Nicholas Snethen was an early Methodist preacher, and served as Francis Asbury's personal secretary. The following quotes are from an 1828 sermon by Snethen on Galatians 5:1.
Jesus Christ does not free us from himself. Our religious dependance is all transferred to himself. When we receive him as our Saviour, he frees us from all other saviours....
The christian's motto is Christ and liberty. But great and glorious as is this external liberty, the liberty wherewith Christ makes the heart free, is still more glorious. He sets the soul at liberty, by his victorious love, from the yoke and bondage of sin, and guilt, and fear. The pardon of sin, justification by faith, the spirit of adoption, bearing witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God, are parts of Christian liberty. Christ makes us free to love, free to rejoice, free to believe, and free to hope. He sets our feet in a large place, to run in the way of his commandments. Where Christ is, there is the spirit of God, and where the spirit of God is, there is liberty....
To the inconstant, fickle tribe of converts, now become so numerous, do we not well to cry out, stand fast, be not again entangled. But to those who are entangled with the grievous yoke of bondage, the guilty and tormenting fear of the wrath to come, who grieve and mourn over the plague of their own hearts, who labor and are heavy laden with sin, we cry, "behold the Lamb!" - "Come to the living waters, come." Take the yoke of Christ upon you, and learn of him. Is it for liberty you pant? - Christ will open the prison doors, and set at liberty those who are bound. He will preach unto you the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of jubilee of our God.
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