as generous as his principles are all their actions and pursuits were inflexible, he possesses strength then perfectly innocent; and that, and beauty in an eminent degree." | after the death of the body, they See Theol. Misc., vol. i, p. 39. were to be united to the Deity. They likewise said that Jesus Christ was nothing but a mere je ne scai quoi, composed of the spirit of God and of the opinion of men. These maxims occasioned their being called Libertines, and the word has been used in an ill sense ever since. This sect spread principally in Holland and Brabant. Their leaders were one Quintin, a Picard, Pockesius, Ruffus, and another called Chopin, who join LIBERTINE, one who acts without restraint, and pays no regard to the precepts of religion. LIBERTINES, according to some, were such Jews as were free citizens of Rome: they had a separate synagogue at Jerusalem, and sundry of them concurred in the persecution of Stephen, Acts vi, 9. Dr. Guyse supposes that those who had obtained this privilege by gift were called liberti (free-men), and those who had obtained it by pur-ed with Quintin, and became his chase, libertini (made free), in disciple. They obtained footing distinction from original native in France through the favour and free-men. Dr. Doddridge thinks protection of Margaret, queen of that they were called Libertines as Navarre, and sister to Francis I, having been the children of freed and found patrons in several of the men, that is, of emancipated cap-reformed churches. tives or slaves. See Doddridge and Guyse on Acts vi, 9. LIBERTINES, a religious sect which arose in the year 1525, whose principal tenets were, that the Deity was the sole operating cause in the mind of man, and the immediate author of all human actions; that consequently, the distinctions of good and evil, which had been established with regard to those actions, were false and groundless, and that men could not, proporly speaking commit sin; that religion consisted in the union of the spirit, or rational soul, with the Supreme Being; that all those who had attained this happy union, by sublime contemplation and elevation of mind, were then allowed to indulge, without exception or restraint, their appetites or passions; that Libertines of Geneva were a cabal of rakes rather than of fanatics; for they made no pretence to any religious system, but pleaded only for the liberty of leading voluptuous and immoral lives. This cabal was composed of a certain number of licentious citizens, who could not bear the severe discipline of Calvin. There were also among them several who were not only notorious for their dissolute and scandalous manner of living, but also for their atheistical impiety and contempt of all religion. To this odious class belonged one Gruet, who denied the divinity of the Christian religion, the immortality of the soul, the difference between moral good and evil, and rejected with disdain the doctrines that are held most sacred among Christians; for which im pieries the was at last brought be-on Und.; Grove's Mor. Phil., sec. fore the civil tribunal in the year 1550, and condemned to death. 18, 19; J. Palmer on Liberty of Man; Martin's Queries and Rem. on Human Liberty; Charnock's Works, p. 175, &c., vol. ii; Saurin's Ser., vol. iii, ser. 4. LIE. See LYING. LIBERTY denotes a state of freedom, in contradistinction to slavery or restraint-1. Natural liberty, or liberty of choice, is that in which our volitions are not de- LIFE, a state of active existtermined by any foreign cause or ence.-1. Human life is the conconsideration whatever offered to tinuance or duration of our present it, but by its own pleasure.-2.state, and which the scriptures reExternal liberty, or liberty of ac-present as short and vain, Job xiv, tion, is opposed to a constraint 1, 2. Jam. iv. 14.-2. Spiritual life laid on the executive powers; and consists in our being in the favour consists in a power of rendering of God, influenced by a principle our volitions effectual.-3. Philo- of grace, and living dependant on sophical liberty consists in a pre-him. It is considered as of divine vailing disposition to act according origin, Col. iii, 4. hidden, Col. iii, to the dictates of reason, i. e. in 3. peaceful, Rom. viii, 6. secure, such a manner as shall, all things John x, 28.-3. Eternal life is that considered, most effectually pro-state of existence which the saints mote our happiness.-4. Moral li- shall enjoy in heaven, and is globerty is said to be that in which rious, Col. iii, 4. holy, Rev. xxi, there is no interposition of the will 27.-blissful, 1st Peter, i, 4. eterof a Superior Being to prohibit ornal, 2d Cor. iv, 17. See HEAdetermine our actions in any par- VEN. ticular under consideration. See LIGHT OF NATURE. See NECESSITY, WILL.-5. Liberty NATURE, RELIGION. of conscience is freedom from re- LITANY, a general supplicastraint in our choice of, and judg-tion used in public worship to apment about matters of religion.-pease the wrath of the Deity, and 6. Spiritual liberty consists in free-to request those blessings a person dom from the curse of the moral wants. The word comes from law; from the servitude of the ri- the Greek Aava, "supplication," tual; from the love, power, and of favs, "I beseech." At first, guilt of sin; from the dominion of the use of litanies was not fixed to Satan; from the corruptions of the any stated time, but were only world; from the fear of death, and employed as exigencies required. the wrath to come; Rom. vi, 14. They were observed, in imitation Rom. viii, 1. Gal. iii, 13. John of the Ninevites, with ardent supviii, 36. Rom. viii, 21. Gal. v, 1. plications and fastings, to avert 1st Thess. i, 10. See articles MATE- the threatened judgments of fire, RIALISTS, PREDESTINATION, and earthquake, inundations, or hosDoddridge's Lec., p. 50, vol. i, tile invasions. About the year 400, oct.; Watts's Phil. Ess., sec. v, p. litanies began to be used in pro288; Jon. Edwards on Will; Locke cessions, the people walking bare foot, and repeating them with great prayers, to