VI. THE CHAPTER OF To redeem is to buy a captive back again with a price from slavery; as poor Christians often are, when they have been unfortunately taken at sea by barba rous Turks and Moors, My Catechism hath taught me that God the Son hath redeemed me. What am I then without being redeemed, but a slave and a captive? My person is forfeited to God for Sin, and under sentence of death and my soul is under the power of Satan, to follow sin with my heart and affections, and live in the service of it: neither is there any liberty for me, till the Son shall make me free, and redeem me from the power of Satan unto God. Such as the Hebrews were in the house of bondage before Moses came to deliver them, such am I in the Egypt of this wicked world, if I am without a Saviour. They were delivered from death by the blood of the Passover: and I have redemption through the blood of Christ. I am not redeemed with silver or gold, as worldly captives are, but by the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, who gave himself a ransom for us all, and took away the sin of the world. The unbelieving Jews, blinded with ignorance, boasted that they were never in bondage: not understanding that they were born in sin, and that a life of sin is a life of slavery, from which nothing but the grace of God in Jesus Christ can deliver us. Some Christians are as proud and as blind as the Jews were, with no knowledge of the bondage of sin, nor of the necessity of a sacrifice to be of fered, a price to be paid, an atonement to be made for all those that shall be saved. The vain traditions of their fathers destroyed those Jews; and the vain deceit of human philosophy destroys these Christians. When the slave is drunk, he dances about, and forgets his condition and when the mind of a Christian is drunk with the pride of false doctrine, he thinks himself free and forgets his Redeemer. O Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may see the misery of my nature, and know the value of my ransom, and find in : thy thy service the true liberty of the sons of God. THE QUESTIONS. Q. What do you mean by the redeeming of mankind? A. To redeem is to buy a person back again from a state of captivity, by paying a ransom for him. Q. What ransom did God take for the Hebrews, when the Egyptians were slain by the destroying angel? A. The blood of a lamb. Q. And what ransom does he take, to save you from death? A. The blood of Christ. Q. Man is then a slave by nature? A. He is a slave to sin, and through the fear of death is all his life-time subject to bondage. Q. Whose power are sinners under? A. They are under the power of Satan, as the afflicted Hebrews were under the power of Pharaoh. Q. What was Egypt to the Hebrews ? A. It was the house of bondage. Q. And what is your house of bondage? A. This wicked world. Q. What is liberty? A. The liberty of serving our own lusts. Q, What is perfect freedom? A. The service of God. Q. Why so? A. Because it delivers us from the tyranny and torments of our own lusts and passions. Q. Why did the Jews boast that they were free? A. Because they did not understand that they were born in sin, and lived under the bondage of it. Q. Why do Christians deny that we are born in sin? A. Because they trust to the vain deceit of philosophy, which is the religion of human pride. Q. What did the Hebrews do when they were brought out of Egypt? A. They served God, without fear of these wicked people. Q. And what are we to do whom Christ hath redeemed? A. To keep God's Commandments, without fearing the people of this world. THE THE TEXTS. Rom. vii. 14. But I am carnal, sold unto sin. 23. Bringing me into captivity to the law of sin. 24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Eph. i. 7. through his blood. We have redemption 1 Cor. vi. 20. Ye are bought with a price. Rev. v. 9. Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as with silver and gold-but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Exod. i. 13. And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage. Exod. xx. 2. I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. L3 Luke |