A86009:48
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.
Fifthly, Calvin, Beza, and our best Interpreters, take the scope and intent of that parable, not to be against the immoderate severity of Magistrates, but against the immoderate zeal of those who imagine to have the Church rid of all scandalous and wicked persons, as wheat without tares, corn without chaff, a flock of sheep without goats, which hath been the fancy of Novatians, Donatists and Anabaptists. The parable therefore intimates unto us (as Bucerus upon the place expoundeth it) that when the Magistrate hath done all his duty in exercising his coercive power, yet to the worlds end there will be in the Church a mixture of good and bad. So that it is the universal and perfect purging of the Church, which is put off to the last judgement, not the punishment of particular persons. Neither do the servants in the parable ask whether they should pluck up this or that visible tare, but whether they should go and make the whole field rid of them; which field is the general visible ⟨p. 18⟩Church sowed with the seed of the Gospel; and so much for that argument.
Fifthly, Calvin, Beza, and our best Interpreters, take the scope and intent of that parable, not to be against the immoderate severity of Magistrates, but against the immoderate zeal of those who imagine to have the Church rid of all scandalous and wicked persons, as wheat without tares, corn without chaffe, a flock of sheep without goats, which hath been the fancy of Novatians, Donatists and Anabaptists. The parable therefore intimates unto us (as Bucerus upon the place expoundeth it) that when the Magistrate hath done all his duty in exercising his coercive power, yet to the worlds end there will be in the Church a mixture of good and bad. So that it is the universall and perfect purging of the Church, which is put off to the last judgement, not the punishment of particular persons. Neither doe the servants in the parable aske whether they should pluck up this or that visible tare, but whether they should goe and make the whole field rid of them; which field is the generall visible ⟨p. 18⟩Church sowed with the seed of the Gospel; and so much for that argument.