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How carnally doth a carnal heart understand spiritual mysteries! Thus Nicodemus, hearing of being born again, grossly dreamed of entering into his mother’s womb, and being born again. The woman of Samaria, hearing of living water, dreamed of water that should so satisfy her thirst, as that she should never come again to the well to draw. The Jews here hearing of being made free, dream of a freedom from human bondage and slavery. To what our Saviour had said, that if they knew the truth, the truth should make them free; they reply,
We are Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any. Admitting that they were Abraham’s seed, that is, Jews, were not the Jews in bondage, first to Pharaoh, king of Egypt; then to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon? They were now in bondage to the Romans. They must either understand it of their own persons, though they were tributaries they were no slaves; or else concerning their right, they had a right to liberty though they were under an extrinsic servitude to their conquerors. This made them angry, that Christ should speak of their being
made free; for those that are free are not in a capacity to be made free. The Jews were a people very tenacious of their liberty, and gloried much in the right they had to it.