By liberty as opposed to God’s law we do not understand the power to do evil as well as good.  That liberty is the glory of man, but the exercise of it, in the alternative of evil, is damnable, and debases the creature in the same proportions as the free choice of good ennobles him.  That liberty the law leaves untouched.  We never lose it; or rather, we may lose it partially when under physical restraint, but totally, only when deprived of our senses.  The law respects it.  It respects it in the highest degree when in an individual it curtails or destroys it for the protection of society.

Liberty may also be the equal right to do good and evil.  There are those who arrogate to themselves such liberty.  No man ever possessed it, the law annihilated it forever.  And although we have used the word in this sense, the fact is that no man has the right to do evil or ever will have, so long as God is God.  These people talk much and loudly about freedom—­the magic word!—­assert with much pomp and verbosity the rights of man, proclaim his independence, and are given to much like inane vaunting and braggadocio.

We may be free in many things, but where God is concerned and He commands, we are free only to obey.  His will is supreme, and when it is asserted, we purely and simply have no choice to do as we list.  This privilege is called license, not liberty.  We have certain rights as men, but we have duties, too, as creatures, and it ill-becomes us to prate about our rights, or the duties of others towards us, while we ignore the obligations we are under towards others and our first duty which is to God.  Our boasted independence consists precisely in this:  that we owe to Him not only the origin of our nature, but even the very breath we draw, and which preserves our being, for “in Him we live, move and have our being.”

The first prerogative of God towards us is authority or the right to command.  Our first obligation as well as our highest honor as creatures is to obey.  And until we understand this sort of liberty, we live in a world of enigmas and know not the first letter of the alphabet of creation.  We are not free to sin.

Liberty rightly understood, true liberty of the children of God, is the right of choice within the law, the right to embrace what is good and to avoid what is evil.  This policy no man can take from us; and far from infringing upon this right, the law aids it to a fuller development.  A person reading by candlelight would not complain that his vision was obscured if an arc light were substituted for the candle.  A traveler who takes notice of the signposts along his way telling the direction and distance, and pointing out pitfalls and dangers, would not consider his rights contested or his liberty restricted by these things.  And the law, as it becomes more clearly known to us, defines exactly the sphere of our action and shows plainly where dangers lurk and evil is to be apprehended.  And we gladly avail ourselves of this information that enables us to walk straight and secure.  The law becomes a godsend to our liberty, and obedience to it, our salvation.