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those that are bruised with this yoke of hard service, Luke iv. 18.

When the Hebrew servant's liberty was pro claimed, he was delivered from his master, from the command of his master, from the threatening of his master, and from the service of his master; he was a free man; he shall, says God, go out free; and yet this man, that went out at the year of jubilee, is, says God, my servant, Lev. xxv. 42. So the believing sinner is delivered from the law, that being dead, Rom. vii. 6; from the command of the law, for the letter killeth; from the curse of the law, Gal. iii. 13; and from the service of the law, for he shall "serve in the newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter," Rom. vii. 6. He is a free man: "if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed;" and yet he that is this free man is Christ's servant, 1 Cor. vii. 22; for though he is not under the law, yet he is not without law to God, but under this law of liberty to Christ, who has made him free indeed, and he that looketh into this law of liberty, and continues in it, shall be blessed in his deed.

No doubt but many of the mercenary Hebrew masters were grieved at this law of liberty; they were galled and chafed in their minds to see their slaves go out free. Hence we read that Zedekiah made a covenant with all the people at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to their servants unjustly detained: that every man should let his man servant or maid servant, being an Hebrew or Hebrewess,

go free that they should not serve themselves of them. When the princes and people heard of this covenant of the kings, they obeyed it, and let their servants go free; "but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids, whom they had let go free, to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids."

I made a covenant with your fathers, says God, that when the servant had served six years ye shall let him go free, and you had now turned and done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty; and ye had made a covenant before me, in the house which is called by my name, but ye returned and polluted my name, by causing every man and maid servant whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure to return, and brought them into subjection. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty;-Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. I will even give them into the hands of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and their dead bodies shall be meat for the fowls of heaven;" read Jeremiah chap. xxxiv.

"He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity," says John, Rev. xiii. 10; and so it was here, the masters hated the Lord's release; they refused to break the yoke, therefore God put their necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, Jer.

xxvii. 8; and left them in his service threescore and ten years, and then proclaimed a jubilee to them, which they were as glad to hear of as their poor servants had been before; as it is written, "when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream." But the deliverance that God proclaimed to them was more than a dream, though that was little better that they had formerly proclaimed to their servants. God's release of them was real, which filled their mouth with laughter, and their tongues with singing, insomuch, that the heathens said the Lord hath done great things for them, Psalm cxxvi. 1, 2. These mercenary masters are lively figures of many of our preachers; and it is with allusion to them that the inspired penmen often speak of false apostles and deceitful workers, who under the vail of the law, and the influence of the devil transformed, call the everlasting gospel Antinomianism, the preachers of it Antinomians, the powerful operations of the Spirit of it enthusiasm, and the liberty of it licentiousness; as if the word, Spirit, grace, and ministers of the Lord, were the only instruments of Satan; and graceless men the only infallible preachers of holiness, who under a false shew of it tempt God; bring forth the old yoke; lead the saints into bondage; pervert their way; and set their hearts to fretting against the Lord, Prov. xix. 3. Of this number are some; I may say legions, for they are many, that go from our universities and academies; who have no other qualifications for the ministry, authority in it, cre

dentials for it, right to live by it, or to claim the honour of it, than that which is of men; they are ministers of men and by men. And among all the mysteries that puzzle the wise this is none of the least, that men of worldly wisdom, which God calls foolishness, 1 Cor. iii. 19; and wise and prudent men, from whom he has hid the mysteries of his kingdom, Matt. xi. 25; should be able with the help of that wisdom that is earthly, sensual, and devilish, James iii. 15; to turn carnal men into ministers of the Spirit, spiritual lords, divines, and doctors of divinity. But so it is, if we may credit all that we hear; but how it is done must remain a mystery, until he that has promised to reveal the mystery of iniquity reveal this also as a main branch of it. And who set these men to heap to themselves teachers is also as great a mystery. I know Paul bids Timothy commit his doctrine to faithful men, that they might be able to teach others; but to turn infidels into faithful men and divines is another thing. Paul speaks of some in his days that acted as the Hebrew masters did by their servants, who proclaimed liberty to them, and subjected them to servitude again; and calls them “false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage: to whom we gave place by subjection no not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel, [or the freedom that Christ has promised to them that receive the truth, John viii. 32;] might continue with you," Gal. ii. 4, 5. And what was the bond

age that these spies, who came privily, brought in unexpectedly, wanted to bring them into? why they wanted to subject them to the command of the law, which genders to bondage, by telling them that they were under the law as a rule of life. "There rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, that it was needful to circumcise them, [the believing Gentiles,] and to command them to keep the law of Moses." Here is the command to the believers, they were to keep the law of Moses; to which Peter answers, "God which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" The liberty which Peter here alludes to is the liberty of the Holy Ghost, which God had given them, which Paul calls the law of the Spirit of life, which made him free from the law of sin and death; and "where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty," 2 Cor. iii. 17; for, as David says, the Spirit of God is a free Spirit, Psalm li. 12. The rule that Peter gives them is faith, which purifies the heart. The unbearable yoke that they were going to tempt God with, by galling the neck of the disciples, was, first, the needfulness of circumcision: Secondly, a command to keep the law of Moses; and it is called tempting God, because it was a reflection cast upon his

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