A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many useful questions and cases of conscience are…A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many usefull questions and cases of conscience are…

There is as little truth in that pretence, which diverse Sectaries now make to the way of godliness, observe but these principles of theirs.

There is as little truth in that pretence, which diverse Sectaries now make to the way of godlinesse, observe but these principles of theirs.

1. That none ought to be punished for Preaching, Printing, or maintaining any error in Faith or Religion, except it be contrary to the very light of nature.

Hence it will follow, that none is to be punished for Preaching or publishing these errors: That the Scripture is not the word of God. That Jesus Christ was an impostor or deceiver, ⟨p. 160⟩for the light of nature will never serve to confute these or such like errors concerning the Scriptures, the truths concerning them, being wholly supernatural. Mr. I: Goodwin in his Hagiomastix sect: 58. holds, that he who will hold that there is no Christ, is not so pernicious nor punishable, as that man who lives, as if there were no Christ, and one of his reasons is this, because, saith he, the sins mentioned, adultery, theft, &c. are clearly, and at first sight against the light and law of nature, but the denial of the being of such a person as Christ, who is both God and man, is not contrary to any law or principle in nature. I desire that the reader may here observe the words of Mr. Burroughs, in the Epistle dedicatory of his Sermon preached before the house of Peers, Novemb: 26. 1645. For connivance at blasphemies, or damnable Heresies; God forbid, any should open his mouth, these who are guilty herein against the light of nature, should be taken off from the face of the earth; and such as a•e guilty against supernatural light, are to be refrained and kept from the society of men, that they infect not others. The latter part of that which he saith, I accept, and I would to God, that so much were put in execution. But why no other Heretics, or blasphemers should be taken off from the face of the earth, but those only who are guilty against the light of nature: I find no reason brought for it, and I do not understand how it comes to pass, that any who look so much forward to new lights, should herein fall so far backward as to the light of nature; or that those who decline the light of nature in matter of Church government, subordination, appeals, and the like, should notwithstanding in matters of faith, which are much more sublime, appeal to the light of nature: There is need of some Oedipus here.