1. The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the Gospel consists in the following:

• their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, and the curse of the moral law;
• their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin;
• their deliverance from the evils of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation;
• their free access to God;
• and their yielding obedience to him, not out of slavish fear, but from a childlike love and a willing mind. All of these were common also to believers under the Law. But, under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in the following:
• their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law to which the Jewish Church was subjected;
• greater boldness of access to the throne of grace;
• and fuller communion with the free Spirit of God than believers under the Law ordinarily experienced.

2. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and has left it free from any doctrines and commandments of men that are in any way contrary to his Word, or apart from it, in matters of faith or worship. Therefore, to believe such doctrines or to obey such commands on the basis of conscience is to betray one’s true liberty of conscience. To require an implicit faith and an absolute and blind obedience to such doctrines and commands is to destroy liberty of conscience, and also reason.

3. Those who practice any sin or cherish any lust on the pretense of Christian liberty are, by this, destroying the purpose of Christian liberty, which is that we might serve the Lord without fear all the days of our life, in holiness and righteousness before him, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies.

4. Because the powers which God has ordained and the liberty that Christ has purchased are not intended by God to destroy each other, but rather to mutually uphold and preserve one another, those who oppose any lawful power or the lawful actions of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, on the pretense of Christian liberty, resist the ordinance of God. When such opinions or practices are

• contrary to the light of nature or to the known principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conduct),
• contrary to the power of godliness;
• or destructive to the external peace and order which Christ has established in the Church, either in their own nature, or in the way in which they are published or propagated; then those who publish such opinions or maintain such practices may lawfully be called to account and proceeded against by the censures of the Church and by the power of the civil magistrate.