orth as 'the Lord's freedman.' He knows now that sin has
no longer power for one moment to command obedience. It may seek to
assert its old right; it may speak in the tone of authority; it may
frighten us into fear and submission; power it has none over us, except
as we, forgetting our freedom, yield to its temptation, and ourselves
give it power.

We are the Lord's freedmen. 'We have our liberty in Christ Jesus.' In
Rom. vii. Paul describes the terrible struggles of the soul who still
seeks to fulfil the law, but finds itself utterly helpless; sold under
sin, a captive and a slave, without the liberty to do what the whole
heart desires. But when the Spirit takes the place of the law, the
complaint, 'O wretched man that I am,' is changed into the song of
victory: 'I thank God, through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of
life hath made me free.'

What numberless complaints of insufficient strength to do God's will, of
unsuccessful effort and disappointed hopes, of continual failure,
re-echo in a thousand different forms the complaint of the captive, 'O
wretched man that I am!' Thank God! there is deliverance. 'With freedom
did Christ set us free! Stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again
in a yoke of bondage.' Satan is ever seeking to lay on us again the yoke
either of sin or the law, to beget again the spirit of bondage, as if
sin or the law with their demands somehow had power over us. It is not
so: be not entangled; stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has
made you free. Let us listen to the message: 'Being made free from sin,
ye became servants unto righteousness; now yield your members servants
to righteousness _unto sanctification_.' 'Having been made free from
sin, and having been enslaved unto God, ye have your fruit _unto
sanctification_.' To be holy, you must be free, perfectly free; free for
Jesus to rule you, to lead you; free for the Holy Spirit to dispose of
you, to breathe in you, to work His secret, gentle, but mighty work, so
that you may grow up unto all the liberty Jesus has won for you. The
temple could not be sanctified by the indwelling of God, except as it
was free from every other master and every other use, to be for Him and
His service alone. The inner temple of our heart cannot be truly and
fully sanctified, except as we are free from every other master and
power, from every yoke of bondage, or fear, or doubt, to let His Spirit
lead us into the perfect liberty which has its fr