of miseries that are connected with that practice of
buying and selling human flesh, and then estimate the magnificent
boldness of the metaphor which Peter does not scruple to take from it
here, speaking of the owner who acquired them by a price. And not only
that, but slaves will run away, and when they are stopped, and asked who
they belong to, will say they know nothing about him. And so here is the
runaway's denial, 'denying the Lord that bought them.' Now I ask you to
think of these three points.

I. Here we have the Owner of us all.

I do not need, I suppose, to spend a moment in showing you that this
relationship, which is laid down in our text, subsists between Jesus
Christ and men, and it subsists between Jesus Christ and all men. For
the people about whom the Apostle is saying that they have 'denied the
Lord that bought them' can, by no construction, be supposed to be true
Christians, but were enemies that had crept into the Church without any
real allegiance to Jesus Christ, and were trying to wreck it, and to
destroy His work. So there is no reference here to a little elected
group out of the midst of humanity, who especially belonged to Jesus
Christ, and for whom the price has been paid; but the outlook of my text
in its latter portion is as wide as humanity. The Lord--that is, Jesus
Christ--owns all men.

Let me expand that thought in one or two illustrations which may help to
make it perhaps more vivid. The slave's owner has absolute authority
over him. You remember the occasion when a Roman officer, by reflecting
upon the military discipline of the legion, and the mystical power that
the commander's word had to set all his men in obedient activity, had
come to the conclusion that, somehow or other, this Jesus whom he
desired to heal his servant had a similar power in the material
universe, and that just as he, subordinate officer though he was, had
yet--by reason of the fact that he was 'under authority,' and an organ
of a higher authority--the power to say to his servant, 'Go,' and he
would go; and to another one, 'Come,' and he would come; so this Christ
had power to say to disease, 'Depart,' and it would depart; and to
health, 'Come,' and it would come; and to all the material forces of the
universe, 'Do this,' and obediently they would do it. That is the
picture, in another region, of the relation which Jesus Christ bears to
men, though, alas, it is not the picture of the relation which men bear