Libel. This, properly a little book, is with us any defamatory speech or writing; but was not formerly so restricted; indeed, in the legal language of Scotland, where an indictment is in technical language a ‘libel,’ it still retains a wider meaning.
Forsoothe, it is said, Who evere shal leeve his wyf, geve he to hir a libel.—Matt. v. 31. Wiclif.
Let the Allmightie geve me answere, and let him that is my contrary party sue me with a lybell.—Job xxxi. 35. Coverdale.
Here is a libel too accusing Cæsar,
From Lucius Vectius, and confirmed by Curius.
Ben Jonson, Catiline, act v. sc. 4.
Libertine. A striking evidence of the extreme likelihood that he who has no restraints on his belief will ere long have none upon his life, is given by this word ‘libertine.’ Applied at first to certain heretical sects, and intended to mark the licentious liberty of their creed, ‘libertine’ soon let go altogether its relation to what a man believed, and acquired the sense which it now has, a ‘libertine’ being one who has released himself from all moral restraints, and especially in his relations with the other sex.
That the Scriptures do not contain in them all things necessary to salvation, is the fountain of many great and capital errors; I instance in the whole doctrine of the libertines, familists, quakers, and other enthusiasts, which issue from this corrupted fountain.—Bishop Taylor, A Dissuasive from Popery, part ii. b. 1, § 2.
It is not to be denied that the said libertine doctrines do more contradict the doctrine of the Gospel, even Christianity itself, than the doctrines of the Papists about the same subjects do.—Baxter, Catholic Theology, part iii. p. 289.
It is too probable that our modern libertines, deists, and atheists, took occasion from the scandalous contentions of Christians about many things, to disbelieve all.—A Discourse of Logomachies, 1711.