the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Dictionaries
Liberty
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary
or Denotes a state of freedom, in contradistinction to slavery or restraint.
1. Natural liberty, or liberty of choice, is that in which our volitions are not determined by any foreign cause or consideration whatever offered to it, but by its own pleasure.
2. External liberty, or liberty of action, is opposed to a constraint laid on the executive powers; and consists in a power of rendering our volitions effectual.
3. Philosophical liberty consists in a prevailing disposition to act according to the dictates of reason, 1: e. in such a manner as shall, all things considered, most effectually promote our happiness.
4. Moral liberty is said to be that in which there is no interposition of the will of a superior being to prohibit or determine our actions in any particular under consideration.
See NECESSITY, WILL.
5. Liberty of conscience is freedom from restraint in our choice of, and judgment about matters of religion.
6. Spiritual liberty consists in freedom from the curse of the moral law; from the servitude of the ritual; from the love, power, and guilt of sin; from the dominion of Satan; from the corruptions of the world; from the fear of death, and the wrath to come; Romans 6:14 . Romans 8:1 . Galatians 3:13 . John 8:36 . Romans 8:21 . Galatians 5:1-26 1 Thessalonians 1:10 .
See articles MATERIALISTS, PREDESTINATION, and Doddridge's Lec. p. 50, vol. 1: oct. Watts's Phil. Ess. sec. 5: p. 283; Jon. Edwards on the Will; Locke on Und. Grove's Mor. Phil. sec. 18, 19. J. Palmer on Liberty of Man; Martin's Queries and Rem. on Human Liberty; Charnock's Works, p. 175, &c. vol. 2:; Saurin's Sermons, vol. 3: ser. 4.
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Buck, Charles. Entry for 'Liberty'. Charles Buck Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/cbd/l/liberty.html. 1802.
