and I was going to
add, the flesh and the devil. Make your choice. He has bought you.
You belong to Him by His death. Yield yourselves to Him, it is the
only way of breaking your chains. He that doeth sin is the servant of
sin. 'If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed,' and not
only free; for the King's slaves are princes and nobles, and 'all
things are yours, and ye are Christ's.' They who say to Him 'O Lord!
truly I am Thy servant,' receive from Him the rank of kings and
priests to God, and shall reign with Him for ever.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

'Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein
abide with God.'--1 COR. vii. 24.

You find that three times within the compass of a very few verses
this injunction is repeated. 'As God hath distributed to every man,'
says the Apostle in the seventeenth verse, 'as the Lord hath called
every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all the churches.'
Then again in the twentieth verse, 'Let every man abide in the same
calling wherein he is called.' And then finally in our text.

The reason for this emphatic reiteration is not difficult to
ascertain. There were strong temptations to restlessness besetting
the early Christians. The great change from heathenism to
Christianity would seem to loosen the joints of all life, and having
been swept from their anchorage in religion, all external things
would appear to be adrift. It was most natural that a man should seek
to alter even the circumstances of his outward life, when such a
revolution had separated him from his ancient self. Hence would tend
to come the rupture of family ties, the separation of husband and
wife, the Jewish convert seeking to become like a Gentile, the
Gentile seeking to become like a Jew; the slave trying to be free,
the freeman, in some paroxysm of disgust at his former condition,
trying to become a slave. These three cases are all referred to in
the context--marriage, circumcision, slavery. And for all three the
Apostle has the same advice to give--'Stop where you are.' In
whatever condition you were when God's invitation drew you to
Himself--for that, and not being set to a 'vocation' in life, is the
meaning of the word 'called' here--remain in it.

And then, on the other hand, there was every reason why the Apostle
and his co-workers should set themselves, by all means in their
power, to oppose this restlessness. For, if Christianity in those
early days had once degenerat