JACOB DUCHÉ.

THIS gentleman is celebrated as the divine who opened with prayer the Continental Congress of 1774. He was born in Philadelphia about the year 1730, and after receiving a liberal education, became rector of the Episcopal church in his native city. While in this position, he not only won a wide reputation as a preacher, but gained some eminence in the field of letters. In 1771 he published a series of letters under the signature of Tamoc Caspipina, bearing particularly upon the English politics of the day. At a late period they were collected in a volume and passed through several editions. In 1776, he was appointed Chaplain to the Congress, and while in the occupancy of that office, he gave the salary incident to it, for the relief of the families of Pennsylvanians killed in battle. At an early stage of the war, however, he manifested a decided opposition to independence, and in a long letter endeavored to dissuade Washington from continuing in the cause of the patriots. This act deprived him of the confidence of his fellow-men, and soon after he went to England, where he died in 1798. He is spoken of by his cotemporaries as a man of brilliant talents, and an interesting orator, possessed of fine poetical taste. His sermon given in

the present collection, is an excellent specimen of his rhetoric. It was preached in Christ Church, in Philadelphia, on the seventh of July, 1775, and dedicated to General Washington.

THE DUTY OF STANDING FAST IN OUR LIBERTIES.

Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. GALATIANS, V. 1.

GENTLEMEN OF THE FIRST BATTALION OF THE CITY AND LIBERTIES OF PHILADELPHIA:-Though I readily accepted of the invitation with which you were pleased to honor me, and am fully satisfied that there can be no impropriety in complying with your request, yet I confess, that I now feel such an uncommon degree of diffidence, as nothing but a sense of duty, and a sincere sympathy with you in your present trying circumstances could enable me to overcome. The occasion is of the first importance; the subject in a great measure new to me-throwing myself, therefore, upon your candor and indulgence, considering myself under the twofold character of a minister of Jesus Christ, and a fellow-citizen of the same state, and involved in the same public calamity with yourselves, and looking up for counsel and direction to the source of all wisdom, "who giveth liberally to those that ask it," I have made choice of a passage of Scripture, which will give me an opportunity of addressing myself to you as freemen, both in the spiritual and temporal sense of

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the word, and of suggesting to you such a mode of conduct, as will be most likely, under the blessing of Heaven, to insure to you the enjoyment of these two kinds of liberty. "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."

The inspired author of this excellent admonition was so sensible of the invaluable blessings and comforts that resulted from that free spirit, with which Jesus Christ, through his ministry, had established his Galatian converts, that he was jealous of the least attempt to destroy or even obstruct in them its life-giving operation. He could not brook the narrow spirit of those Judaizing Christians, who, from the most selfish and illiberal motives, sought to force a yoke upon the necks of their Gentile brethren, which neither they themselves, nor their fathers had been able to bear. These Gentiles, too, he severely reproves for not maintaining their ground, and asserting their gospel freedom against the insidious devices of their brethren, who only wanted to bring them into servitude, "that they might glory in their flesh."-"O foolish Galatians! who hath bewitched you?" He ascribes their blindness and infatuation to some diabolical charm, which had locked up the powers of their freeborn spirits, and made them tamely submit to slavish carnal ordinances, which the gospel of Jesus had entirely exploded and abolished. He reminds them, by a spirited explication of a most striking allegory, that they were not "children of the bond-woman, but of the free;" that their observance of the ceremonial law was a tribute, which they were not bound to pay; or, if they should be so weak as to submit to it, that it could not emancipate them from the bondage of earth and

hell; but that their real freedom, their full and complete justification, their happiness, temporal and eternal, were only to be acquired by a vigorous exertion of those spiritual powers within themselves, which through the riches of God's free grace in Jesus Christ, had been communicated to their souls. He concludes this part of his address with the truly noble and apostolic precept of my text: "Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."

Having thus briefly opened the occasion and meaning of the words, I shall proceed to show, in the first place, what we are to understand by that spiritual liberty "wherewith Christ hath made us free," and what kind of conduct that must be which is here expressed by the words "stand fast."

I. However severe, my dear brethren, the loss of our temporal liberties may be, there is certainly a bondage far more severe than this; yea, far more cruel, than that of Israel under their their Egyptian taskmasters—a bondage not only to men, but to the fallen spirits of darkness, seeking to exercise over us a joint power and dominion with our own irregular/ and corrupt passions-a bondage universal, from which no son of Adam hath ever been exempt-a tyranny whose baleful influences have been felt, from the fall of man down to this very day. It has seized not only upon the body, but upon the soul. It has erected its throne in the heart, and from thence imposes its arbitrary decrees. It is confined to no age or sex, no state or condition of human life. High and low, learned and unlearned, the savage and the sage, are alike victims of this despotic power—alike slaves by nature under this bondage of corruption.

It is perpetually manifesting itself under a variety of forms, according to our prevailing desires and pursuits. It follows us into the sanctuary of God. It steals into our private devotions. It gives a pharisaical tincture to our best good-works. It reigns as a master and absolute sovereign in the wicked and unregenerate. Yea, it frequently enters the most spiritual and regenerate hearts in hostile form, and seeks to shake their confidence in the goodness of their true and rightful Sovereign, and their humble hope of deliverance through the redeeming power of his everblessed Son.

Now, who would not wish to be delivered from such a bondage as this? And yet, my brethren, such a wish cannot be formed till, by divine grace, the freeborn powers of the soul are brought to be sensible of their burden, and to groan beneath the weight of oppression. "The whole (or they that think themselves whole) need not a physician, but they that are sick." The madman hugs his chains, as if they were ensigns of royalty. Insensible of his calamity, he cannot even wish for relief.

But no sooner does the child of grace, the offspring of heaven, come to feel the bondage of the infernal usurper; no sooner does he find himself harrassed and oppressed by the obedience which he exacts to his unrighteous laws; no sooner is he convinced that such an obedience must terminate in everlasting slavery and wretchedness, than he awakens from his sleep of security, and turns to and avails himself of that light and strength, and spiritual courage and constancy, which his Redeemer is ever at hand to impart, and without which he feels himself absolutely unequal to