A86009:37
Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty. Or, the true resolution of a present controversy…VVholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty. Or, the true resolution of a present controversie…
Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty. Or, the true resolution of a present controversy concerning liberty of conscience. Here you have the question stated, the middle way betwixt popish tyranny and schismatizing liberty approved, and also confirmed from Scripture, and the testimonies of divines, yea of whole churches: the chief arguments and exceptions used in The bloody tenet, The compassionate Samaritan, M.S. to A.S. &c. examined. Eight distinctions added for qualifying and clearing the whole matter. And in conclusion a parænetick to the five apologists for choosing accommodation rather then toleration. Imprimatur. Ja. Cranford. Decemb 16. 1644.VVholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty. Or, the true resolution of a present controversie concerning liberty of conscience. Here you have the question stated, the middle way betwixt popish tyrannie and schismatizing liberty approved, and also confirmed from Scripture, and the testimonies of divines, yea of whole churches: the chiefe arguments and exceptions used in The bloudy tenent, The compassionate samaritane, M.S. to A.S. &c. examined. Eight distinctions added for qualifying and clearing the whole matter. And in conclusion a parænetick to the five apologists for choosing accommodation rather then toleration. Imprimatur. Ia. Cranford. Decemb 16. 1644.
London: printed for Christopher Meredith, 1645
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
yet he adviseth that moderate mulcts and punishments may be laid upon them, & that their Bishops or Ministers may be banished. In his 127 Epist. he intercedeth most earnestly with the proconsul of Afric, that he might not put to death the Donatists, but repress them some other ways. We have also a scripture example for punishing Sectaries who are not Heretics. It is agreed among interpreters, there were in Judah two sorts of high places, some on which God was worshipped, others on which idols were worshipped, & it is most manifest from 2 Chro. 33. 17. and from the reconciling of 2 Chro. 15. 17. with ch. 14. 3. 5. the one sort was the high places of Idolatry, the other, the high places of will-worship; yet the Priests of the latter, as well as of the former, were punished by Josiah, as Tostatus proveth from 2 Kings 23. and the text it self is clear, for he put to death the Priests of Samaria, who had sacrificed in the high places of Idolatry, vers. 20. but as for those who sacrificed in the high places of will-worship, because they sacrificed to the Lord only (as the word is, 2 Chron. 33. 17.) therefore Josiah did not put them to death, only he caused them to go out of all the Cities of Judah, and to cease from the Priests office, so that they durst not come up to the Altar of the Lord at Jerusalem, only they were permitted to eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren, ver. 8, 9. which is parallel to that law, Ezek. 44. ver, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. a prophecy concerning ⟨p. 12⟩the Christian Temple, and the times of the New Testament, wth reacheth a blow to another silly & short-sighted evasion, used both in the Bloody Tenet, and in M. S. to A.S. that all this coercive power exercised in the Old Testament, was typical, & therefore not imitable now in the New Testament. Whereunto I further reply, 1. The reason of all that coercive severity was moral and perpetual, as was showed before from Deut. 13. 11. Next, why did they not prove that it was typical? shall we take their fancy for a certainty? They have neither Scripture nor Interpreters for it. 3. They confound the Judicial laws of Moses with the Ceremonial, making the Judicatories and Justice typical no less then the Ceremonies. 4. They do utterly overthrow the investiture of Christian Princes and Magistrates with any power at all in matters of Religion, from the Old Testament.