Two weeks today, the massive Tommy Robinson event in London will have come and gone. Free Speech will have been the agenda and the defence of British values and culture. Rightly so.
But let me remind you of the words of a fine Englishman and stand-out leader of men from the end of the last Century, and who put his finger perfectly on what any cultural revolution must be based upon for it not to descend into merely alternative forms of despotism and sin:
“While I bid men not undervalue English liberty, so also on the other hand I charge them not to overvalue it. Never forget that temporal slavery is not the only slavery, and temporal freedom not the only freedom. What shall it profit you to be a citizen of a free country, so long as your soul is not free? What is the use of living in a free land like England, with free thought, free speech, free action, free conscience, so long as you are a slave to sin, and a captive to the devil? Yes: there are tyrants whom no eye can see, as real and destructive as Pharaoh or Nero! There are chains which no hands can touch, as true and heavy and soul withering as ever crushed the limbs of an African! It is these tyrants whom I want you this day to remember. It is these chains from which I want you to be free.
Value by all means your English liberty, but do not overvalue it. Look higher, further than any temporal freedom. In the highest sense let us take care that we are free.
Let no reader think for a moment that this is going to be a political paper. I am no politician: I have no politics but those of the Bible. The only party I care for is the Lord’s side: show me where that is, and it shall have my support. The only election I am very anxious about is the election of grace. My one desire is, that sinners should make their own calling and election sure. The liberty I desire above all things to make known, and further, is the glorious liberty of the children of God. The government I care to support is the government which is on the shoulder of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Before Christ I want every knee to bow, and every tongue to confess that He is Lord. I ask attention while I canvass these subjects. If you are not free, I want to guide you into true liberty. If you are free, I want you to know the full value of your freedom.
I have now to show, in the last place, the way in which the best kind of freedom is made our own.
This is a point of vast importance, on account of the many mistakes which prevail about it. Thousands, perhaps, will allow that there is such a thing as spiritual freedom, and that Christ alone has purchased it for us: but when they come to the application of redemption, they go astray. They cannot answer the question, ‘Who are those whom Christ effectually makes free?’ and for want of knowledge of the answer, they sit still in their chains. I ask every reader to give me his attention once more, and I will try to throw a little light on the subject. Useless indeed is the redemption which Christ has obtained, unless you know how the fruit of that redemption can become your own. In vain have you read of the freedom wherewith Christ makes people free, unless you understand how you yourself may have an interest in it.”
Practical Religion by J. C. Ryle. (First Bishop of Liverpool, 1878)
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