Simplicity, Immortality, and Freedom
Sermon 81 on The Song of Songs
IV. 7. It is only man who has not thus been dominated by nature, therefore he alone among living creatures is free. Yet when sin intervenes, even man is dominated, but by his will, not by nature, and he is not thereby deprived of the liberty which is his birthright. What is done willingly is done freely. It is by sin that the corruptible body oppresses the soul, but it is the result of love, not of force. For although the soul fell of itself, it cannot rise of itself, because the will lies weak and powerless through the vitiated and depraved love of a corrupt body, yet is at the same time capable of a love of justice. So, in some strange and twisted way the will deteriorates and brings about a state of compulsion where bondage cannot excuse the will, because the action was voluntary, nor can the will, being fettered, free itself from bondage. For this bondage is in some sense voluntary. It is an agreeable bondage which flatters while it overcomes, and overcomes by flattery, so that when the will has betrayed itself by consenting to sin, it cannot of itself throw off the yoke, nor reasonably excuse itself. Then, like the voice of one groaning under the yoke of bondage, comes this cry, ‘Lord, I am oppressed; answer for me.’ But now listen to what he says next, knowing that he has no just complaint against the Lord, since it was his own will which was to blame: `What am I to say? Who will speak for me? For I myself have done this evil.' He was oppressed by the yoke, but the yoke of a voluntary servitude; because it was servitude, he is miserable, yet because it was voluntary, inexcusable. For it is the will which, although free, by consenting to sin became slave to sin; and it is the will which puts itself in subjection to sin by its willing servitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment