CHAPTER XXXIV – 17. Carnal liberty to be denied
CHAPTER XXXIV
Carnal Liberty to be Denied: what 17. ANOTHER selfish interest to be denied, is, carnal liberty. A thing that selfishness hath strangely brought of late into so much credit, that abundance among us think they are doing some special service to God, their country, the church, and their own souls, when they are but deeply engaged for the devil, by a self-seeking spirit, in a carnal course. For the discovery of this dangerous, common disease, I must first tell you, that there is a threefold liberty which must carefully be differenced. 1. There is a holy, blessed liberty which no man must deny. 2. There is a wicked liberty, which no man should desire. 3.
And between these two there is a common, natural, and civil liberty, which is good in its place, as other worldly matters are, but must be denied, when it stands in competition with higher and better things; and, as all other worldly matters, is holy when it is holily esteemed and used; that is, for God; but sinful when it is sinfully esteemed and used, and that is for carnal self.
I. The first of these is not to be denied, but all other liberty to be denied for it. This holy liberty consisteth in these following particulars. 1. To be freed from the power of sin, which is the disability, the deformity, the death of the soul. 2. From the guilt of sin, and the wrath of God, and the curse of the law. 3. To be restored to God by Christ, in union, reconciliation, and sanctification; and our enthralled spirits set free, to know, and love, and serve him, and delight in him. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; 2 Cor.
3:17. God is the soul's freedom, who is its lord, and life, and end, and
all. 4. To be delivered from satan as a deceiver, and enemy, and executioner of the wrath of God. 5. To be freed from that law or covenant of works, which requireth that which to us is become impossible. 6. To be freed from that burdensome task of useless ceremonies, imposed on the church in times of infancy and darkness.
7. To be freed from the accusations of a guilty conscience, and those self-tormentings which in the wicked are the foretastes of hell. 8. To be freed from such temporal judgments here as might hinder our salvation, or our service of God. 9. To be free from the condemning sentence at the last day, and the everlasting torments which the wicked must endure. 10. And to be delivered into the blessed sight of God, and the perfect fruition and pleasing of him, in perfect love, and joy, and praise to all eternity. This is the liberty which you must not deny, which I therefore name, that by the way you may see, that it is not for nothing that the other sorts of liberty are to be denied.
II. The second sort of liberty is, that which is wicked and directly evil, which all men should deny; and this is a freedom from righteousness, as the apostle calls it, Rom. 6:20. To be free from a voluntary subjection to God, and free from those sighs and groans for sin, and that godly sorrow which the sanctified undergo; and to be free from all those spiritual motions and changing works upon their hearts, which the Spirit doth work on all the saints; to be free from holy speeches, and holy prayer, and other duties, and from that strict and holy manner of living which God commandeth; to be at liberty to sin against God, and to please the flesh, and follow their own imaginations and wills, let God say what he will to the contrary: to be free to eat and drink what we love and have a mind of, and to be merry, and wanton, and lustful, and worldly, and take our course without being curbed by so precise a law, as God hath given us; to be
free from a heavenly conversation, and those preparations for death, and that communion with God which the saints partake of: this is the wicked liberty of the world, which the worst of carnal men desire; and the next beyond this, is a liberty to lie in the fire of hell, and a freedom from salvation, and from the everlasting joy and praises of the saints. If freedom from grace and holiness deserve the name of freedom, then you may next call damnation a freedom.
And it is part also of this sinful, miserable liberty to be free from the government, and officers, and good laws which rule the church and commonwealth. And such wretches there are in the world, that seriously judge it a desirable liberty to be free from these. They think that their country is free, when every man may do what he list, and they have no king or other governors, or none that will look after them, and punish their miscarriages; and they think the church is free, when they have no pastors, or when pastors have least power over them, and they may do what they list. And indeed if they were rid of magistrates and ministers, they were free! As a school is free that hath shut out the master, or have rejected him, and teach and rule one another! And as a ship is free when the master and pilot are thrown overboard; and as an army is free when they have cast off or lost their commanders! Or to speak more fitly, as a hospital is free when they are delivered of their physician; and as the madmen in bedlam are free when they have killed, or escaped from their keepers! As infidels keep their freedom, by refusing Christ in himself; so carnal dividers and heretics keep their freedom, by refusing his officers, and Christ in those officers; "For he that heareth them, heareth him; and he that despiseth them, despiseth him; and he that despiseth, despiseth not man but God;" Luke 10:16. 1 Thess. 4:8.
