When a man is under the bondage of the law, when he is under the fear of death, being armed with a sting, whatsoever he doth he doth it with a slavish mind. Where the Spirit of God is, there is the spirit of adoption, the spirit of sons, which is a free spirit. The son doth not duties to his father out of constraint and fear, but out of nature. The Spirit alters our nature and disposition. It makes us sons, and then we do all freely. God doth enlarge the hearts of his children. They can deny themselves in a good work. They are * zealous of good works.' It is the end of their redemption ; as it is Tit. ii. 14, ' We are redeemed to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works.' For then we have a base esteem of all things that hinder us from freeness in God's service, as worldliness, &c. What doth a Christian when he seeth his gracious liberty in Christ ? The love of the world and worldly things, he is read}' to part with all for the service of God. He is so free-hearted that he can part with life itself. Paul saith of him- self, ' My life is not dear to me, so I may finish my course with joy,' Acts XX. 24. As we see in the martyrs and others how free they were, even of their very blood.
What shaU we think of those therefore, that if we get anything of them, it must be as a sparkle out of the flint. Duties come from Christians as water out of a spring. They are natm-al, and not forced to issue, so far forth as they are spiritual.
I confess that there is remainders of bondage where the Spirit sets at liberty ; for there is a double principle in us, while we live in this world, of nature and grace. Therefore there will be a conflict in every holy duty. The flesh will draw back when the Spirit would be liberal. The flesh will say. Oh but I may want ! When the Spirit would be most courageous, the flesh will say, But there is danger in it. So that there is nothing that ■we can do but it must be gotten out of the fire. We must resist. Yet notwithstanding here is liberty to do good, because here is a principle that resists the backwardness of the flesh.
In a wicked man there is nothing but flesh, and therefore there is no resistance. And we must understand the nature of this spiritual liberty in sanctification. It is not a liberty freeing us altogether from conflict, and deadness, and dulness, and the like ; but it is a liberty enabling us to combat, not freeing us from combat. It is a liberty to fight the battles
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of the Lord against our own corruptions, not freeing us from it. That is the liberty of glory in heaven, when there shall bo no enemy within or without.
Therefore let not Christians be discouraged with the backwardness and untowardncss of the flesh, to good duties. If we have a principle in us to fifht against it, to enable us to fight against our corruptions, and to get good duties out of it in spite of it, it is an argument of a new nature. God will perfect his own beginnings, and subdue the flesh more and more, by the power of his Spirit. We see our blessed Saviour, what a sweet excuse he makes for his disciples when they were dead-hearted and drowsy, when they should have comforted him iu the garden : Oh, saith he, ' the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,' Mat. xxvi. 41.
Indeed, there is a double hindrance in God's people when they are about holy duties, sometimes from their very mould and nature, considered not as corrupted ; the very mould without the consideration.
And then consider it as it is made more heavy and dull by the flesh, and corruptions iu them, as there be invincible infirmities and weaknesses in nature. Sometimes deadness, after labour and expense of spirits, creeps in invincibly, that a man cannot overcome those necessities of nature. So that ' the spirit may be willing, and the flesh weak ;' the flesh without any great corruption. God looks upon our necessities ; as the father saith, Free me from my necessities (a). As we see, Christ made an excuse for them. It was not so much corruption, though that were an ingredient in it, as nature in itself. Christ saw a great deal of gold in the ore, therefore we see how he excuseth them. Therefore when we are dull, let us strive. Christ is ready to make excuse for us, if our hearts be right : ' The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.' I speak this for the comfort of the best sort of Christians, that think they are not set at liberty by the Spirit, because they find some heaviness and dulness in good duties. As I said, there is sin in us while we live here, but it reigns not. After a man hath the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Christ maintains a pei-petual combat and conflict against sin. It could subdue sin all at once if God saw it good ; but God will humble us while we live here, and exercise us with spiritual conflicts. Therefore God sees it sufficient to bring us to heaven, to set up a combat in us, that we are able by the help of the Spirit to fight God's battles against the flesh. So that the dominion of sin may be broken in us, and excellently, saith Paul, Kom. viii. 2, ' The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sin and of death.' The law of the Spirit of life, that is, the commanding power of the Spirit of Christ, that commands as a law in the hearts of God's people, it frees us from the law, that is, from the commanding power of sin and death. So that the dominion and tyranny of sin is broken by the Spirit of Christ, and so we are set at a gracious liberty. In some respects we are under grace, there- fore sin shall not have dominion over us, as the apostle speaks.