While they promise them liberty
Not Christian liberty, which lies in a freedom from sin, its
dominion, guilt, and condemnation, and in serving God with
liberty, cheerfulness, and without fear; but a sinful carnal
liberty, a liberty from the law of God, from obedience to it as a
rule of walk and conversation, and from the laws of men, from
subjection to the civil magistrate, and from servitude to
masters, and obedience to parents; a liberty to lay aside and
neglect the ordinances of the Gospel at pleasure, and to live in
all manner of sin and wickedness; a liberty which is contrary to
the nature, will, and work of Christ, to his Spirit, and to the
principle of grace in the heart, and to the Gospel, and to the
conduct and conversation of real saints. Now this was the snare
by which the false teachers beguiled unstable souls; liberty
being what is greatly desirable to men, and is suited to their
carnal lusts and interests: but a vain promise was this, when
they themselves are the servants of corruption;
of sin, which has corrupted all mankind in soul and body; and
particularly the lust of uncleanness, which these men walked in,
and by which they not only corrupted themselves, but the good
manners of others also; and which tended and led them both to
ruin and destruction, signified by the pit of corruption: and yet
these very preachers, that promised liberty to others, were the
servants of sin; they were under the power and government of sin.
They were not only born so, and were homeborn slaves to sin, but
they sold themselves to work wickedness; voluntarily and with
delight, they served divers lusts and pleasures, and were slaves
and drudges thereunto; as likewise to Satan, whose lusts they
would do, and by whom they were led captive; so that their
condition was mean, base, and deplorable, and therefore could
never make good their promise, or give that which they had not
themselves: and which is confirmed by the following reasoning,
for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in
bondage:
as this is a certain point in war, that when one man is conquered
by another, he is no longer a free man, but the other's prisoner
and captive, and is in a state of servitude and bondage; so it is
when a man is overcome by sin, which must be understood not of a
partial victory or conquest, for a good man may be surprised by
sin, and overtaken in a fault, and be overcome and carried
captive by it for a time, as was the apostle, see ( Romans 7:23 ) (
Galatians
6:1 ) ; and yet not be a servant of corruption, or properly
in a state of bondage to it; but this is to be understood of a
total and complete victory, when a man is wholly under the
dominion of sin, it reigns in his mortal body, and he obeys it in
the lusts of it, and yields his members instruments of
unrighteousness; such a man is neither a free man himself, nor
can he much less promise and give liberty to others.