case, my whole case. I know nothing. I reserve nothing. I deserve nothing. I am nothing but a poor lost sinner. Unless Thou undertake, I shall be for ever undone. Saviour, be patient with me. Spare me. Heal my diseases. Then will I give thee glory for ever, and spread thy fame through heaven and earth.

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CHAPTER XXVI.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

NEW things are more commended or less understood than Christian liberty. Most men praise it; not many maintain it. The vile Antinomian boasts of it, and casts off the cords of the moral law. The bigot praises it, and counts you a fool because you do not adopt his whims. The superstitious lauds it, and makes himself a slave of some imposture. The openly profane struts, and swaggers, and is the servant of corruption.

What then is Christian liberty? The comfort and usefulness of many are destroyed by not understanding this matter.

1. The first element of Christian liberty is freedom from the ceremonial law of Moses. At this time the Christian world is undivided respecting this matter. This was not always so. The apostles had much trouble, and even Peter was involved in dissimulation on the subject.

2. Believers are free from the moral law as a covenant of works. "Ye are not under the law, but under grace," Rom. vi. 14. "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ," Rom. vii. 4.

3. God's people are free from the penalty of the

moral law which we have all broken. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," Gal. iii. 13. The Judge himself, by his own most precious blood, has opened the prison doors, and said to the prisoners, Go free.

4. Christ sets his people free from the torments of a guilty conscience. They are not crushed with a sense of terrible condemnation. He, who has a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, is indeed in a sad plight. He has a hell upon earth. But the blood of Jesus Christ speaks as perfect peace to the conscience as it does at the throne of God.

5. Christ sets his people free from the reigning power of sin. The unconverted are the slaves of lust, of pride, of malice and of all iniquity. They are led captive by the devil at his will. But to his people, Christ makes good the promise, "Sin shall not have dominion over you.' He preaches deliverance to the captives and sets at liberty them that are bruised, Luke iv. 18.

6. Christ frees his people from the evil of afflictions, though not from afflictions themselves.

7. Jesus Christ also delivers his people, who, through the fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage-a dreadful bondage indeed.

Such are the chief elements of Christian liberty taken in the broadest sense. But

8. The liberty of Christians, while it makes them Christ's freemen, and binds them in chains of love to his service, DELIVERS THEM FROM THE ORDINANCES AND COMMANDMENTS OF MEN IN ALL MATTERS OF FAITH, WORSHIP AND MORALS. This is the sense in which the term Christian liberty is now most commonly used.

If God has made no law in these matters, we can do as we please. If he is silent, man's word is of no force.

That God has set his people free from the commandments of men in matters of faith is very evident. Jesus Christ alike forbade his servants to be called Master, or to call others Master. He expressly said that even the apostles should not be lords over his heritage. The apostles disclaimed all dominion over the faith of Christians. Churches have no power to alter, amend, enlarge, or diminish the creed given us in Scripture.

Nor can any church give Scriptural authority for claiming the right of ordaining ceremonies, and imposing forms upon the consciences of people; so that nonconformity shall be esteemed schism. If some such things were commended as decent or expedient, they might be comparatively harmless; but when they are exacted, they are worse than tolerable fooleries; they are engines of wickedness and cruelty.

The same is true of morals. That, which is not made sin by God's word, can never become so by the legislation of men. That, which is not in Scripture prescribed as a part of duty, can never become such by the canons of church authorities. tion of the law of God, or a want of divine precept. Nothing else is sin. forbidden what the decalogue required, and as often required what it forbade.

Sin is a violaconformity to a Men have often

The rules to be observed respecting all attempts to bind us in faith, worship or morals, by the commandments of men are such as these:

1. Never yield your liberty wherewith Christ hath

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made you free. Whether the laws of men shall be permitted to set aside divine statutes ought never to be a question among men. To oblige another, Paul would yield up all but his honour and his conscience; but when there is an attempt to invade his rights under form of law, he exclaims, "I am a Roman citizen;" and when they put his life in jeopardy, he exclaims, "I appeal to Cæsar." Rather than offend prejudices or hinder the gospel, he circumcised Timothy because of the Jews, which were in those quarters. Acts xvi. 3. This he did uncommanded. But when an attempt was made to enforce circumcision, he gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with" the churches. Gal. ii. 5. Wherever there is a clear attempt at domination, the rule of reason, of public spirit, and of Christian duty is one-Obsta principiis. Never yield an inch. Paul did not. Modern times. afford no brighter example of magnanimity and resistance to lawless power than that of John Hampden. Of him Richard Baxter said, he "was one that friends and enemies acknowledged to be most eminent for prudence, piety, and peaceable counsels, having the most universal praise of any gentleman that I remember of that age." Contrary to the constitution of England, Charles I. demanded an illegal tax of his subjects. The share of the general assessment demanded of Hampden on account of some of his estates in Buckinghamshire was but twenty shillings. But "the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle it was demanded, would have made Hampden a slave," said Burke. So felt that immortal man, and from the first he resisted. For so doing he has ever