that they serve their own lusts! Sin itself
and the lusts of the flesh, are a grievous yoke, which the putting on of
this yoke looses them from: and when the heart is thus enlarged with love
and delight in Christ, then the feet unfettered, may walk at liberty, and
run in the way of God's commandments. "I will walk at liberty," when I
have a respect to thy ways, Psal. cxix. 45. O how spacious and broad is
that way in reality, which to our first apprehension and the common
construction is strait and narrow! The truth is, there is no straitness,
no bondage, no scantiness, but in sin. That is the most abominable
vassalage, and the greatest thraldom of the immortal spirit; to be so
basely dragged by the flesh downward, to the vilest drudgery, and to be so
pinched and hampered(449) within the narrowness of created and perishing
things. To speak properly, there is no slavery but this of the spirit; for
it is not so contrary to the nature and state of the body, (which by its
first institution was made a servant,) to be under the dominion of men,
and further we cannot reach. Yea, it is possible for a man, while his body
is imprisoned, to be yet at greater freedom than those who imprisoned him.
As his mind is, so he is. But to be a servant of sin and unrighteousness,
must totally degrade the soul of man. It quite defaces that primitive
glory, and destroys that native liberty, in which he was created.
Therefore to have this sin taken off us, and the yoke of Christ's
obedience put on us, to be made free from sin, and become the servants of
righteousness, that is the soul's true liberty, which sets it forth at
large to expatiate in the exceeding broad commandments, and in the
infinite goodness of God, where there is infinite room for the soul.

When, then, I consider how beautiful this is for a reasonable spirit, to
be under the law of him that hath made it and redeemed it, I cannot but
think that Christ doth rather beautify and bless, than burden. The beauty
of the world consists in that sweet order, and harmonious subordination of
all things, to that law God hath imposed upon them, or engraves upon their
natures. If we should suppose but one of the parts of the world to swerve
from the primitive institution, what a miserable distraction would ensue?
How deformed would this beautiful and adorned fabric become? How much more
is it the beauty, grace, and comeliness of an intelligent being, to be
under the law of him that gave him a be