fessing a kind of hope of freedom from death,--the
servants and vassals of corruption, who walk after the course of this
world, and fulfil the lusts and desires of their mind and flesh, yet
fancying a freedom and immunity from condemnation,--men living in sin, yet
thinking of escaping wrath,--which dreams could not be entertained in men,
if they did drink in all the truth, and open both their ears to the
gospel; if our spirits were not narrow and limited, and so excluded the
one half of the gospel, that is, our redemption from sin. There is too
much of this, even among the children of God,--a strange narrowness of
spirit, which admits not whole and entire truth. It falls out often, that
when we think of delivery from death and wrath, we forget in the mean time
the end and purpose of that, which is, that we may be freed from sin, and
serve the living God without fear. And if at any time we consider, and
busy our thoughts about freedom from the law of sin, and victory over
corruption, such is the scantiness of room and capacity in our spirits,
that we lose the remembrance of delivery from death and condemnation in
Christ Jesus. Thus we are tossed between two extremes,--the quicksands of
presumption and wantonness, and the rocks of unbelief and despair or
discouragement, both of which do kill the Christian's life, and make all
to fade and wither. But this were the way, and only way, to preserve the
soul in good ease,--even to keep these two continually in our sight, that
we are redeemed from death and misery in Christ, and that not to serve
ourselves, or to continue in our sins, but that we may be redeemed from
that sin that dwells in us, and that both these are purchased by Jesus
Christ, and done by his power,--the one in his own person, the other by his
Spirit within us. I would have you correcting your misapprehensions of the
gospel. Do not so much look on victory and freedom from sin as a duty and
task, though we be infinitely bound to it; but rather as a privilege and
dignity conferred upon us by Christ. Look not upon it, I say, only as your
duty, as many do; and by this means are discouraged from the sight of
their own infirmity and weakness, as being too weak for such a strong
party; but look upon it as the one half, and the greater half, of the
benefit conferred by Christ's death,--as the greater half of the redemption
which the Redeemer, by his office, is bound to accomplish. He will redeem
Israel from all his iniqui