Whose service is perfect freedom—that is God’s service only. The true character of that service (in Greek Testament phrase, _slavery_) is aptly indicated by St. Paul to the Ephesians, where he speaks of _with good will doing service_—μετ’ εὐνοίας ΔΟΥΛΕΥΟΝΤΕΣ, ὡς τῷ Κυρίῳ καὶ οὐκ ἀνθρώποις. The law of the Spirit of life makes free from the law of sin and death, that the righteousness of spiritual law may be fulfilled in those who sometime were free from righteousness. Freedom from righteousness is, in fact, identical with that bondage of corruption from which they are delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God. He that is so called, being free, is yet Christ’s servant, δοῦλος. And, as a servant, whatsoever he doeth he is to do heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men—τῷ γὰρ Κυρίῳ Χριστῷ ΔΟΥΛΕΥΕΙ. Goethe’s biographer tells us how he would assert, against the encyclopedists, that “whatever frees the intellect, without at the same time giving us command over ourselves, is pernicious;” or would utter one of his profound and pregnant γνῶμαι such as _Nur das Gesetz kann uns die Freiheit geben_, i.e., only within the circle of law can there be true freedom. “We are not free when we acknowledge no higher power, but when we acknowledge it, and in reverence raise ourselves by proving that a Higher lives in us.” We may wrest to our purpose the lines of Schiller, in _Wallensteins Tod_: “Nay, let it not afflict you that your power Is circumscribed. Much liberty, much error! The narrow path of duty is securest.” Liberty of will is likened by Jeremy Taylor to the motion of a magnetic needle towards the north, full of trembling and uncertainty till it be fixed in the beloved point: “it wavers as long as it is free, and is at rest when it can choose no more.” What is liberty? asks M. Jules Simon; and answers, The power of doing or not doing. But, he proceeds to inquire, can this liberty exist independent of law?—_cette liberté peut-elle subsister sans règle?_ Nay, liberty without rule, or law, so far from ennobling him who possesses it, degrades him. Liberty is not given to us to withdraw us from the authority of law, but that we may obey it in recognising its great First Cause. Unrestrained liberty is our ruin; liberty subjected to law, and that an immovable law, is the instrument and the token of our true greatness. Wordsworth philosophically affirms that “all men may find cause, when life is at a weary pause, and they have panted up the hill of duty with reluctant will,” to “Be thankful, even though tired and faint, For the rich bounties of constraint; Whence oft invigorating transports flow, That choice lacked courage to bestow.”