Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

tell us, that we impofe upon the world falfe and fantasticks notions of virtue and liberty: that religion does enflave man, not fet him free; awing the mind by groundless and fuperftitious principles, and reftraining and infringing our true and natural liberty which, if we will believe them, confifts in giving nature its full fwing; letting loose the reins to the most headstrong lufts, and the wildest and the most corrupt imaginations. But to this 'tis easy to answer, that while these men attempt to establish their errors, and fortify their minds in them, by arguments of fome fort or other, as they do; 'tis plain, that they suppose and acknowledge with us, that they ought to be ruled and governed by reafon and if this be true, then, by undeniable confequence, true li berty must confift, not in doing what we lift, but what we ought; not in following our luft or fancy, but our reafon; not in being exempt from law, but in being a law to our felves. And then I appeal to all the world, whether the difcipline of virtue, or libertinifm; whether the schools of Epicurus, or Chrift, be the way to true li berty. I appeal to the experience of mankind, whether spiritual or fenfual pleasure; whether the love of God and virtue, or the love of the world and body, be the more like to qualify and difpofe us to obey

the

the dictates of fober and folid reafon. But the truth is, here is no need of arguments; the lives and fortunes of atheists and deifts proclaim aloud what a glorious kind of liberty they are like to blefs the world with, 2 Pet. ii. 19. Whilft they promife liberty, they themselves are the fervants of corruption. And this corruption draws on their ruin. The dishonourable and miferable courfes, in which these poor wretches are plunged, and in which, generally, they perifh before their time, are fuch an open contradiction to reafon, that no man doubts but that they have abandoned its conduct, that they have given themselves up to that of luft and humour; and that they earnestly endeavour to force or betray their reafon into a compliance to fcreen themselves from the reproach and disturbance of their own minds, and from the fhame and contempt of the world. I have dwelt long enough on this argument. 'Tis now time to pass on, and refolve what Chriftian liberty really

is.

This is in a manner evident from what has been fuggefted already. For if reafon be the governing faculty in man, then the liberty of man muft confift in his fubjection to reafon and fo Chriftian liberty will be nothing else but fubjection to reafon enlightened by revelation. Two things. therefore are effential to true liberty: A clear

P

clear and unbyaffed judgment; and a power and capacity of acting comformable to it. This is a very short, but full account of liberty. Darkness and impotence conftitute our flavery: light and firength our freedom. Man is then free, when his reafon is not awed by vile fears, or bribed by viler hopes when it is not tumultuously transported and hurried away by lufts and paffions; nor cheated and deluded by the gilded appearances of fophifticated good; but it deliberates impartially, and commands effectually. And because the great obftacle of this liberty is fin; because natural and contracted corruption are the fetters in which we are bound; because the law in the body wars against the law in the mind, obfcuring the light, and enfeebling the authority of reafon; hence it is, that Chriftian liberty is as truly as commonly described by a dominion over the body, by the fubduing our corrupt affections, and by deliverance from fin. This notion of liberty may be fufficiently established upon that account of fervitude or bondage which the apostle gives us, Rom. vii. where he reprefents it as confifting in impotence or inability to do thofe things, which God commands, and reafon approves: For to will is prefent with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not, ver. 18. fore must on the contrary

Liberty thereconfift in being

able,

able not only to will, but to do good; in obeying thofe commandments, which we cannot but acknowledge to be holy, and just, and good. And this is the very notion which our Lord and Mafter gives us of it, Job. viii. For, when the Jews bragged of their freedom, he lets them know, that freedom could not confift with fubjection to fin: He that committeth fin is the fervant of fin, ver. 34. That honourable parentage, and the freedom of the body, was but a falfe and ludicrous appearance of liberty: that if they would be free indeed, the Son muft make them fo, ver. 36. i. e. they must, by his fpirit and doctrine be rescued from the fervitude of luft and error, and be fet at liberty to work righteoufnefs. If ye continue in my word, then are ye my difciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth fhall make you free, ver. 31, 32. Finally, not to multiply proofs of a truth that is fcarce liable to be controverted, as the apostle defcribes the bondage of a finner in Rom. vii; fo does he the liberty of a faint in Rom. viii. For there, ver. 2. he tells us, that the law of the Spirit of life has fet the true Christian free from the law of fin and death. And then he lets us know wherein this liberty confifts; in walking, not after the flesh, but after the fpirit; in the mortification of the body of fin, and reftitution of the mind to its just empire and

P 2

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

and authority. If Chrift be in you, the body is dead because of fin; but the spirit is life becaufe of righteousness, ver. 10. And all this is the fame thing with his defcription of liberty, chap. vi. where, 'tis nothing else, but for a man to be made free from fin, and become the fervant of God. Thus then we have a plain account of bondage and liberty. Yet for the clearer understanding of both, it will not be amifs to observe, that they are each capable of different degrees; and both the one and the other may be more or less entire, compleat, and abfolute, according to the different progress of men in vice and virtue. Thus, in fome men, not their will only, but their very reafon is enflaved. Their understanding is fo far infatuated, their affections fo intirely captivated, that there is no conflict at all between the mind and the body: they commit fin without any reluctancy beforehand, or any remorse afterwards : their feared confcience making no remonftrance, inflicting no wounds, nor denouncing any threats. This is the last degree of vafalage. Such are faid in fcripture to be dead in trefpaffes and fins. Others there are, in whom their luft and appetite prevails indeed, but not without oppofition. They reafon rightly; and, which is the natural result of this, have fome defires and wishes of righteousness: but through

the

« AnteriorContinuar »