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DELIVERED BY THE REV. GIDEON DE JOUX,
AT ST PETER'S CHURCH, JERSEY, JULY 17, 1831.

John, viii. 36.—“If therefore the Son shall make you free, then shall you be free indeed."

THE first question which occurs to us in reading these words must have presented itself to us in a thousand different circumstances of our lives. And the answer, which cannot here be denied it, without broadly belying the truth contained in our text, will yet be contradictory of that with which the same question has a hundred times before being answered. The question is—“Am I free?" And if we believe the word of the Son of GOD we must answer--“That we are not free," for we cannot be free except the Son hath made us free. Observe, I am now speaking to the natural man. And yet there is not one here who has not in the daily occurrences of life, remained some time in suspense with regard to some one contemplated action or other. You all have felt that there were things which you might or might not do. If done, you feel that you had it in your power not to have done them. If not done, you equally feel that you had it in your power to have done them. And were I to say to you now that whichsoever way you determined to act, you were constrained thereto, you would answer at once,—that it rested

VOL. II.

altogether with yourselves,—that it was a matter of mere choice, and with regard to which you were entirely free. You are then free-and on the other side you are not free, until the Son has freed you. Here are two contradictory propositions.

are true.

Which is true? Both You are free and you are

not free. You are free to walk or to sit; to buy or not to buy; to sell or not to sell; to eat or to drink; you are free to do all that it appertains unto the natural man to do, that is to say, you are free to act according to your nature, which is carnal, but you are not free to think, to feel, or to act in a spiritual manner; because it appertains not to your nature. As you cannot live in water like fishes, neither in fire, nor fly in the air like birds, so you cannot live a spiritual life like the regenerate man. But here, my brethren, we often mistake. The natural man well directed, outwardly lives like the spiritual man. He does no murder-he steals not

he commits not adultery—he wrongs not his neighbour-he gives alms-he is kind—he will even lay down his life, for that he holds to be his duty but in all this he is led by natural motives.

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Whatever he does, he does by constraint or interest, through a sense of honor, good nature, or self-righteousness. The spiritual man in the same things has a spiritual object-GoD revealed in Christ Jesus. As natural men you may, you ought to read the Bible, because it is the duty of the natural man to seek for a light to clear up the dark paths of life, and the awful mystery of the grave. As natural men you must believe the Bible, because the natural proofs of its Divine inspiration are full and sufficient. You even may endeavour to regulate your life by its rule, because there is also a natural conscience. But as natural men you cannot believe to the salvation of your soul. You cannot have saving faith. Your belief is a matter of the head. Faith is of Divine growth. It is, indeed, if you will have it, the same belief; but it is that belief wrought in the heart by the constraining influence of the Holy Ghost. It is the principle of a spiritual life, which comes from above, and is given unto us of the Father, as members of Christ. In a word, it is a new nature created in us, in virtue of which we may think, feel, and act in a spiritual manner. And, thenceforth, we are free to do all that it appertains to the spiritual man to do; for in this we only act according to our nature.

You thus see, my brethren, that the natural man is free with regard to natural things; but that this freedom is a bondage with regard to spiritual things, and from this bondage the Son alone can make you free by imparting to you his own life, by the gift of his own spirit.

I shall now briefly endeavour to prove this. We said, that the natural man was free with regard to natural things, not with regard to spiritual things. Stretch forth your hand. This you may or may not do. If you do, it may be to the right, to the left, upwards or downwards, as you please.

