tion, much prevalence of the passions and habits of the old man over the principles and affections of the new, numerous instances in which sin is practically preferred to duty, the creature to the Creator, and earth to heaven. But, in the midst of these shortcomings and imperfections, the man who partakes of the redemption which is with God, is rescued, truly, vitally, consciously, and perpetually, from the reigning power of iniquity. Formerly he was its slave, in all the members of his body and in all the faculties of his mind-he willingly wore its galling chains-he actively performed its meanest drudgery-he implicitly surrendered himself to its tyrannical sway it said to him, Go, and he went, Do this, and he did it. As soon, however, as the redemption of the gospel is extended to him, the fetters of his spiritual enthralment are broken off sin no longer rules in him as one of the children of disobedience→→→ its servitude provokes his resistance, and he escapes from it—and, in whatever way, or through whatever channel, its ascendancy was wont to be maintained, it ceases to retain his ready homage, or to command his habitual submission. The enmity of the carnal mind is slain, and deprived of its power to lead him in hostile defiance against the authority of God. The blandishments of the world fail to engage him in its service, by promising to reward him with its pleasures, and ex

erting their thousand influences on the corrupt propensities of his heart. And even to the wiles of Satan, who had long led him captive at his will, he is enabled to set himself in decided oppo sition, to throw off the yoke of bondage under which he had been kept by that arch-enemy of his soul, and to resist his manifold and artful at tempts to keep him attached to those employments, and pursuits, and gratifications which degrade the character, and lead to endless perdition.

In all these respects, he finds, that the redemp tion to whose privileges and benefits he is admitted, is a plenteous redemption. There is not a partial reform, but a total revolution in the government of his heart and life. "Old things are done away-all things are become new" in his moral state. The supremacy which sin had possessed over him by nature, and more firmly secured by practice, is overturned. The victory is decisive in the feeling and experience of his own mind. Even when in an unguarded moment, or from the strength and the suddenness of temptation, he is drawn aside from the path of righteousness and prevailed upon to indulge in forbidden joy, he is sensible that this is but a temporary though criminal dereliction of the conquest that has been won for him by the mercy and the Spirit of God; and in the promise that sin shall not now have dominion over him, he recognises a security

and an encouragement by which he is animated to maintain that liberty wherewith Christ has made him free. And though he And though he may still find "a law in his members warring against the law of his mind," and occasionally "bringing him into captivity to the law of sin which is in his members," yet there is a provision in the scheme of salvation for upholding him in the mastery he has acquired over the devil, the world, and the flesh; there is a rich assurance that this merciful and necessary provision will be carried into full effect; and there is the certain prospect of the triumph being completed and matured, when the believer to whom it has been vouchsafed shall enter into that holy and happy region, where nothing that defileth can ever enter, and where the plenteousness of redemption from the dominion of sin shall be experienced in its literal sense, in its full value, and in its uninterrupted perpetuity.

3. In the third place, this plenteous redemption implies deliverance from the common distresses of humanity.

These are the effects of sin; and in proportion as the power of sin is subdued, and the prevalence of sin circumscribed, will their severity be diminished. As sin, however, still maintains its ground and works its mischief, in a present world, bodily and outward affliction continues to cleave to the lot even of those who have embraced the

redemption of the gospel. Enjoying all the benefits which that redemption brings to them, in this imperfect state, they are yet "born to trouble," and have to sustain it through life, in all its multiplied forms, and in all its various degrees. But they are redeemed even here from whatever renders the sufferings of mortality intolerable. Having been forgiven and accepted, they no longer regard these as the tokens of God's avenging wrath, but as the chastisements of his parental discipline. They are no longer called to endure them unsupported and unsolaced, for strength and consolation are communicated to them, suitable to the nature, the extent, and the duration of every calamity with which they can be visited. And they are no longer doomed to bear them as unconnected with the prospects of a better state, of an unsuffering kingdom, for the gospel opens up to them the scenes of immortality, where no disease shall invade their bodies, where no sorrow shall wound or oppress their spirits, where no misfortune shall ever cloud their view, and where death with all its anxieties and agonies shall be known no more.

Herein, therefore, is the redemption of the gospel plenteous, even as affecting our present outward circumstances, that though it does not exempt from temporal afflictions, it plucks out their sting and mitigates their pressure; it secures beyond all

doubt, not merely their termination, but their termination in a state of existence, forming a perfect contrast with that which they now so darken and deform; it converts them into blessings by making them the instruments of God's paternal kindness, and subservient to the progressive improvement and everlasting welfare of those upon whom they had been inflicted. And while the contemplation of them, as treated and influenced by the gospel, cannot fail to give us a strong impression of the abundance of the redeeming mercy which God exercises with respect to them, that impression must be strengthened and confirmed by recollecting the experience of all to whom the redemption has been revealed in its power, and its preciousness, for they have been brought to rejoice in tribulation of whatever kind, to triumph over death in its most horrible shape, to welcome the trials and the pains from which unsanctified nature shrunk with instinctive aversion and alarm, as the best blessings which heaven had to bestow, and to glory in them as conducive to their moral perfection, and as preparatory to their future blessedness.

4. In the fourth place, this plenteous redemption implies, that provision is made for the entire restoration and perfect felicity of those for whom it is prepared.

The views we have hitherto taken of it have