Perfect Freedom

    "Thus am I free.  If I look to the law, the handwriting is blotted out, and nailed to his cross.  If I look to the book of God's remembrance, the debt is cancelled, and God will remember my sins no more.  If I look to justice, that is satisfied, and God is just in forgiving me my sins, and in cleansing me from all unrighteousness; nor is he unrighteous to forget my works of faith and labours of love; nor will his justice forbid me the crown of righteousness when I have finished my warfare; no, the righteous Judge will give it me in that day.  If I look to Christ, I am complete in him; if I look to God the Father, it is he that justified me; and, if I look to my infirmities within, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, for my soul hates evil.  My will is sanctified, 'I would do good.'  My mind is renewed; 'with the mind I myself serve the law of God.'  My affections are satisfied; I delight in the law of God after the inward man.  I will glory therefore in my infirmities, for they drive me from all confidence in the flesh, and make me cleave the closer to Christ and rejoice in him, they keep me humble, watchful, and grateful, to my Saviour for so great a salvation.  I have renounced all that I was and all that I had, and have received Christ as all in me and all to me.  I am a dead man in his death and in the law; and, as such, he took possession of me, and I live by him; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, shines out of me, speaks by me.  I fill up the measure of his suffering in my flesh, and his strength is made perfect in my weakness; his wisdom is displayed in my ignorance, his beauty in my deformity, and his matchless grace in my preservation and salvation, and in the salvation of all that believe on his name.  "For me to live is Christ (for he lives in me), and to die is gain," for Christ is the portion of my soul, and my all in all.  'He that is dead is freed from sin.' Amen."  -  Rev. William Huntington, (1745-1813)