All which were common also to believers under the law for the substance
of them; 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.
(
Galatians
3:13; Galatians
1:4; Acts
26:18; Romans
8:3; Romans
8:28; 1
Corinthians 15:54-57; 2
Thessalonians 1:10; Romans
8:15; Luke
1:73-75; 1
John 4:18; Galatians
3:9, 14; John
7:38, 39; Hebrews
10:19-21 )
2._____ God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from
the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to
his word, or not contained in it. So that to believe such doctrines, or
obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience;
and the requiring of an implicit faith, an absolute and blind obedience,
is to destroy liberty of conscience and reason also.
(
James
4:12; Romans
14:4; Acts
4:19, 29; 1
Corinthians 7:23; Matthew
15:9; Colossians
2:20, 22, 23; 1
Corinthians 3:5; 2
Corinthians 1:24 )
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, 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.
(
Romans
6:1, 2; Galatians
5:13; 2
Peter 2:18, 21 )