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will still free. And what we have said of this one act equally applies to all the actions of the natural man. Let us proceed one step further. Examine yourselves. You wish to be happywe all wish for happiness wherever and in whatever we think it to consist. Can you stifle this longing desire of your hearts? Can you refrain from wishing for happiness? I know you cannot-it is impossible. Here then is one thing with regard to which your will is not free, because that thing is against your nature. And, yet, who on this account ever felt himself less free? Thus is Satan perfectly free with regard to evil-not free with regard to good. He can in no wise do good, because it is contrary to his nature. Whilst on the other side God is not free with regard to evil. GOD cannot will evil-for evil is contrary to his nature. From which you see, my brethren, that freedom consists only in the power to act according to our nature. So that if our nature be evil, we shall only be free to do evil. us examine this point. Here I might, indeed, appeal to your conscience, and even your natural conscience would convince you of sin—but that would not be enough-for your conscience only points at sin in you as something foreign and accidental, whilst I have here to prove that sin is the very element of the natural man: that in which he lives, moves, and hath his being. And yet he suspects it not, nay he cannot suspect it. He who runs before the wind or sails down the stream can form no idea of their strength. To appreciate that strength, let him attempt to stem their force. Thus, my brethren, the natural man cannot rightly estimate the irresistible power that hurries him to sin. To know it, let

Let

him attempt to withstand it; and in order to this, let him stop in his headlong course and turn-but this can only be the work of GOD. "Turn thou me," says the prophet, "and I shall be turned."-To the Bible, then, my brethren, to the law and the testimony alone do I appeal in this great controversy. Hear what he that searcheth the hearts declares of our estate. The heart of man," says the prophet Jeremiah, "is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who shall know it." Further, the life of the natural man is called a state of death. "When ye were dead in trespasses and sins," writes St Paul, to the Ephesians. "Let the dead bury their dead," says our blessed Lord to one of his disciples. And in another place he himself has taught us, that in order to rise from that state of spiritual death, we need a new birth. "Verily, verily I say unto you," does he declare to Nicodemus, "except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of GOD." Where fore also the Scriptures call the spiritual man the "new man"-"a new creature," and they represent that change as a "resurrection from the dead" and a "quickening." "When we were dead in our sins," writes St. Paul to the Ephesians, "and were by nature the children of wrath" even as others, GoD who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, hath quickened us together with Christ-by grace ye are saved—and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus.

If such, my brethren, be the state of the natural man, is it not the height of folly to ascribe unto him any, the least share, in that work which raises him to spiritual life?-As well might it be said that a corpse can shake off the strong bands of death, and raise itself from the grave; or that a man when he is old, can enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born again.

Nay more, I hold it to be little short of the most deadly heresy, to believe that previous to regeneration there can be in, or from man, anything conducive thereto. The whole work is GOD'S only from beginning to end-in its preparation and accomplishment. Not from man, not from him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of GoD that sheweth mercy, for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his own good pleasure.

Before we proceed further, let us stop a moment and glance back at the preceding part of our discourse. In the first place we have ascertained the existence of a two-fold principle of action in man, according to its two-fold origin and object, and each having its proper range and limits. The one a free-will of the natural man—the other a free-will of the spiritual man, according as he participates of the nature of the first or second Adam; for the first Adam coming from the earth is earthy, but the second Adam cometh from heaven, a quickening spirit. We have further seen that the freedom of the natural man was a real bondage with regard to good-that none can be truly free who enjoy not the spiritual life, and that this life supposes a previous death to the natural life, and a resurrection. Dead with Christ-risen with Christ, sin no longer reigns in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Whence it appears that regeneration is a true deliverance from the thraldom of sin.

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to enquire how that deliverance is wrought; which subject has been so fully opened by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, as only to need on our part to draw freely from the inspired page. “Know ye not," does he write, in the sixth chapter, "that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death. Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto GOD through Jesus Christ our Lord. For sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the law, but under grace." In other words, my brethren, know ye not that the promises unto which ye were sealed in baptism, when the Triune God granted his holy name to be named on you, are all realised in you by faith? That by faith you have so apprehended Christ as to be apprehended of him, and to be one with him? Flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. So that in Christ dying on the cross to answer the challenge of the law, your body of sin is dead also, and has thus answered the demands of the law. Crucified with Christ, it was buried with Christ in the death by baptism, that you might also be raised with Christ a new creature; and that as ye partake with him of the flesh and blood, like children, you may partake also of the same spirit with him; even as the branches partake of the sap of the tree, and as

