Captives bound in chains, made free by Christ their surety

4. This spiritual freedom by Christ doth not exempt us nor excuse us from the service we owe to men in the places and relations wherein God hath set us. Indeed the Lord's free-men must not be the servants of men, so as to please men in that in which they will displease God, 1 Cor. 7.23. but yet one that is the Lord's free-man might be in the place of a servant to man, and ought to follow his calling and mind his Masters business, and that with greater care and conscience than others do, even to such Masters as be the servants of sin, Ephes. 6.5, 6. 1 Pet. 2.18. Gal. 5.13. And to such Masters that are the Lord's free-men, 1 Tim. 6.1, 2.

5. Christ doth not free us from afflictions nor from troubles from men. Christ hath no where told us, he came to free us from scorns and from reproaches; from prisons, and from tribulations; but the contrary, Joh. 16. last. All God's Freemen will be hated by the Devil's Slaves; and we shall not be freed from them, till we be out of their reach, and that will not be till we get to Heaven. Those that have spiritual liberty might lose their civil liberty: as a man might have a civil liberty, but not spiritual; a man might be free of a City, free of a Company, and yet not free by Christ: so a man might be in prison, bound in chains there, and yet be spiritually free; Joseph in the prison, Daniel in the den, Jeremiah in the dungeon, and yet all the Lord's Free-men. When Christ calls to many in their bondage to come to him to be made free, they would indent with Christ that they should enjoy freedom from crosses and troubles, and sufferings; which because Christ doth not free his followers from, they had rather have their freedom from sufferings in their bondage, than sufferings with spiritual freedom.