A92140:217
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.
Nor is this a good argument of Bellius, where Christ is, what he doth, how he sits at the right hand of God, how he is one with the Father, many things of the Trinity, of God, Predestination, Angels, the state of men after this life, are points not so necessary to be known, for publicans and harlots who enter into heaven, may be ignorant of them, and though they were known, they make not a man better, according to that, if I had all knowledge, if I have not love, it is nothing.
Nor is this a good argument of Bellius, where Christ is, what he doth, how he sits at the right hand of God, how he is one with the Father, many things of the Trinity, of God, Predestination, Angels, the state of men after this life, are points not so necessary to be known, for publicans and harlots who enter into heaven, may be ignorant of them, and though they were knowne, they make not a man better, according to that, if I had all knowledge, if I have not love, it is nothing.
For 1. The exact knowledge of these are not so necessary, and that is all that this argument can conclude:—but the Scripture saith no more, that publicans and harlots, remaining publicans and harlots, enter into the Kingdom of heaven, in sensu composito, nor when it saith, The blind see, the deaf hear, 1the dead are raised, the meaning should be, blind, and deaf, remaining blind, and deaf, do see and hear: or the dead remaining dead in their graves, and void of life, do live and have life; but these that were blind now see, when blindness is removed, otherwise some may take harlotry into heaven with them: and because the word of God is a seed, when this is in the heart of a dying harlot, Christ came to save sinners, and to save me: how, or what way the Spirit sits upon this egg and warms it, and what births of saving truths, the Spirit joined with the spirit of a dying man, brings forth, who knows? the repenting thief knew Christ to be the Saviour of men, and a King, who could dispose of heaven, but what deductions the Spirit made with in, who knows? nor is it a truth that the knowledge of any revealed truths of God makes no man the better; for it leans on this ground, That,