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Liberty is the element of a Christian. The fall placed nature under the bondage of sin; but then the law placed sin under the bondage of fear; but Christ first delivers sin from fear, and then delivers nature from sin. That the "Jerusalem above" means the present Church militant, as well as the Church triumphant the kingdom of heaven within you, as well as the kingdom of heaven above you — both grace and glory — is evident from the manner in which the expression "Jerusalem," or "Zion," is used in its connection of thought in many other parts of Scripture; as, for example, in the Psalms; or Isaiah 62:1, 2; or Hebrews 12:22; or Revelation 3:12; or Revelation 21:2. Of all this Jerusalem, then, or Church-state, the character, the determining character, is liberty. If I wanted a proof of this, I might see it in the fact that everything which is not free is from beneath. Every machination of Satan against God's people — every dark heresy that comes to confine the Church — every spiritual temptation which ensnares a man's conscience — every distress which cramps a believer's mind — is from beneath; therefore, because it is from beneath, it is bondage. Bondage is from below. "Jerusalem above," — that which your citizenship is — "is free." Endeavour now to catch, for a moment or two, a feature, one or two features, in the liberty of the Church in heaven, that we may, by God's grace, copy it into our liberty of the Church below. I observe that in heaven everything is very large, to us infinite. The room is boundless; the inhabitants are beyond computation — even as those stars in the heavens, which no man can reckon. But yet, as God does with those stars, so God does with everything in heaven. The gates, the fruits, the seats, the elders, the crowns, are all numbered — so that I see in heaven at once vastness and accuracy; the freest scope with the minutest observation. So be out freedom here. Our mercies are infinite. Still, every one of my mercies is known, and written down in God's book, as a separate item. It is written; it is catalogued, and responsible. The multitude is vast; but, for each one that goes to make that multitude, I have to give a separate account how I have used it in this world. That is my liberty. Again, look at the cervices of heaven. I note that they use forms in heaven. We are told the very words, which they cease not day and night to say (never weary, though) — "Worthy is the Lamb! — Amen! — Alleluia! — For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!" But oh! what a freshness, what spirit there is in those celestial formularies! Let us take our liberty. Free thoughts and full affections, in prescribed currents of regulated words, go to send up our separate feelings in all the individualities of unpremeditated prayer; and now we blend in social worship, as in the beautiful prayer and language of the holy services in which we have been this night engaged; and, in all, with the equal liberty of Zion's children. That is heaven's free worship, and that is the liberty of the Church around. There must be law to have freedom. The greater the law, the greater liberty; but the deeper that law is engraven in the heart's fine feelings, and the more a man is the spring of his own obedience, the more of habit, the more of anticipation's boundings, the less of misapprehensions without a man, and the more felt presence of the love of Christ in a man, the nearer are we to the "Jerusalem which is above," which is free, and which is the mother of us all. "The mother of us all." There is no confidence which the world ever shows, so intimate and so tender, as that which a son feels for his mother. There are feelings which a man will deposit nowhere but with his mother. "The mother of us all!" Children of "the New Jerusalem" — children of the Church — set much by your Church. She is to you no other than a parent. Children of "the new Jerusalem" — children of heaven — remember into what a registry your name is now, by your second birth, enrolled. Demean it not; sully it not; sit loose to this world in the spirit of your minds; for, behold! she, which is your "mother," will come presently, in her perfect beauty; and where should your eye be, and where should your anticipation daily be, but to that "new Jerusalem," which shall come from heaven. Children of "the new Jerusalem" — children of liberty — take the image of your parent's features. "Be free" in the spirit of your minds. Have freer prayer — freer hope — freely take the freedom so freely given you.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

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KJV: But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

WEB: But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all.