The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1899-03-24

servant her son was born slave. He
was under the bondage of the law and
could not be even the legal heir of the
promise OF rhe co venant. But Isaac, who
was the true seed OF Abraham, was the
child of promise, free born, and entitled
to all the spiritual privileges of the in
heritance of God.
JERUSALEM, THE EARTHLY JERUSALEM,
the Holy City of the Jews in Palestine,
the Jerusalem of the Law of Moses, is
not our home, it is not our ideal, nor our
hope. AS Christians we are not born of
that seed, nor of that spirit. The faith
of Abraham is ours, and the faithful obe-
dience of Moses, and the fiery zeal
Of the prophets, and the godly ex-
ample of all the WORTHLESS of the
Old Dispensaton. All that was of
God and is of His Kingdom belongs to
our spiritual Inheritance in Christ, for
whom Abraham ard Moses lived and died,
and whom they longed to see.
But the Jerusalem above, "the New
Jerusalem" 1.-The city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem," "the holy
city, coming down out of heaven
| from God" having the glory of
God" this is our mother, this is our di-
vine ideal, everlasting inheritance and
eternal hope. For we have been born
into the spiritual freedom OF that right
eousness and true holiness which Is be-
gotten of God through Jesus Christ, unto
the life eternal.
The life OF this world at its best is q
life Of bondage. We are under the Law
of the material universe. Our bodies are
of the earth, earthly. We are tied down
to the conditions of the physical exist
ence. We are part of the system Of
I the natural or animal life of this world
We are limited to the scope of mutual
relations and dependencies, and must
| conform to our fellow-men, and to the
| things of this terrestrial sphere. We
must do as we can and not always as we
would, here.
THIS MORTAL LIFE, EVEN IN ITS
STRENGTH, is WEAK
and precarious, subject to many changes
and chances, and fraught with dangers
and evil. We must eat and drink or in q
few days we become helpless and die,
Our flesh sets limits upon the powers OF
the mind and will. We must spend about
one-third of hetime in sleep in order to
be most useful in our waking hours. The
law of gravitation holds us to the earth
and we are in bonds by the properties OF
matter. "In the midst of life we are in
DEATH and after few short years, often
filled with suffering, disappointment and
grief, we come to the grave, and "dust
to dust, ashes TO ashes" is the end of The
physical being.
Then when we consider the life of the
soul and its struggle against ain and evil,
we find that which was made for the free
dom of the spiritual and the immortal
state bound and hindered often by the
burden of the flesh. The temptations OF
a carnal life often bring US under bonds
which it is not easy to break. St Paul
gives vivid description of the bondage
of sin, Writing to the Romans, e ID 25)
he says: "We know that the law is
spiritual; but l am carnal, sold under
sin. For that which / do [ know not
for not what would, that do practice
but what | hate, that do. For /
delight in the law of God after the inward
man; but I see different law in my
members, warning against the law of NJ y
mind, and bringing me into captivity
under the law of sin which is in my mem
| bers. o wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me out of the body of this
death?n
| need not dwell, perhaps, upon the
slavery of sin and the bondage of evil.
We know but too well how many are
bound, degraded and ruined by habits,
appetites, passions, evil thoughts ard all
the powers of darkness which by reason
of the flesh and the perverted faculties
of the soul are held in hopeless servitude,
sold under sin. We know that the clean,
true
MAN, By THE GRACE OF GOD
is free from such things, and that be has
the right to and the control OF his man
hood. We know that the slave of sin is
lost to all that ia noblest and best, even
in this world. When man is sold under
sin we often cease TO call him q man; we
are wont to call him by the name of his
ain which is his master. The slave Of
falseho0d and deceit we call liar; the
slave Of drink we call drunkards the