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were all their life-time subject to bondage." To the evil which is here recog nized, and to the deliverance from it which is here declared, we desire this evening to call your devout attention, and may God the Holy Spirit be present to render our meditations effectual to the good of our souls.

As to the evil which is here recognized, you observe, it is-death. There is, what may be called, the outer regions of death. Death has established its dominion over nature-over the physical portion of the universe. All the material forms of existence with which we are acquainted-all those forms of existence that have become organised, are doomed to die and perish. This is true of the vegetable-true of the insect, and the animal creation; this is the condition of their existence. Their present forms of being must, ere long, disappear and pass away; but, this does not involve the destruction or annihilation of those elements of which these existences are composed. The elements of their being, remain; it is only the form that is destroyed. You may take any material thing you please-you may crush it-you may burn it-you may reduce it to a liquid, or you may reduce it to smoke and vapour, but still the constituent elements of organism remain; it is only the form that is destroyed. There is a change for use, and the change involves loss-the loss of that which gives cohesion, symmetry, gracefulness, and form; the loss of that principle which we name, but which we do not know-the principle of life. And this will illustrate what is going on in the inner regions of nature, where death also prevails. Man is made subject to death. Man is composed of body and of soul-of a material frame, which has enshrined an immaterial mind. The body dies-dies like the tree; dies like the insect; dies like the beast. It withers like the grass; it fades and droops like the flower; it falls like the tree. It is exposed to accident; it is exposed to disease; it is exposed to age and decay. The body of the man, like the body of the animal, is convulsed, and palpatates, and gasps; it falls and droops, and then sinks into insensibility and stillness; but, is not annihilated! "Man dieth and wasteth away: man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" The dust returns to the earth as it was! There is a change for use—a change, involving loss; that which was within-that which constituted the principle of life-that mysterious principle is gone.

The body remains in a state of contrescence and decay; it dissolves-it perishes! yet the elements of which it is composed, remain; but pass into other forms of existence. Death has laid its hand upon the soul as well as the body. The soul shall die! but the death of the soul doth not involve its annihilation. If the death of the body does not involve its annihilation, how can we conceive of the death of the soul involving its annihilation? There is not even dissolution here; because the soul is not an organized thing. The soul is not compounded, it is not divisible; the soul is of a spiritual nature it is immaterial; it is one. When it dies, it only experiences a change-a change of which no adequate type can be found anywhere in nature. A change, which the perishing of trees or plants, or the perishing of animals does but most inadequately illustrate: it is a change, involving a tremendous loss-the loss of that which would have prepared the soul for the worship and the devotion of heaven. The loss of all that was godlike and good; the loss of holiness; the loss of love; so that the soul becomes, if we may so speak, so much moral contrescence; fit only to be swept away with the beesom of divine destruction; swept away among the refuse of the universe.

The soul sins away its life, and brings upon itself the capital punishment of eternal death. The death of the body, my brethren, we shall all of us experience; that is inevitable. And if it had not been for that provision to which we shall hereafter refer, we should all of us know, by melancholy experience, what is involved in the death of the soul.

This, then, is the evil which is here represented, and there is a certain relation traced between it and Satan. The Devil is here spoken of as having the power of death." This cannot refer to any legitimate authority. This can

not refer to any jurisdiction which has been conceded by the Great Ruler of the universe. This dominion, whatever it is, is a usurped dominion: it is a sovereignty, if it be a sovereignty at all, unjustifiably claimed and exercised. This power over death cannot mean the power of inflicting death-physical deathaccording to his pleasure; for the lives of men are not in the hands of Satanthey are in the hands of Him who giveth life; who "killeth and maketh alive.' The keys of death and the grave are not among the regalia of Satan. No! but they are appended to the burden of Jesus Christ. Nor can this power mean that Satan has the power of inflicting eternal death; for if we look at eternal death as it is identified with character, eternal death is but the shadow of sin itself; it is, in fact, but another name for it. The man sins; thereby dies; but it is not Satan that inflicts the death, it is man that inflicts it himself; looking at eternal death as consisting in a change of circumstances, as consisting in the consignment over to the world of darkness and woe; for that depends not on the exercise of power on the part of Satan, but the exercise of power on the part of God; and when the soul is lost, it is not represented in Scripture as falling into the hands of the devil, but as falling into the hands of the "Living God." The devil, at the last day, will not send forth his angels to gather out of Christ's kingdom the "things that have offended," but Christ will send his own angels to do that. The everlasting fire is represented as prepared not by the devil and his angels, but for the devil and his angels. Satan is not the gaoler of hell, but Satan is himself a prisoner bound.

