Here our apostle answers an objection, which he foresaw the Christian Jews ready to make against this duty of subjection, namely, "that they were. free people, as Jews, and ought to preserve their liberty, and own no governors that were not of their own nation: and as Christians they looked upon themselves as Christ's freemen:" whereas Christian liberty exempts no man from the duty of civil subjection: the liberty Christ has purchased for believers is. freedom from sin and Satan, from sinful servitude: Christ makes all his subjects free, but it is with. freedom from spirtual bondage, and not from civil subjection; consequently, to plead our Christian liberty in bar to that obedience which we owe our superiors and governors, either civil or ecclesiastical, is to use our liberty for. cloak of maliciousness, and as. covering for that disobedience which is hateful to God, and injurious to mankind, as being destructive of order and government, which is the beauty and the bond of human society.

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Old Testament