A30579:558
Gospel-conversation
Gospel-conversation: wherein is showed, I. How the conversation of believers must be above what could be by the light of nature. II. Beyond those that lived under the law. III. And suitable to what truths the Gospel holds forth. By Jeremiah Burroughs, preacher of the Gospel to Stepney and Cripplegate, London. Being the third book published by Thomas Goodwin, William Greenhil, Sydrach Simpson, Philip Nigh, William Bridge, John Yates, William Adderly.Gospel-conversation: wherein is shewed, I. How the conversation of believers must be above what could be by the light of nature. II. Beyond those that lived under the law. III. And suitable to what truths the Gospel holds forth. By Jeremiah Burroughs, preacher of the Gospel to Stepney and Criplegate, London. Being the third book published by Thomas Goodwyn, William Greenhil, Sydrach Simpson, Philip Nye, William Bridge, John Yates, William Adderly.
London: printed by Peter Cole, 1650
GOSPEL Conversation. › THE MISERY OF THOSE MEN THAT HAVE THEIR PORTION IN THIS LIFE.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Answ. No, I plead not for that neither: Therefore I except all Opinions, 1. Against the Foundation of Religion: 2. All those Opinions that are against the Foundation of Civil Government. Take these Two aside, and then for other Opinions that are of a lower inferior nature (I say) there you take too much upon you, whosoever you are, if you should think to force men to be of the same Opinion as you are; and there is no such way to make disturbance in Churches or Commonwealths, as to force men to be of the same Opinion, in things that are of an inferior nature.
Object. But you will say, If it be an Error, they must not be left to live in it.
Answ. Nay, stay there; A man may be in an Error, and yet you have nothing to do to offer violence unto him to bring him out of his Error; you may seek to convince him as much as you can, but to offer violence, you undertake more than God hath given you Commission to do, whatever you are; and I give this Scripture for it, that is clear, in Romans, 14. 2. One believeth he may eat all things; another eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth, despise him that eateth not; and let him that eateth not, not judge him that eateth. And so he tells us, Who art thou that judgest another? Who art thou that judgest. These two Opinions could not be true: One man doth eat herbs; the other man makes conscience ⟨p. 328⟩of it, and cannot do it; Certainly, one of these was a sin at that, time one of them was a sin, to eat herbs, and that he might eat no flesh, for God never commanded them, that they should eat no flesh; to make conscience to eat no flesh was a sin, but yet though one were a sin, yet they that were in the right, must not by violence force those that were in the wrong, to their opinion, but they must leave them to God; I say, in matters of such consequence as these, it is a point of Antichristian tyranny, and pride, and notorious pride in men, that have taken so much upon them, as to force all to be of the same opinion; this is not the way certainly for true peace. But thus much for the second Corollary. The Third follows.