LIBERTY, as opposite to Servitude and Slavery, denotes the Condition of a Man, who may act without Obstacle or Constraint, and independently on the Will of any other Person. There is frequent Mention of this Sort of Liberty in Scripture. The Hebrews valued themselves mightily upon Liberty; they boasted in our Saviour’s Time, that they had never been deprived Tacit. Hist. l. v. n. 8.of it: We were never in Bondage to any Man; this from them was a ridiculous Rhodomontade, since we know that they were so often subject to foreign Powers under the Judges, and afterwards in the Time of the Kings of Assyria, Chaldæa and Persia; that Tacitus without Scruple has observed of them, that under the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, they were the meanest and most abject Slaves: Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque & Persas Oriens fuit, despectissima pars servientium fuere.
It is however true, that the Israelites, according to the first Design of Moses, were never to be reduced intirely to a State of Bondage. They might be sold, or fall into Servitude among their Brethren; but they always had a Power of redeeming themselves, or procuring themselves to be redeemed by some of their Relations, or of being freed from Bondage in the Sabbatical Year, or lastly, in the Jubilee Year, which restored all the Hebrews to their Liberty, and to the Possession of their Inheritances. And it was probably upon this Account they boasted, that they never had been reduced to Slavery. Their whole Nation was equally free and noble; Saul, David, and Jeroboam, who ascended the Throne, were of no better Quality than the meanest Shepherd in Israel. In the Articles Sabbatical Year and Jubilee, we have taken Notice of the Ceremonies which were observed upon setting an Hebrew Slave free. See the Article SLAVES.