them the stroke of natural death, still he could not harm them; for sin being taken away, death becomes powerless, as a venomous creature which has lost its sting. The seed of the woman hath bruised the head of the serpent. Strange victory! Wonderful deliverance! Who could have supposed that any person would have destroyed the power of death by becoming its prey? There have been many instances of combatants wresting from an enemy his weapon, and by means of it inflicting on him a deadly blow; but when was it heard that a person killed his enemy by receiving the death-blow himself? Christ was vulnerable only in the heel of his humanity. Satan saw this, and, aiming the stroke successfully, brought him to the dust of death; but that fall proved fatal to himself!

Now, this redemption is applied to sinners in the day of believing, when they are justified or legally acquitted. Then they are actually set free from the sentence of condemnation, and adjudged to life. "He that believeth on the Son of God shall have everlasting life, and shall never come into condemnation, but hath passed from death unto life." And while, through the death of Christ, they are delivered from the penal consequences of death,-through faith in his death they are set free from the fear of death, and from the bondage which it engenders. God, who sent his Son to redeem them from the curse of the law, sends the Spirit of his Son into their hearts, enabling them to approach him as a reconciled God, with the fearless confidence of children. They "have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption, whereby they cry, Abba, Father." Thus are they brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God, and, amidst all their tribulations, are made to rejoice in hope of the glory of God. They have

still to endure the external stroke of temporal death, but its "bitterness is past," or rather it is extracted by their Redeemer. Its moral nature is altered. It comes to them in the channel, not of the old, but of the new covenant-not as a curse, but as a blessing. They are exalted above the slavish dread of the last enemy, and are enabled to raise the song of triumph, even before the victory is achieved, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord!"

Perhaps it may appear strange that I should have insisted so long on the first part of my subject, and so as to abridge the time due to the second part, which is of greater importance in itself, and much more agreeable. But I have my reasons for this, both general and particular. Suffice it to say at present, that to those who have never felt aright the misery which we have been describing, the Gospel will not be glad tidings. Though all unrenewed men are subject to the fear of death, and are kept in bondage through it all their lifetime, yet such is the fallacious and hardening nature of sin, that it prevents them from realising the full extent of their misery and danger, and lulls them into a temporary security, disturbed only by vague and undefined alarms. There is, therefore, a salutary fear of death, which it is one design of revelation to awaken in the breasts of sinners, and without which they would never be induced to flee for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them in the Gospel. For this purpose does the law of God unfold to us our real condition as sinners, and discover to us the miserable bondage in which we are held, by revealing to us "the terrors of the Lord." If the sorrows of death have not compassed you, if the pains of hell never got hold of you, so as to make you sensible of this bondage, you can feel no interest in the salvation which the Gospel reveals. This is one great reason why we ministers labour in vain, and our report is believed by so few. We preach Christ to you-we tell you of his incarnation, of his gracious errand, his sorrowful life, his accursed death. You hear all this, you allow it to be true: you feel obliged to so benevolent a friend, and desirous to testify some gratitude to him. We tell you farther that this person was the Son of God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and yet he humbled himself, and paid for our redemption a price of infinite value-the blood of God. This throws an air of mysterious solemnity over the theme, and converts your gratitude into astonishment. But is this the faith of the Gospel? Is this gladly to receive the word? Is there anything here corresponding to the avidity with which the thirsty soul comes to the cooling spring? with which the captive hears the proclamation of liberty? with which the man-slayer, pursued by the avenger, fled to the city of refuge?

If, however, we can once succeed in convincing men of their sin and

danger, in fixing the sentence of death within their consciences, and in making them cry out, under a sense of their guilt and apprehension of future wrath, "What must we do to be saved?" our work is half done. When the arrows of the Almighty have entered their soul, and the poison thereof has drank up their spirits, O how ardently does the parched conscience pant for the refreshing tidings of pardon! How eager to receive the proffered cup of salvation, yea, to snatch it, ere it be half filled, from the hands of the administrator!

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SERMON XIII.

THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”NUMB. Xxiii. 10.

THERE are two things which, provided we could establish them on good evidence, would go far, with all considerate minds, to settle the question as to the value of practical godliness. The one is the pleasure which it yields during life, and the other the advantages which accrue from it at death. Now I know not more competent and unexceptionable witnesses to the former than the persons who have led a godly life; and if you were to take their solemn depositions on their deathbed, though some of them might be disposed to express themselves with great diffidence as to their future prospects, yet you would find all of them ready to bear witness that the happiest hours which they spent on earth were those which they devoted to religion; and that their only regret was that the things of God and eternity had not occupied more of their time and attention. Thus far "wisdom is justified of her children." And with respect to the second point-the advantages of religion in death-can you, my brethren, direct me to a witness more worthy of credit than an ungodly man, in the possession of health and the pursuit of riches? Well, then, you have the testimony of such a man in the text, bearing directly on the question, expressed in the most decided manner, and filling up the only blank which the humility or the timidity of some of the former class of witnesses had left in the evidence: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

It was God's usual method (and it became him) to convey the knowledge of his will to the church by "holy men." Not that their character constituted the ground on which their messages were to be received; for our faith must rest on the authority of God, and not on the goodness or wisdom of men. But, on the other hand, their good qualities are not to be altogether overlooked. "They believed, and therefore spake." They inquired and searched diligently into the things revealed to them, and imparted them with lively impressions of their truth, necessity, and importance. They staked their own eternal interests upon them. Knowing the terror of the Lord, they persuaded men to