Calvin on Christian Liberty

“We have never been forbidden to laugh, or to be filled, or to join new possessions to old or ancestral ones, or to delight in musical harmony, or to drink wine.  True indeed.  But where there is plenty, to wallow in delights, to gorge oneself, to intoxicate mind and heart with present pleasures and be always panting after new ones–such are very far removed from a lawful use of God’s gifts” (Institutes, III.XIX.9).

In other words, when something you can do becomes something you must do then you’re no longer free.

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