What then is meant by his having the " power over death ?" He has the power of leading men to sin; or rather, he has the power of tempting men to sin. And so great is his power in this respect, and so active and energetic is he in putting forth his power, that we have tremendous representations of the subject made to us in Holy Scripture. We hear of him as the "Prince of the power of the air." "The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." Those who sin are represented by the Apostle John as being of the devil: "He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning." These representations shew that Satan has tremendous influence in leading men astray, in persuading them to do that which is displeasing in the sight of God, and inasmuch as Satan leads men into the commission of sin, and thereby entails death, he may be said to have "power over death." As to temporal death, that was introduced into the world when man fell. It would seem, my brethren, that death is one of the conditions of nature; and it would also seem that God before man fell made a special provision in order to preserve him from death. We do not apprehend that before the fall the inferior creation was preserved from death; but man was preserved from death-man was an exception from the rest of the universe. Human nature was, if we may so speak, a bright isle of life floating in the midst of the vast ocean of death. Human nature was a fair enclose where all was life and beauty, surrounded by regions where death could, and where death did prevail. If man had remained in a state of innocence and purity, man would have retained his immortality and death would not have touched him, but when he sinned, then there was an end to his exemption from death. Then, as it were, the rock that girt the isle of life was swallowed up, a flood of death came in, and man was overwhelmed. The fence was broken down, the destroyer passed from the outer regions of nature into the inner regions, and led man on to sin; and inasmuch as the devil tempted man to sin, and thus led to the breaking down of the edge which was his preservation, Satan may be represented himself as the author of the evil; having introduced the cause, he introduced also the effect. "Sin entered into the world and death by sin." The devil brought sin into the world and brought death along with it-and in this sense he may be said to have the "power of it." And as to eternal death—that is produced by sin. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." And inasmuch as Satan tempts men to sin, and thereby exposes them to eternal death, he may be represented as having power

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over that death. But mark, with regard to both these things, the power of Satan is indirect it is not immediate; it is intermediate. He destroys the soul by tempting the soul to sin. He has destroyed the body by persuading men to become sinners. This power in neither respect is direct, it is intermediate. this point of view both form and power are alike, but there is an important respect in which this form and power differ. As far as Satan's power over temporal death is concerned it is absolute power. There is no possibility of your escaping temporal death. To the king of terrors we must every one of us bow. While Satan's power in reference to temporal death is absolute, Satan's power in reference to eternal death is conditional. You and I will not die eternally unless we bring eternal death upon ourselves through our voluntary rejection of Christ and his gospel. It is not in the power of Satan to inflict eternal death upon you and upon me; it is not in his power to force us to do that which will incur eternal death: it all depends upon whether we will embrace the gospel or not; whether we will become subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ or not. We may defy" the devil, we may "resist❞ him, so that he shall "flee from us.' We may, through grace, attain to the enjoyment of the "crown of glory that fadeth not away. We may defy him who has usurped so much authority in this world; we may bruise him under our feet." While Satan sustains that relation to death to which we have referred, we are also reminded by the text, that this death is the subject of fear to multitudes of our fellow men, and through such fear they are kept in bondage.

