CHAPTER 21; OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
Paragraph 1. The liberty
which Christ has purchased for believers under the gospel, consists in
their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the severity
and curse of the law,1 and in their being delivered from this present
evil world,2 bondage to Satan,3 and dominion of sin,4
from the evil of afflictions,5 the fear and sting of death, the
victory of the grave,6 and everlasting damnation:7 as also
in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto Him, not
out of slavish fear,8 but a child-like love and willing mind.9
All which were common also to believers under the law for the substance
of them;10 but under the New Testament the liberty of Christians
is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of a ceremonial law,
to which the Jewish church was subjected, and in greater boldness of access
to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit
of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.11
1 Gal. 3:13
2 Gal. 1:4
3 Acts 26:18
4 Rom. 8:3
5 Rom. 8:28
6 1 Cor. 15:54-57
7 2 Thess. 1:10
8 Rom. 8:15;
9 Luke 1:73-75; 1
John 4:18
10 Gal. 3;9,14
11 John 7:38,39;
Heb. 10:19-21
Paragraph 2. God alone is
Lord of the conscience,12 and has left it free from the doctrines
and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to his word, or
not contained in it.13 So that to believe such doctrines,
or obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience;14
and the requiring of an implicit faith, an absolute and blind obedience,
is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.15
12 James 4:12; Rom.
14:4
13 Acts 4:19,29;
1 Cor. 7:23; Matt. 15:9
14 Col. 2:20,22,23
15 1 Cor. 3:5; 2
Cor. 1:24
Paragraph 3. They who upon
pretence of Christian liberty do practice any sin, or cherish any sinful
lust, as they do thereby pervert the main design of the grace of the gospel
to their own destruction,16 so they wholly destroy the end of Christian
liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of all our enemies,
we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righeousness before
Him, all the days of our lives.17
16 Rom. 6:1,2
17 Gal. 5:13; 2 Pet.
2:18,21