The Liberty of Sons

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Joshua

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Richard Sibbes (Works, V. 4, pp. 232, 233):

When a man is in temptation, or opposition from the world, within or without, and can go boldly to God, and pour out his soul to God freely and boldly as to a father, this comes from the Spirit of liberty. Where the Spirit of Christ is not, though the parts be never so strong, or never so great, it will never do thus. Take another man, in the time of extremity, he sinks; but take a child of God in extremity, yet he hath a spirit to go to God, and to cry, Abba, Father; to go in a familiar manner to God.

Saul was a mighty man. When he was in anguish, he could not go to God. Cain could not go to God. Judas, a man of great knowledge, he could not go to God. His heart was naught; he had not the Spirit of Christ, but the spirit of the devil; and the spirit of bondage bound him over for his treason to hell and destruction; because he had not the Spirit to go to God, but accounted him his enemy; he had betrayed Christ. If he had said as much to God as he did to the scribes and Pharisees, he might have had mercy in the force of the thing. I speak not of the decree of God, but in the nature of the thing itself. If he had said so much to Christ and to God, he might have found mercy.

So let a man be never so great a sinner, if he can go to God, and spread his soul, and lay open his sins with any remorse; if he can come, and open his soul in confession and in petition, and beg mercy of God in Christ, to shine as a Father upon his soul—this Spirit of liberty to go to God, it argues that the Spirit of Christ is there, because there is liberty to go to God. In Rom. 8:26, speaking there of comfort in afflictions, this is one among the rest, ‘that the children of God have the Spirit of God, to stir up sighs and groans.’ Now, where the Spirit of God stirs up sighs and groans, God understands the meaning of his own Spirit. There is the spirit of liberty, and there is; the spirit of sons; for a spirit of liberty is the spirit of a son. A man may know that he is the Son of God, and a member of Christ; and that he hath the spirit of liberty in him, if he can, in affliction and trouble, sigh and groan to God in the name and mediation of Christ; for the Spirit stirs up groans and sighs: they come from the Spirit.​
 
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