HOMILETICS. Vers. 1-4.-Spiritual bondage. In the Divine deliverance from ~piritual captivity, vf which the return from Babylon may bo regarded as a type, we have n crowning kindness from bis gracious he.nrl. It is said that there is no sensation so exquisitely delightrul as that we experience when there is a sudden cessation of acute pain. Similarly, we may say that there is no spiritual joy which is quite equal to that of finding ourselves freed from an intolerable evil. Perhaps there is no moment of such surpassing pleasure as that when one who has long lain in captivity comes out of his prison door 11nd breathes once more the air of freedom. When the Jews found them- .eelvcs outside Babylon, actually on their way home to Jerusalem, they "were like them that dream;" they were li[ted up to such ecstasy tho.t they could not believe it was o solid fact; they would not have been surprised if they hn.d awoke to find them- selves ngnin in the bands of the heathen. It wns too good to be believed, too great a blessing to be realized; it was the surpassing mercy of Go<l, his crowning work of pity o.nd of love. We have, therefore-- ]. THE SUPREME VALUE OF SPIRITUAL DELIVERANCE. 1. We can see what it is for a man to be saved from some ono enslaving vice. 'l'o what depths of misery and shamo :foes the drunkard go down I in what hateful toils he is held by that cruel craving! '!'here is no object on earth eo utterly pitiable as is a man who is bound in the ho.rd bondage of any guilty and degrading habit. 'l'he man who is paralyzed at borne, or lie who is immured within four nBrrow we.lie, is a free man in comparison with such a 11lave. And when that, Divine Redeemer, who came "to preach deliverance to the captives," breaks the l,onds which hold him, sets him at large, gives him the victory over his evil passion, so that he is no longer " held in the cords of his own sius," then there is a brightness brought to the life, and a joy given to the heart, that cannot be told in words. "The Lord hath done great things for him," he feels to the depth of his spirit. "The Lord h11th done great things for him," his kindred, his neighbour~, his true friends, affirm. lle will mver have occasion for such profound gr11titudc ogaiu. 220 TRE BOOK OF PSALMS. [~s. c:u.vr. 1-0.
2. We may all experience what it is to be saved from the bondage of sin itself. 'l'hough we may never haY~ ½nown the bitter bondage of any one particular iniquity, yot we have known what 1t 1s to be under the power and pressure of sin itself. .And sin itself, in _its essence, is enslaving. It holds us back from being what we would be, and from domg ~h_a! we would do in the service of Christ. It fetters the energies and hampers the !ct1v1ties of the human soul. When God, by the power of his Spirit, in the gospel of his Son, gives us spiritual freedom (see 2 Cor. iii. 17; John viii. 36), we enter in, and we enjoy a precious and noble heritage. God bas done great things for us, whereof we arc glad. Our own souls rejoice in it. Our neighbours bear witness to it; for our freedom reacts on them; they are the better for it in many way~. II. ONE I":ITARIABLE ACCOMPANIMENT. The fourth verse of the psalm naturally, if not necessarily, follows the third. How could the returning (or returned) exiles fail to remember those whom they had left behind in the land of bondacre? It was not a O singular, perhaps not an uncommon, thing for a slave who had escaped from the Southern States, when h~ had experienced the joys of liberty, to go back again into the country where he might have been captured and held in bondao-e running that terrible risk in order to help mother, or sister, or brother, to escape, a~d to share the blessings which his own soul had tasted. 1. With what holy yearning should we regard our relatives and friends who are still in the bondage of sin! 2. What should we not be prepared to suffer, what toil should we not be willing to undertake on their behalf I 3. How fervently should we pray the prayer of these returning exiles I