14. Whom then do you consider as more truly free? Wisdom alone is free, she sets the poor over the rich, and makes the servants lend at usury to their to their own masters; lend, that is, not money but understanding, lend the talent of that Divine and eternal Treasure which is never wasted, the mere loan of which is precious: to lend that mystical money of the heavenly oracles of which the Law says, _Thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow_. This the Jew lent to the Gentiles, for he received not instruction from them but imparted it; to him the Lord opened His treasures, that He might moisten the Gentiles with the dew of His Word, and might become the Head of the nations, while He Himself had no head over Him. Sidenote: Is. lv. 1. 15. He then who is wise is free, bought with the price of the heavenly oracles, with that gold, that silver of the Divine Word; bought with the price of blood (for it is no small thing to acknowledge one’s Redeemer;) bought with the price of Grace: he who heard and understood the words, _Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and drink and eat_. Sidenote: Deut. xxi. 11. Sidenote: Deut. xxi. 14. Sidenote: Job xxviii. 18, 19. 16. He is free who going forth to war, if he have seen a beautiful woman, and when he spoils his enemies’ goods has found her among them and _has a desire unto her, takes her to wife_, having first _shaved her head and pared her nails, and taken off from her the raiment of her captivity_, taking her no longer as a slave but free, for he understands that prudence and discipline are not liable to a state of bondage. And therefore the Law says, _Thou shalt not sell her at all for money_, for truly she is above all price. And Job says, _Take[186] wisdom into thine ♦inmost parts. The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it_, for it is more precious than gold and silver. 17. Freedom therefore is not his alone who has never had the auctioneer for his master, nor seen him raising his finger, but he is more truly free, who is free within himself, who is free by the laws of nature, knowing that this law has a moral not merely an arbitrary sanction, and that the measure of its obligations is in accordance not with the will of man but with the discipline of nature. Does such a person therefore seem to you free merely? Does he not rather appear to you in the light of a censor and director of morals? Hence the Scripture says truly that _the poor shall be set over the rich, and private men over those who administer the state_[187]. Sidenote: 1 Tim. i. 9. Sidenote: Prov. v. 15.