LIBERTY.
Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.—Romans, viii. 21.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.—II. Corinthians, iii. 17.
So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.—James, ii. 12.
In vain from thee, O love, expecting ease,
Few hours of calm, but years of grief I passed,
And lived on joys and hopes that would not last—
Food ill adapted to my heart’s disease.
But now that I desire a full release,
And heaven has granted me this sweet contrast
Of light, and life, and liberty so vast,
Far as I can from thee I fly for peace;
Even as a bird, which, rescued from the snare,
Wings to the shady covert of the grove,
Still fluttering at the danger it has seen.
I hear thee call indeed, as I remove;
But He who sought me, and who hears my prayer,
Allows not earthly love to come between.
Gabriel Fiamma.
But there is yet a liberty, unsung
By poets, and by senators unpraised,
Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers
Of earth and hell confederate, take away;
A liberty which persecution, fraud,
Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind;
Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more.
’Tis liberty of heart, derived from Heaven,
Bought with His blood, who gave it to mankind,
And sealed with the same token.
Cowper.
True Liberty was Christian; sanctified,
Baptized and found in Christian hearts alone.
First-born of Virtue, daughter of the skies,
Nursling of truth divine; sister of all
The graces, meekness, holiness, and love.
Giving to God, and man, and all below
That symptom showed of sensible existence,
Their due, unasked.
Pollok.