Ver. 12.-Free, and yet not free. The first step to a right understanding of this passage is to observe tl,at the" all things" of which the apostle speaks are things in thernscl,es indifferent (a.6,&~opa), not things in which any vital principle of morality or point of Christian doctrine is involved. Nothing could be "lawful" to him that was in its essential nature unlawful. There are matters in which the question of right and wrong is fixed, absolute, changeless; and there are others in which it is variable, conditional, determined by circumstances. It is of the latter that he speaks. Re is consciously raised above the bondage of mere conventional or traditionary distinctions of clean and unclean, sacred and common, etc. A man is free from the restraint of external law when he has the spirit of it in his heart. All things are lawful to him when the governing principle of his life is that "love which is the fulfilling" of all holy law. The singularity of this declaration is that, while the apostle asserts his freedom, he at the same time surrenders it. He asserts it by voluntarily submitting to that which seerus to be a denial of it. 'l'here is something paradoxical in this. But are we not familiar with many similar paradoxes? External nature is a marvellous combination of what seem to be conflicting elements-laws that limit, forces that balance each other, processes that run in opposite directions. What a strange commingling is there in the world around us of beauty and deformity, economy and waste, order and disorder, life and death! Divine providence presents the same characteristics. The wheels of the great providential plan move in different, often contradictory, directions; but the sovereign Spirit that controls and guides them de,-clops from them -one grand result. What is every man's daily history, in the common relationships of life, but a perpetual working and counterworking of what seem to be incongruous principles? He loses that he may win, serves that he may rule, stoops to conquer, sacrifices liberty in one direction that he may secure it in :rnotbcr, denies himself to please himself, suffers that he may enjoy, dies that he may live. No wonder there should be a similar balancing and limiting of seemingly discordant principles in the sphere of Christian doctrine and Christian life. Two views of personal freedom are here gi ,·en. l. FREEDOM LIMITED BY THE THOUGHT OF MORAL ADVANTAGE. That is in the highest sense "expedient" which is morally right and good. A ~hing may be "lawful" and yet, considering all the conditions of the case, not des(rable, because unprofitable. Legitimate enough in itself, it may have bearings and mvolve ~on_se- quences that are neither right nor good. In such a case a. man of fine Christian bensibility will feel that, while perfectly free in one se~se, in an?ther ?e?se he_ is n?t free. His conscience and the sympathies and affections of his rehg10us life will restrain his use of that freedom. '!'here is something dearer to a noble soul than even liberty. The thought of the higher profitableness of _a thin~ s?ould be more to us than the thou<>ht of its abstract lawfulness. Freedom 1s not m itself an end, but tho means to an e~d above and beyond itself. To seek after" whatsoever things are true, honest, just," etc., even though it may involve us in many penalties, is better thai: to be always jealomly maintainin2; our exemption from the bonds of external restramt. One of the finest examples of this principle is suppli_ed by our Lord's payment of the temple tax (Matt. xvii. 24-27). Though "the clnldren were free," yet, lest there ,hould be" offence," he will pay the claim and work a miracle to provide the means uf payment. The Sonship that relaxed one law on)y made_ the other the more _sa~red and binding. The apostolic Epistles are full of 11lustrat1011s of the same prmc1ple (eh. ix. 14, 15, 19-22; Gal. v. 13; 1 Pet. ii. 16). Never are we so loftily conscious of our Christian freedom, and never is that freedom so manifest, as when, for some high end, we choose to forego it. "A life of self-1·enouncing love Is a life of liberty." en. v1. 1-20.) THE FlilST EPIS'fLE TO 'l'llE CORINTHIANS. 2l5
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II. FREEDOM CONTROLLED DY THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF MORAL POWER "I will not " •