[f. VOLUNTARY a. + -NESS.] The state or condition of being voluntary, free or unconstrained; absolute freedom or liberty in respect of choice, determination or action; spontaneity: a. Of actions.
1612. T. Taylor, Comm. Titus ii. 14. Vnto both which branches of his obedience, if you adde the voluntarinesse and freedome of both, the whole will appeare most perfectly meritorious.
1644. Hammond, Will-Worship, § 16. The voluntarynesse of an action is not able to defame it, if there be … no irregularity imputable to the action it selfe abstracted from the voluntarinesse.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Voluntary, There are two Things … requir’d to the Voluntariness of an Action.
1782. J. Benson, in MacDonald, Mem. (1822), 134. The Author attempts to show that liberty is voluntariness…. We are said to be free when we act from choice.
1865. Churchman, 14 Dec., 1400/2. The bare voluntariness which attaches to every act of a layman’s religious life.
1881. J. Macpherson, Conf. Faith, xii. (1882), 73. The voluntariness of Christ’s service is everywhere throughout the Scriptures made most clear.
b. Of persons.
1643. R. Baker, Chron., Edw. I., 125. This voluntarines in Prince Edward, won the King of France againe to grant quietly unto him, all the Lands [etc.].
1650. R. Hollingworth, Exerc. conc. Usurped Powers, 7. Doth not their voluntarinesse and free complyance make the Usurpation compleater?
a. 1672. Sterry, Freed. Will (1675), 47. God, where the highest Voluntariness and the highest Necessity meet.
1727. Bailey (vol. II.), Voluntariness, the doing a Thing voluntarily, or without Constraint.
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 490. All the faculties … will be developed … by any man,… in proportion to the voluntariness—the good will with which they are exercised.
1892. H. Macmillan, in Quiver, July, 695/2. Liberty and voluntariness, which enter so essentially into our ideas of the relation between master and servant, had no existence in the ancient world.
c. With pl. An instance of this. rare.
1612. H. Ainsworth, Annot. Ps. cx. 3. Thy people shall be voluntaries in the day of thy power,… a people of voluntarinesses or of liberalities.
1681. Flavel, Meth. Grace, iv. 71. They shall be voluntarinesses, as willing as willingnesses itself.
