The Lord and his apostles had spent little time talking about freedom and personal independence and a man’s right to his own opinions. And through the Middle ages and the Reformation, Augustine’s axiom that liberty comes by grace and not grace by liberty had been at the bottom of the organization and imposition of Christian belief. To be properly free man must be in a state of salvation, so throughout these centuries Christians had little enthusiasm for the idea of man’s improper freedom—free in a political sense.