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What are we to understand by this fear of death? It is not, I apprehend, the fear of physical death, for four reasons:

1. The fear of physical death is constitutional. You observe the absence of it in many a bad man, and you observe the presence of it in many a good man. In its most aggravated form it amounts to nervous irritability, it amounts to physical disease; in its most mitigated form it is great, and comes of that principle of self-love which God has mercifully implanted in our nature.

2. The object of this fear is not destroyed in the case of Christ's saints. They have to die as well as others. All men die without any exception-the good as well as the bad, the sanctified as well as the depraved.

3. The removal of the fear of physical death could not, with propriety, be represented as the grand characteristic object which Christ came into the world to accomplish. To represent himself as coming to live and die just to remove the painful apprehension of death, which is so natural to us—to represent this as the grand object of Christ's coming into the world, would be amazingly to sink in our estimation the scriptural representation of that merciful design. And

4. In the case of many of God's saints the fear of death is not destroyed, it remains a source of great pain and sorrow. It is not, then, the fear of physical death to which the passage refers, It is the fear of eternal death-the fear of that "death which never dies;" that death which we have alluded to as the capital punishment of sin. And this, my brethren, may well be an object of fear; it is the most terrific thing that can be contemplated: the death of the body, that is nothing to it. Just to break the shell of humanity-just to strip off the rind-what is that compared with the smashing of the kernel ?-to destroy the body, what is that compared with the destruction of the soul? Think of paralyzing the soul, think of killing that, think of wrapping it up as it were in a shroud of flame and burying it in the grave of everlasting perdition! Think of it! Oh! then, the most terrific thing in the universe is this eternal death, and man may well be kept in bondage through fear of it. If a man really had it in prospect before him-if he saw it continually as it were lowering upon him if he saw this cloud of wrath ready to burst upon his path-if, amidst all the joys and all the pleasures of this life, he felt persuaded that he was at length to die for ever, and go down into the pit of eternal ruin—if he were to realize all the forms of suffering in this world as only typical of deeper

woes in the world to come-if in all his losses here he saw but a symbol of the great loss to be endured hereafter-if in all the pains of the body he felt that they were but presages of those pains that were hereafter to lay hold upon his soul-if he felt that death, which is here reigning in so many forms, was but the harbinger of a far worse death that was to come hereafter-Oh! if he felt this, his life would indeed through fear of death be kept in bondage. But observe, those of you who are not interested in Christ, who have not "fled for refuge to the hope set before you in the gospel," are really exposed to this death whether you have the fear of it or not; and if you have not the fear of it, this only shews your inconsistency; if you were not in a state of spiritual insanity you would fear the death which is before you. The first sign you can give of wisdom and reason, is to tremble at the thought of that death which is inevitable, if you do not secure an interest in Christ. And that conviction should lead you to repair to the cross of Christ, to seek the blood of the atonement, and that righteousness which will clothe your soul, and make you fit for heaven. The evil is recognised-the evil is death-Satan has power over it, and men are kept in bondage through fear of it.

Now let us look at the deliverance. We have seen the dark side of the passage, now let us look at the bright side of it. We are told that "Forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same." Here is the method of deliverance; here is the assumption of human nature; here is the endurance of death. Christ took upon him our nature-became a man; lived in this world like one of us-and submitted to death. He had a body-he had a soul. His body died-died a cruel and painful death; his body was bruised and wounded; it was lacerated with thorns; it was pierced with needles. He died the death of the cross-the death of a malefactor! He was hung on the tree; and men and women went to see him hanging on that tree, as men and women now go to see a malefactor executed. Yes! they went to see him crucified! But never was there such a sight before or since. All the people seemed to have been struck with something most miraculous in this scene; for we are told that all the people that came together to "that sight," beholding the things which were done, smote their breasts and returned. They had never seen such sorrow and tenderness before; they had never seen such anguish and such majesty combined; and they were stricken with amazement; they went away overwhelmed with astonishment. But besides the death of the body, there was the death of the soul-so far as his soul could die. We should correct our phraseology in speaking of the death of his soul, and speak of death in his soul, who "made his soul an offering for sin." My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." As far as it was possible for his pure, and innocent, and holy soul to know what the agonies of death were, Christ knew them. Guilt was legally transferred to him by a mysterious process, and the consequences of guilt were endured by him as the result of that transference. He died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." This was the method, and here you have also a description of the results.

