A92140:201
A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved
A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, the Belgic Arminians, Socinians, and other authors contending for lawless liberty, or licentious toleration of sects and heresies. / By Samuel Rutherfurd professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews.A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, the Belgick Arminians, Socinians, and other authors contending for lawlesse liberty, or licentious toleration of sects and heresies. / By Samuel Rutherfurd professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews.
London: printed by R.I. for Andrew Crook, 1649
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.
But 1.1 Mr. John Goodwin who contendeth for a Catholic toleration of all, of any Religion whatsoever, whither they err in fundamentals or non-fundamentals, and his words because nnanswerable to me against this distinction I set down I desire it be taken (saith he) to serious consideration, […], or how far, it is meet to punish or censure poor miserable men, for not holding or not asserting the truth of these things, which they cannot come without much labour and contention of mind, yea not without some good degree of some reason and understanding too, to judge so much as probable, nor at all to come to believe or know them certainly, but only by an immediate and supernatural work of the Spirit of God• are […] to be punished, because God hath not imparted to them his Spirit of grace and supernatural illumination? This learned and sharp witted Divine (as any I see of that way) confirms me much that tolleration in non-fundamentals and non-tolleration in errors fundamental, is a distinction cannot subsist, in the way that Libertines in England now go: for to know or believe supernaturall non-fundamentals as the histories of the miracles of Christ the Prophets and Apostles requires a work of the Spirit of grace and supernatural illumination, is to know or believe fundamentals; why then should men be punished for holding errors in the one and not in the other? and the conscience cannot be compelled in the one more then in the other: but with favour I desire an answer to these queries.
But 1.1 Mr. John Goodwine who contendeth for a Catholicke tolleration of all, of any Religion whatsoever, whither they erre in fundamentals or non-fundamentals, and his words because nnanswerable to me against this distinction I set down I desire it be taken (saith he) to serious consideration, 〈…〉, or how farre, it is meet to punish or censure poor miserable men, for not holding or not asserting the truth of these things, which they cannot come without much labour and contention of minde, yea not without some good degree of some reason and understanding too, to judge so much as probable, nor at all to come to believe or know them certainly, but onely by an immediate and supernaturall work of the Spirit of God• are 〈…〉 to be punished, because God hath not imparted to them his Spirit of grace and supernaturall illumination? This learned and sharp witted Divine (as any I see of that way) confirms me much that tolleration in non-fundamentals and non-tolleration in errours fundamentall, is a distinction cannot subsist, in the way that Libertines in England now goe: for to know or believe supernaturall non-fundamentals as the histories of the miracles of Christ the Prophets and Apostles requires a work of the Spirit of grace and supernaturall illumination, is to know or believe fundamentalls; why then should men be punished for holding errours in the one and not in the other? and the conscience cannot be compelled in the one more then in the other: but with favour I desire an answer to these quaeries.