And another part of this ungodly liberty is, to be free from the exercise, at least, of this power of magistrates and ministers, so far as not to be restrained from sin, though they be not free from the state of subjects. To swear, and be drunk, and live as most ale-sellers, on the damning sins of others, and make a trade of selling men their damnation, and to have no magistrate punish them, no officer trouble them, and no neighbour accuse them; this is their liberty. To game, and roar, and revel, and have nobody say to them, why do you so, is part of their liberty. To have leave without restraint to make all others as bad as themselves, and if they are infidels or heretics, to persuade other men to it: if they hold any opinion against the God that made them, against Christ, against the Spirit of God, against the word and laws of God, against his ministers, his church, his ordinances, against any necessary point of faith, or if they have any false conceit that leads straight to hell, that they may have full power, licence, and authority, to bring as many as they can to be of the same mind, that they may not be unprofitable servants to the devil, nor go to hell alone, this is a great part of their impious liberty. And because the name of conscience is become honourable, they call this by the name of liberty of conscience; when indeed it is liberty of practice that they mean, and not liberty of conscience; for their conscience cannot be altered by force, nor touched by the sword. It is they that deprive men of the liberty of their consciences, whilst by false teaching they put out the eye of conscience, and enslave it to sinful, false conceits. And conscience is science; and error is not science but ignorance; and therefore as error is not conscience, but the destruction of conscience; so liberty to error, is no liberty of conscience, but a liberty to destroy conscience: much less is it liberty of conscience to sin against God, and draw others from conscience
into error, and poison men's souls, and hinder the Gospel, and promote the work and kingdom of the devil.
And many of our miserable, sottish people take it for a part of their desired liberty to be free from ministers' spiritual oversight and government, and not be catechised or called to an account, or examined about the state of their souls, nor questioned about their lives, but that they may do what they will, and have sacraments, and all ordinances on what terms and in what manner they will, and to have ministers bow their judgment to theirs, and lay their consciences at the feet of every carnal, ignorant wretch, and be but their servants to do what they would have them; this is the liberty that satan's servants do desire.
And withal, that they may be free from necessary payments for the safety of the commonwealth, and from the necessary retribution to God, for the church and poor, yea from giving but the ministers their own; all this they take for part of their liberty. But they are all such liberties as Christ never purchased, and the Gospel never bestowed, and never made the owners happy: it is a liberty to starve their own souls, and go quietly to everlasting torment, and not be molested by preachers and puritans, but to sin against God, and damn themselves, and be let alone, and have nobody tell them of it, or ask them, why will you do so? In a word, it is that liberty that Christ died to save his people from, and which the Gospel would take down, and the Spirit, ministry, and ordinances would overthrow, and which no wise and good man hath reason to desire; and it is that liberty which God will save all those from, whom he will save from the flames of hell.