make the office look devotion; and it is pretended that more awful and venerable to the by this means several countries people. At length things were were delivered from great cala-carried to such a pitch, that a remities. The days on which they gulation became necessary; and it were used were called Rogation was found necessary to put the serdays: these were appointed by the vice and the manner of performcanons of different councils, tilling it into writing, and this was it was decreed by the council of what they called a liturgy. LiturToledo, that they should be used gies have been different at differevery month throughout the year; ent times and in different counand thus, by degrees, they came to tries. We have the liturgy of St. be used weekly on Wednesdays Chrysostom, of St. Peter, the Arand Fridays, the ancient stationa-menian liturgy, Gallican liturgy, ry days for fasting. To these days &c. &c. "The properties requirthe rubrick of the church of Eng-ed in a public liturgy," says Paley, land has added Sundays, as being" are these: it must be compendithe greatest day for assembling at ous; express just conceptions of divine service. Before the last the Divine attributes; recite such review of the common prayer, the wants as a congregation are likely litany was a distinct service by it-to feel, and no other; and contain self, and used sometimes after the as few controverted propositions morning prayer was over; at pre-as possible." The liturgy of the sent, it is made one office with the church of England was composed morning service, being ordered to in the year 1547, and established be read after the third collect for in the second year of king Edward grace, instead of the intercessional VI. In the fifth year of this king prayers in the daily service. it was reviewed, because some LITURGY denotes all the ce- things were contained in that liremonies in general belonging to turgy which shewed a compliance divine service. The word comes with the superstition of those from the Greek 8pya, "service, times, and some exceptions were public ministry," formed of los, taken against it by some learned "public," and epfov, "work." In men at home, and by Calvin a more restrained signification, abroad. Some alterations were liturgy is used among the Ro- made in it, which consisted in admanists to signify the mass, and ding the general confession and among us the common prayer. absolution, and the communion to All who have written on liturgies begin with the ten commandments. agree, that, in primitive days, di- The use of oil in confirmation and vine service was exceedingly sim- extreme unction was left out, and ple, clogged with very few cere- also prayers for souls departed, monies, and consisted of but a and what related to a belief of small number of prayers; but, by Christ's real presence in the eudegrees, they increased the num-charist. This liturgy, so reformber of ceremonies, and added new ed, was established by the acts of 5th and 6th Edward VI, cap. 1. However, it was abolished by queen Mary, who enacted, that the service should stand as it was most commonly used in the last year of the reign of king Henry VIII. That of Edward VI was re-established, with some few alterations, by Elizabeth. Some farther alterations were introduced, in consequence of the review of the common prayer book by order of king James, in the first year of his reign, particularly in the office of private baptism, in several rubricks, and other passages, with the addition of five or six new prayers and thanksgivings, and all that part of the catechism which contains the doctrine of the sacraments. The book of common prayer, so altered, remained in force from the first year of king James to the fourteenth of Charles II. The last review of the liturgy was in the year 1661. Many supplications have been since made for a review, but without success. Bingham's Orig. Eccl., b. 13; Broughton's Dict.; Bennet, Robinson, and Clarkson, on Liturg. passim; A Letter to a Dissenting Minister on the Expediency of Forms, and Brekell's Answer; Rogers's Lectures on the Liturgy of the Church of England; Biddulph's Essays on the Liturgy. think that Lollard was no surname, but merely a term of reproach applied to all heretics who concealed the poison of error under the appearance of piety. The monk of Canterbury derives the origin of the word lollard among us from lolium, “a tare," as if the Lollards were the tares sown in Christ's vineyard. Abelly says, that the word signifies "praising God," from the German loben, "to praise," and herr, "lord;" because the Lollards employed themselves in travelling about from place to place, singing psalms and hymns. Others, much to the same purpose, derive lollhard, lullhard, or lollert, lullert, as it was written by the ancient Germans, from the old German word lullen, lollen, or lallen, and the termination hard, with which many of the high Dutch words end. Lollen signifies "to sing with a low voice," and therefore lollard is a singer, or one who frequently sings; and in the vulgar tongue of the Germans it denotes a person who is continually praising God with a song, or singing hymns to his honour. The Alexians or Cellites were called Lollards, because they were public singers, who made it their business to inter the bodies of those who died of the plague, and sang a dirge over them, in a mournful and indistinct tone, as they carri LOLLARDS, a religious sect, differing in many points from the church of Rome, which arose ined them to the grave. The name Germany about the beginning of the fourteenth century; so called, as many writers have imagined, from Walter Lollard, who began to dogmatize in 1315, and was burnt at Cologne; though others was afterwards assumed by persons that dishonoured it; for we find among those Lollards who made extraordinary pretences to religion, and spent the greatest part of their time in meditation, prayer, and such acts of piety, || year 1742, obtained a solemn bul! LONG SUFFERING OF LORD, a term properly deno- LORD'S DAY. See SABBATH. |