Read "The Spirit of Bondage" by Charles Kingsley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. -ROMANS viii. 15.
SOME of you here may not understand this text at all. Some of you, perhaps, may misunderstand it; for it is not an easy one. Let us, then, begin, by finding out the meaning of each word in it; and, let us first see what is the meaning of the spirit of bondage unto fear. Bondage means slavery; and the spirit of bondage means the spirit which makes men look up to God as slaves do to their taskmaster. Now, a slave obeys his master from fear only; not from love or gratitude. He knows that his master is stronger than he is, and he dreads being beaten and punished by him; and therefore, he obeys him only by compulsion, not of his own good will. This is the spirit of bondage; the slavish, superstitious spirit in religion, into which all men fall, in proportion as they are mean, and sinful, and carnal, fond of indulging themselves, and bearing no love to God or right things.