III. The third sort of liberty is that which is in itself indifferent, or to be reckoned among the common, transitory benefits of this life, which with God's blessing is a mercy; and well used may do good, but otherwise is hurtful, or little worth. This liberty is not the natural liberty of the will, which in regard of its own illicit acts is nothing but the power of self-determination; and in regard of internal imperate acts, is nothing but a power or freedom to do what we will. For these are so our own, if not ourselves, that no man can take them from us; at least the first. Nor is it the ethical liberty of the soul from sin by gracious habits; for this is ever good, as was said before. Nor is it a political liberty from those tyrannous laws or practices of men that would root out the Gospel and pull down the kingdom of Christ, and set up iniquity. This liberty must be desired, and not denied, even when we submit ourselves to prosecution; but it is, 1. The civil liberty of being from under the government of others and of having a hand in government ourselves. 2. The liberty of being from under the government of strangers, conquerors, or enemies. 3. The liberty of choosing our own governors, and having them not by other men's election set over us. 4. A liberty from burdensome payments and taxes, which are of no necessity to our good. 5. A liberty from arbitrary government, and from being liable to the mere will and passions of men. 6. A protection from the abuses and injuries of others. 7. And a liberty for our bodies from the restraint of imprisonment. All these are things that in themselves are naturally good; and especially the two last are very great mercies. But yet as the five first are smaller matters, so all of them are but temporal, transitory things, and not to be regarded in comparison of Christ and the heavenly liberties. The dearest of them must be denied when they stand in the way of duty, and cannot be had on terms of innocency.
To sin for liberty, is to leap out of the frying-pan into the fire, as the proverb is; to become the prisoners of the devil, that we may not be the prisoners of men; to enslave the soul for the liberty of the body.
Believe it, sin makes deeper galls than bolts or scourges do: it is an easy durance to lie in gaol, in comparison of lying in sin, or under the wrath of God. At the farthest, death will free you from imprisonment, but death alone will not free you from sin. It is but men's foolish conceits that makes imprisonment so grievous to the most. It is the same earth that they tread on, and the same air that they breathe in as before. The great trouble is that they have not their wills; for when their own wills do as much confine them, it is then no trouble. I can confine myself to one room, to one chair, the far greatest part of the year for my studies; and why should I not bear as well to be so confined by another, if my own will could but comply with it? Never grudge at restraint or imprisonment then, but find out some employment in it, whereby you may be serviceable to God, or at least serve him by your sufferings, and then rejoice in it, and bring your minds to your condition, and so you may set yourself at liberty in spite of the greatest tyrant in the world. Imprisonment is but a penal restraint; and if it be not involuntary, it is scarcely penal: it is therefore in your power whether you will be prisoner or not, because it is in your power whether it shall be involuntary or not. Be but willing of your confinement, and you are at liberty; and though you are not out of the place, you are out of the prison. The same room that is a prison to the rest, is none to the keeper that guards them, because apprehending it to be for his commodity, he is willing of it, and their prison is his home. And if you do but apprehend how you are called from temptations, and have an opportunity of honouring
God, or at least of being more humbled and mortified, and so bring
your mind to consent to your habitation, it is become your home and place of freedom: however he is unworthy of the liberty of the saints, that cannot deny the liberty of his habitation or bodily abode for the attaining of it.
And for the things that men make such a stir about in the world, under the name of their civil liberties, some of them are no liberties, but fancies or miseries, and the rest of them are no further to be valued than they are subservient to the kingdom of Christ, and the good of souls. Conceited people call it their liberty to be governed rather by four hundred than by one, or by popularity than by other forms of government, and a great stir they make about this, as if their felicity did consist in it; when as the true liberty of a commonwealth consisteth in the fullest conformity of their laws and their execution to the will of God; in being free from all laws or passions of men that encourage iniquity, and are against the Gospel or the common good, and peace and welfare of the body: in a word, to have government best fitted to the ends of government, which is such a temporal safety and prosperity as most conduceth to the service and honour of God; but the species of government is none of this liberty in itself considered. A people may be at much more liberty under a pious monarch than an impious or unskilful democracy. The free choice of the most when they are bad (as where is it better?) may enslave the best; and the awe and interest of the rich is commonly such upon the people, that a free choice is somewhat strange. And that sort of government may be fittest for one people, that is unfit for another; and their happiness lieth not in the species of government, let them stretch their wits to invent new forms as long as they will, but in the predominancy of God and his interest in the hearts of the governors, and in their laws, their officers, and execution. This is it, and nothing