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The results are described in two ways, "That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their life-time subject to bondage." The first representation, you observe, is-that he died in order "that he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil." Now this cannot mean that the devil is ever to be destroyed in the sense of being annihilated. Nor can it mean that at present the power of the devil is annihilated; that his agency is at end. Nor can this passage be regarded as representing merely what Jesus Christ did actually effect when he was upon the cross. It is plain that it also includes what he secured when he was upon the cross. Now, my brethren, when we look at this destruction of the devil, what are we to understand by it? We see in another passage, that Christ has

"abolished death." Now, we may be said that Christ has Christ has destroyed the devil. which all fallen souls will be in the atonement of Christ. But this destruction of satan seems to refer rather to his power than to his person-rather to his agency than to his state and feeling. There is an end to be put to his power-it is to be "abolished," it is to be "destroyed." The idea conveyed by this passage is tantamount to that conveyed by John when he says, For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." This is the first representation of the result.

apprehend that in the same sense in which it "abolished death," it may also be said, that Satan will be destroyed in the same sense in destroyed-all fallen souls that have not an interest

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Then there is a second; and I apprehend that the second is merely an extension of the first, for we have not here a statement of two distinct results, but of one result under two different aspects. The deliverance of those who, "Through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage," is an extension of the destruction of him who had the "Power of death." His power is destroyed by the emancipation of his captives-that seems to be the idea.

They are delivered. How? We do not thoroughly understand yet all that is involved in this deliverance; but there are three things with regard to this deliverance which we are warranted to say: First, They are delivered from eternal death: they are delivered from the consequences of sin; they are delivered from the dominion and the supreme power of sin; they are justified before God; they are renewed by his Spirit; they can rejoice in his favour; they become "New creatures in Christ Jesus;" the elements of death are destroyed; they have a title to the inheritance of the saints in light; they delight to prepare for it.

The fear of death, perhaps, in this world does not pass away, but death itself passes away, and we shall find when we get into the Jordan that death hath no dominion over us; we shall find that the object of our fear was but a shadow; that what we so much trembled at was only like a dark form, as it were, reflected from the cloud; we pass through the cloud, and leave the dark form behind, and that which so much inspired our terror turns out to be a phantom and shadow. And oh, brethren, the indescribable blessedness of those who, after having been in this world the subjects of fear, find, when they get to heaven, that there was no reason for their fear! Holy souls there have been whom we have known, who all their lifetime were Through fear of death subject to bondage." But, blessed be God, the hour in which they actually died was the hour in which they were emancipated from the "Fear of death," and their spirits took wing and ascended to the world where all is peace, and calmness, and joy. And thus Christ delivers his people-delivers them through death, from death eternal, the object of fear.

II. Jesus Christ so changes the character of death in the case of his people— so changes the character of temporal death-that instead of being a curse it becomes a blessing to the weary labourer in Christ's vineyard. The man that has borne the heat and the burden of the day-the man that has been working hard for years is taken to rest-falls asleep just like a weary toilsome labourer, and finds all peace, and all calmness, and all joy; and then at last he is awakened from this scene; his body is to be raised from the slumbers of the grave; his spirit is to come back, and to be united to his body, and humanity is to be perfected-it is to be " clothed," to be just like Christ's human nature-it is to be "transformed to the image of the Son."

III. Then once more. Christ delivers his people because he so preserves them during this life as that Satan does not gain the mastery over them. Satan may injure that which pertains to them, but Satan cannot destroy the soul itself, "That wicked one toucheth them not," so says the apostle John. We may illustrate this by referring to the case of Job: the devil had power over Job's possessions, he had power over Job's health, but he had no power over Job's life. God put that limit to his power-his life he was not to touch. And so it is with

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