And

the life-blood which flows from the heart communicates the same life to all the members; for your bodies are the members of Christ-the spirit which dwells in you is the spirit of Christyour life is a life hidden in Christ; and henceforth it is no longer you that live-it is Christ that liveth in you. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. thus being made free from sin, and become servants to GoD, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life. This then, my brethren, is the Apostle's doctrine. Deliverance from sin by the death of our old man with Christ. Not merely by an imputation of the death and sufferings of Christ, but by a participation in the same flesh with him, in virtue of which we are also made participators of his spirit. So that in Christ we may be truly said to be dead unto sin, and truly to be alive unto righteousness. And such is the importance of this view, that St. Paul still further opens it in the next chapter. Follow his reasoning with me. "Know ye not, brethren, how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if while her husband liveth she be married to another, she shall be called an adultress; but if her husband be dead she is free from that law. So that she is no adultress though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For whilst we were in the flesh, the motions of sins which were by the law, did work in our members to bring

forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held, that we should serve God in newness of spirit." Here, my brethren, by the power of the husband over the wife, the Apostle represents the power of the law and of sin over the natural man, a power which only ceases by the death of either party, for the law holds its sway over man during his life-time. Now the law entered in that sin might abound. By the law sin reigns in our flesh. The law is, as it were, the marriage deed between sin and the flesh, in virtue of which they twain are now one flesh; a flesh of sin whose fruit is unto eternal death. But as by the death of the husband, the wife is loosed from the law whereby she is bound to him, so we may be freed from sin. Now we know, brethren, that to them who are in Christ the law is dead, the hand-writing ordinances wherein they were held captive unto sin, having been nailed to the cross with Christ. For the sentence once executed has for ever lost its power; the criminal once dead, the law is also dead with regard to him. Wherefore, brethren, reckon ye yourselves also to be dead to the law by the body of Christ.

But this, my brethren, is not all. No, thanks be to our gracious Father, it is but as our first step towards the glorious liberty of the children. It is only our divorce-deed from the law, that, being dead unto sin, we may now be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. It is, therefore, Christ's church that I am addressing this day-it is to the members of his body that I now turn myself. Church of the crucified Jesus, arise from the dust! raise thy heart and thine eyes to him from whom thy deliverance cometh, Thy Lord is risen -he reigns in heaven-he cometh in

the clouds with power to reign on the earth-and because he reigns it was given to thee with him to reign. As himself overcame sin, the world, and the devil, so has he granted to thee to overcome the devil, the world, and sin. Holiness is thy dowry. Yes, children of GoD, holiness is your dowry, your inheritance, your portion, and your privilege. Not merely a holiness imputed, but a real holiness-Christ's holiness wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, by the grace of the Father; and though in us, still a real holiness, because the holiness of Christ in usa perfect liberty, a full deliverance from bondage, in virtue of which God may command us to be holy even as he himself is holy-a power and strength to have victory, and to triumph against the devil, the world, and the flesh, laid up in Christ for us, and by faith to be received at the hand of Christ. But where shall we find that perfect holiness on earth? What example shall I offer of that perfect deliverance from sin which the Son has promised? Ah, my GoD! what shall I answer, when my own heart rises in witness against me, and my conscience smites me? Yet, blaspheme not, brethren; if we are thus struck dumb before ye, unto us be the shame and the confusion of face. This is our crime, not our weakness; for we can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth us. The power is not withheld—the grace is ever offered, but we would not-our deceitful hearts would not ask for them. And how, indeed, could you ask for them except you know, except you believe that they will be granted to your prayers? O, believe then, my brethren, and doubt not; believe that Christ who sanctified himself in this flesh for your sake, will also sanctify himself in you his members. And in that faith, and in that hope, boldly enter the lists against the enemy; and stoutly wage your warfare in the might of your Lord

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