Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The phantom of liberty and true liberty

When I hear the cry about liberty, I think of the old cry, 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians'. Civil liberty is a valuable blessing but if people sin it away, it is the Lord who deprives them of it. . . However a believer has a liberty with which Jesus has made him free which depends upon no outward circumstances. It grieves me to hear those who are slaves to sin and Satan, make such a stir about that phantom which they worship under the name of liberty, and especially to see not a few of the Lord's people so much conformed to the world in this respect.

August, 1775
- Letter from John Newton to John Ryland, Jr.
From Wise Counsel edited by Grant Gordon