1. To our duty ; and so our liberty must be stated by these four things.
[1.] It must be such a liberty as becometh a creature who is in subjection to God. It is not a power to live as we list, but a power to live as we ought. To afiect a power to live as we list, and to be accountable to none, is to revive the arrogancy of Adam, and to sup up again the poison of the old temptation, ' ye shall be as gods,' Gen. iii. 5. It was man's original ambition to be at his own dispose, and lord of his own actions ; to think, and speak, and do as he pleasetli : Ps. xii. 4, * Our tongues are our own, who is lord over us ? ' And the rebellion of the libertine world is set forth by casting off the yokes and cords of duty : Ps. ii. 3, ' Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us,' — meaning there, the laws of God and Christ, — who are impatient of any restraint. But this is a liberty cannot be justified ; for since man hath principiuvi et Jineni, a principle upon which he dependeth in his being and operations, and an end unto which he is appointed, he must wholly give up himself to the will of another, and his liberty lieth in a readiness to comply with God's commands, who is his proper lord, to whom he is to subject himself, and to give an account of all his actions. So that man's true liberty is God's service : Ps. cxix. 45, ' I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts.' To will and do things jjleasing to our creator is the only liberty proper to us.
[2.] It must be such a liberty as will leave us in a capacity to pursue our chief good, and last end. For all creatures are by natural instinct carried to their last end ; and, the more fettered and restrained from this, the more they are in bondage ; the less, the more free ; which holdeth good in all creatures ; but principally in the reasonable. Certainly the i-easonable nature is dishonoured, and debased, and under a defect, as it is disabled from the fruition of God , or seeking after it ; we are in bondage as we are captivated and entangled with the love of inferior things, and so perverted and diverted from the pursuit of true happi- ness. The restraining of our irregular desires is not bondage, but the gratifying of them, for that is a snare to us. Men live in sin with as much delight as fishes in their own element ; yet they are in bonds still, as they are detained from God, and turned aside from him ; our liberty is our power over inferior things ; and our bondage is their power over us, 1 Cor. vi. 12. When we love God with all our liearts, and serve him witli all our minds, we are free. Liberty in the root
172 SERMONS UPON ROMANS VIII. [SeU. XXVIII.
implieth an inclination to Goil, as the supreme object of our love. In the first act, — in a power of choosing the means whereby we may enjoy him ; in the second act, — in an exercise of this power, or in an actual pursuing the end by these means. The elective power, and a govern- ing our actions in order to our great end, is our liberty; the angels that immutably and indeclinably adliere to their last end are freer than us, who may err from it. Well then, none are sucli slaves as they that cannot use the means which should make them happy ; bv.t employ their whole time in seeking after pleasures, and honours, and profits ; like dissolute servants, who being sent by their masters to a mart or fair to buy commodities, spend their time and money in some inn or house of entertainment by the way, and neglect their fair or mart, to which they were sent to employ their money to the best advan- tage. So we are enslaved by the way, and neglect our main business. [3.] It must be such a liberty as will suit with the dignity of a rational creature, as man is. For that is the liberty of a man, when he acteth with a condecency to the reasonable nature. Man was at first made to be happy ; his happiness consisted in the fruition of God ; and his subjection to him was no captivity and restraint, but rather a part of that blessedness. But we became bondmen, not only by break- ing the law of God, but by disordering the constitution of our souls ; by submitting conscience and reason to our lusts ; so suffering the beast to ride the man ; for the rule of the apostle is of immutable equity, Kom. vi. 11, ' His servants you are, to whom ye yield yourselves to obey.' Now man giving up reason to appetite becometh a very slave ; as a country is enthralled when the base prevail above the honourable, and beggars get on horseback, but the princes are on foot. Such a deordination there is, when reason is put out of dominion, and lusts prevail ; our bondage is described by the apostle, Tit. iii. 3, ' Serving divers lusts and pleasures.' Our lusts urge us to an eager pursuit of inferior things ; reason or the leading part of the soul reclaimeth, but it hath no force ; besides our dependence upon God, which cannot be shaken off. If since our apostasy from him, we had a perfect understanding to guide us, the danger would not be so great ; but in this corrupt estate, the mind is blinded by our passions and appetites ; and therefore to be left to the dispose of our brutish affections is the greatest judgment that can be : Ps. Ixxsi. 12, ' So I gave them up to their own hearts' lusts, and they walked in their own counsels.' This is the greatest thraldom that can befal such a creature as manis ; it leaveth us no power to dispose of ourselves ; men often see what they should do, but cannot do it, being drawn away by their own lusts ; and though we have some kind of remorse from the remainders of reason, especially being assisted by the Holy Spirit, as to some common help ; yet we foully miscarry still, till it hath brought us to misery, as it did Samson the strongest, Solomon the wisest of men. Then therefore is a man at liberty, when reason and conscience are again put into dominion, and a man is fitted to please God, and seek after his true happiness, with the con- tempt of all worldly things.