A92140:241
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.
4. Try all things, try the spirits, must have this sense, believe what ever God saith, be it fundamentall or non-fundamentall, not only after you have searched the Scriptures, and sound it agreeable thereunto, as the Bereans did, but though you find it consonant to the writings of the Prophets and Apostles; yet because you are not infallible, nor the Spirit that leads you therein infallible, believe it with a reserve (say the Independents) and with leaving place to a new light, so as you must believe it to day to be a truth of God, to morrow to be a lye, the third day a truth, the fourth day a lye, and so a circle till your doomsday come, so as you must ever believe and learn, never come to a settlement and establishing in the truth; but dye trying, dye doubting, dye with a trepidation and a reserve, and dye and live a Sceptic, like the Philosophers that said they knew nothing, and I think Libertines cannot but be Sceptics, and there is more to be said for the Scepticism of some, then the Libertinism of others.
4. Try all things, try the spirits, must have this sense, beleeve what ever God saith, be it fundamentall or non-fundamentall, not onely after you have searched the Scriptures, and sound it agreeable thereunto, as the Bereans did, but though you finde it consonant to the writings of the Prophets and Apostles; yet because you are not infallible, nor the Spirit that leads you therein infallible, beleeve it with a reserve (say the Independents) and with leaving place to a new light, so as you must believe it to day to be a truth of God, to morrow to be a lye, the third day a truth, the fourth day a lye, and so a circle till your doomsday come, so as you must ever beleeve and learne, never come to a settlement and establishing in the truth; but dye trying, dye doubting, dye with a trepedation and a reserve, and dye and live a Scepticke, like the Philosophers that said they knew nothing, and I thinke Libertines cannot but be Scepticks, and there is more to bee said for the Scepticisme of some, then the Libertinisme of others.
5. Would these Masters argue formally, they must say what ever doctrine, we are to try before we receive it, that we may uncompelledly receive and believe it, after trial that ought to be tolerated by the Magistrate in doctrine and practice, or profession suitable thereunto before men.