22. This is also the Apostle’s definition, who says, _For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will a dispensation is committed to me_. On the wise man therefore a reward is conferred, but the wise man acts willingly, according to the Apostle therefore the wise man is free. Wherefore he also exclaims, _Ye have been called unto liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh_. He separates the Christian from the Law, that he may not seem to yield to the Law against his will; he calls him to the Gospel, which the willing both preach and practise. The Jew is under the Law, the Christian is by the Gospel; in the Law is bondage, in the Gospel, where is the knowledge of wisdom, is liberty. Every one therefore who receives Christ is wise, and he who is wise is free, every Christian therefore is both wise and free. Sidenote: 1 Cor. ix. 19. Sidenote: S. John xv. 15. Sidenote: Gal. v. 13. Sidenote: Ps. lxxxi. 6. LXX. Sidenote: Phil. ii. 6. Sidenote: 1 Cor. ix. 24, 27. 23. But the Apostle has taught me something even beyond freedom itself, namely that to serve is real freedom, _Though I be free from all_, he says, _yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more_. What is that which surpasses liberty but to have the Spirit of grace, to have charity? Liberty renders us free to men, but charity renders us beloved by God. Wherefore Christ also says, _But I have called you friends_. Good indeed is charity; whereof it is said, _By love of the Spirit[188] serve one another_. Christ also became a servant that He might make all free. _His hands served in the baskets_: He Who _thought it not robbery to be equal with God, took upon Him the form of a servant_, and was made all things to all men, that He might bring salvation to all. Following this example, Paul was both, as it were, under the Law, and lived without the Law, for the benefit of those whom he desired to gain: to the weak he voluntarily became weak that he might strengthen them; _he ran so as to obtain, he kept under his body that he might be victorious over heavenly powers in Christ_. 24. To the wise man therefore even bondage is freedom; whence we may gather that even to be in power is bondage to the fool, and what is worse, while he rules over a few, he serves more and severer masters. For he serves his own passions, his own lusts, their tyranny he can escape neither by night nor day, for he carries these masters within his own breast, and suffers within himself an intolerable bondage. For there is a double bondage, one of the body, another of the soul; now the lords of the body are men, but the lords of the soul are evil dispositions and passions, from which liberty of the mind alone frees the wise man and enables him to depart from his bondage. Sidenote: Job xiii. 19–21.