liberty

Liberty is the condition of being free. Liberty is the liberty of each man or it is not liberty at all. In political terms, it should be conceded that in order to preserve our own liberties, we must be very careful to try to preserve other people's liberties.

A. Kempis: "My son, you can not possess perfect liberty unless you completely deny yourself."
Aristotle: "The basis of a democratic state is liberty."
Dietrich: "Thus always afresh, God appears as the Liberator: he who breaks the chains of the slave, the chains of sickness and of death; and also those hidden chains which bind a man to his past sins."

The idea of liberty became popular in the nineteenth century, but the habit of liberty had not been established. The World Council stated that:

  1. Religious liberty is a fundamental human right.
  2. The state should not only recognize human liberty but help to protect it.
  3. No group, and particularly no church, can rightfully employ force or violence to propagate its point of view.
  4. The right not to believe is also a right that must be acknowledged.
  5. Each person not only has the right to interior conviction and private worship, but also to public expression of that conviction.

Civil liberty is indivisible; there cannot be one law for the poor and another for the rich; there cannot be one freedom for the whites and another for the blacks. Civil liberty is not for sale and it is not a matter of charity. That is the meaning of equality: not that all must be identical, but that all are entitled to live under and enjoy the genuine protection of equal laws.

Where the spirit is, says Paul, there is liberty. The royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," is such that, if we fulfill it, we shall "do well." Let us therefore "look into the perfect law of liberty and continue therein". 2 Peter 2:19, "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage."
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jay@latter-rain.com