1. _They were in bondage_. They were in fact enslaved by "him who had the power of death." This is a very fearful view of our natural state, and one which contradicts all the conclusions of our own vanity and self-complacency. Unconverted men believe that Christians are slaves, fettered by doubts, scruples, self-accusations; bound in the bands of moral routine, and able only to move in certain prescribed grooves; afraid to do as they list. According to their notion, true liberty consists in throwing off religious restraints, and following as much as may be "the devices and desires of our own hearts." But this is a terrible delusion, which only serves to show the depth and subtlety of him who, besides having "the power of death," is also "the father of lies," the great deceiver and ensnarer of mankind. History is full of analogous examples among men. In how many instances have the most cruel and remorseless tyrants made use of the passions and brute force of the multitude to secure their own elevation to absolute power, inducing their victims to forge and rivet their own chains. And it is so in this case. Sinners are the slaves of Satan; those evil desires and inclinations which they so recklessly obey are but the tools and bonds of the great oppressor. The wicked man sells his soul to the devil for the price of indulgence in "the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season." There is a very easy way of testing this question of freedom or bondage in sin. If you are really free, free to do as you like, you can do good as well as evil; you can give up your companionship with iniquity, and break your covenant with darkness, as readily, and with as little difficulty, as you made the compact. Let the man who rejoices in his liberty to sin try to abandon iniquity; he will surely find it an impossible task. However clearly he may discern the purity, justice, and goodness of God's law, however passionately he may long, and however earnestly he may strive, to regulate his life by it, he will find himself "carnal, sold under sin;" he will "find another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin and death." It is easy to float with the stream, and the stronger the current the more buoyantly and exultingly it bears you on. But try to breast the current. You will soon find that you have undertaken a task which is "impossible with men," and will sink exhausted and undone with the vain endeavour. Alas! Satan is in very truth the lord of every enslaved soul, not rightfully, only by virtue of the foulest usurpation; but he is so in fact, and he "binds our captive souls fast in his slavish chains." And by this bondage unto sin he holds us captive to death. His law is "the law of sin and death;" and till Christ redeem and actually deliver us, we are bound over to endure "the bitter pains of eternal death." It is an awful thought, but it is as true as it is awful. Our cruel and