deplore above all things, their degree of unfitness; but fit they are, through the worthiness of the Lamb, whose blessed gospel they have embraced in the sincerity of their souls; and the fruits of which they desire and labour to manifest, and do manifest, more and more, in their characters and lives. Every day do they give thanks for the present light afforded to their understandings and their hearts; every day for the hope, in which they live, of everlasting light hereafter, with saints and angels in their inheritance of glory: "By the grace of God they are what they are:" To them the benefit: to God the praise. Go on, ye faithful servants; yea go your way, grateful and rejoicing. Is there not a cause? Has not the Lord already done great things for you? Have you not found, in your reconciled God, abundance of comfort, a "multitude of peace?" Yes, the heavenly Shepherd has led you mercifully and safely and you will borrow the harp of David, and sing His praise: "He maketh me to lie down 66 in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.-Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." * *Psal. xxiii. 2. 3. 6. SERMON XVI. THE NEW STATE OF THE REDEEMED. COL. i. 13. 14. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son: In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. IN the verse before the text, the Apostle had called upon his disciples at Colossë, to "give thanks to the Father, which had made them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:" and here he reminds them of the means, by which this mighty change, this unspeakable blessing, had been obtained; by THE NEW STATE OF THE REDEEMED. 275 their having been delivered from the power of darkness, and having been translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. "From the power of darkness"-a very remarkable expression: as the privileges and benefits, enjoyed by the true believers and followers of Jesus, are so frequently in scripture described by the figure of light, so the state, in which they previously were before their conversion, is appropriately described as a state of darkness. It was a state, in which they could see and know nothing of their real condition and happiness; a state of moral and spiritual ignorance; and one which must have terminated, had they been left to themselves, in the darkness of eternal death. They knew indeed by experience, that they were under the dominion of violent passions, and lived in the disgraceful and wretched habits of vice: but they knew not whence these evils arose, nor whither they were leading; neither could they discover for them any adequate remedy. Some of the wiser of them, it is true, laid down rules for the improvement of moral conduct, and talked of the excellency and rewards of virtue; but so far were these sages and philosophers from making any considerable impression upon their fellow-creatures, that they were commonly but little influenced themselves, by their own boasted maxims of wisdom and truth. Whence arose that system of evil, that prevalence of iniquity, which they vainly sought to correct; whence that disturbing of the conscience, occasioned by their wicked deeds, they were profoundly ignorant. The heathen knew nothing of the woeful fall of man; of his natural enmity against his Almighty Creator, and of the consequent deluge of vice and misery, which thence had overspread the world. And if they had arrived at any certain knowledge of these things, they would have been altogether unacquainted and unprovided with the means of their reconciliation to an offended God: they had nothing to offer, but repentance and future |