March 8

The glorious liberty of the children of God.—Romans 8:21.

THE liberty of which the apostle here speaks, is the liberty of saints, as such, perfected in glory. It is a liberty from the servitude of sin, from the seduction of a misguided judgment, and the allurement of any ensnaring forbidden object: consisting in an abounding amplitude and enlargedness of soul towards God, and indetermination to any inferior good: resulting from an entire subjection to the Divine will, a submission to the order of God, and steady adherence to him.

This is the glorious liberty of the children of God; the liberty wherewith the Son makes free. Liberty indeed, measured and regulated by the royal law of liberty, and which is perfected only in a perfect conformity thereto. There is a most servile liberty, a being free from righteousness, which under that specious name and show, enslaves a man to corruption: and there is as free a service, by which a man is still the more free, by how much the more he serves, and is subject to his superior's will, and governing influences; and by how much the less possible it is, he should swerve therefrom. The nearest approaches therefore of the soul to God; its most intimate union with him, and entire subjection to him in its glorified state, makes its liberty consummate.

Now is its deliverance complete, its bands are fallen off; it is perfectly disentangled from all the snares of death, in which it was formerly held; it is under no restraints, oppressed by no weights, held down by no clogs; it hath free exercise of all its powers; hath every faculty and affection at command. How inconceivable a pleasure is this! With what delight doth the poor prisoner entertain himself, when his manacles and fetters are knocked off! when he is enlarged from his loathsome dungeon, and the house of his bondage; breathes in a free air; can dispose of himself, and walk at liberty whither he will! The bird escaped from his cage, or freed from his line and stone that resisted its vain and too feeble strugglings before; how pleasantly doth it range! with what joy doth it clap its wings, and take its flight! A faint emblem of the joy wherewith that pleasant, cheerful note shall one day be sung and chanted forth. Our soul is escaped,

7 as a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken and we are escaped. There is now no place for such a complaint, I would, but I can not; I would turn my thoughts to glorious objects, but I can not. The blessed soul feels itself free from all confinement: nothing resists its will, as its will doth never resist the will of God. It knows no limits, no restraints; it is not tied up to this or that particular good; but expatiates freely in the immense, universal, all-comprehending goodness of God himself.

And this liberty is the perfect image and likeness of the liberty and likeness of God, especially in its consummate state. In its progress towards it, it increases as the soul draws nearer to God; which nearer approach is not in respect of place or local nearness, but likeness and conformity to him; in respect whereof, as God is most sublime and excellent in himself, so is it in him. Its consummate liberty is, when it is so fully transformed into that likeness of God, as that he is all to it, as to himself: so that as he is an infinite satisfaction to himself; his likeness in this respect, is the very satisfaction itself of the blessed soul.