For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Ver. 13. Only use not your liberty] In maxima libertate, minima licentia. In the greatest freedom is the least amount of licence. Therefore αναστατουντες, are men the worse, because they should be better. Christ came to call sinners, not to licentiousness, but to repentance, Mark 2:17, to take his yoke upon them,Matthew 11:29, to hire out their members servants to righteousness,Romans 6:16. Hence it is, that as St Paul's Epistles largely prove free election and justification by Christ; so the Epistles of James, Peter, and John, press to love and new obedience, lest any should argue from mercy to liberty. Nemo sit liber in fraudem fisci, Let no one be free in mishandling the treasury, saith the civil law. (Valer. Max. ii. 1.) It was enacted among the Athenians, that whosoever, having been a bondman, was convicted of ingratitude for his manumission, should lose his liberty: the Romans made such slaves again; which punishment they term Maximam capitis diminutionem, The greatest demotion of a person. (Justin Instit. i. 16.)