Stating this principle in religious terms, we may say that liberalism presupposes that revelation is continous in word, and in deed, and in nature, that it is not sealed, and that it points always beyond itself. Not only is significant novelty both possible and manifest, but also significance is itself inchoate and subject to inner tensions of peril and opportunity, of self-assertion and dependence. Second, liberalism holds that all relations between persons ought ideally to rest on mutual free concent and not on coercion. Obviously, this principle cannot be advocated in any strict or absolute sense. Education, for example, may be compulsory within the liberal state, but not the liberal church.
All responsible liberals recognize the neccessity for restrictions on individual freedom.
This second principle, like the others, can be stated in religious terms in various ways. The implication intended here is that the liberal method of free inquriy is conditio sine qua non of both the fullest apprehension of the divine and the preservation of human dignity which comes from our being children of one God. Third, being an ethical procedure, that is, purporting to be significant for human behavior, liberalism, involves the moral obligation to direct one's efforts towards the establishment of democratic community. It involves, of course, a common life which gives rise to the expression of the manifold, creative impluses of the human spirit, an expression which presupposes a cooperative life impelled by the motives of love and justice. The statement of this principle in religious terms implies the other principles here adumbrate, and especially the fourth one.