From Faith and Prejudice and Other Unpublished Sermons
by Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O.

It is by this gift of the Spirit, that is, by the unmerited supernatural grace of God, that we are set free from that law of sin and death, the law of the flesh, which is the state in which we are born. That tangle of the mind by which our best faculties are kept from rising to Almighty God and seeking their true end and doing their duty, and growing in all good, is a bondage, a slavery, and the grace of God sets us free of it, so that we may (as it were) rise on our feet, and become in St. Peter's words good stewards of the manifold gifts of God. Again this grace not only sets us free, so that instead of being slaves we are able to serve God, but it does something more for us. It would be a great thing, if we were allowed to be faithful servants of God, as the Unjust Steward ought to have been, but grace makes us that and something more; we become not merely servants but even Sons of God. What a second wonderful privilege is this! Though we were slaves of sin and the evil one, He not only sets us free from that slavery, and takes us into His house and His service; but, more than that, He adopts us to be His children.