A92140:245
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.
7.1 The sense also of these (Lord enlighten mine eyes) that I may know thee with a fuller evidence not of Moon-light, but of Day-light, or as of seven days into one, be this, Lord open my eyes, and increase my knowledge, grant that thy holy Spirit may bestow upon my dark soul more Sceptical, conjectural, and fluctuating knowledge to know and believe things with a reserve, and with a leaving of room to believe the contrary to morrow of that which I believe to day, and the contradicent of that the third day which I shall believe to morrow, and so till I dye; let me, Lord, have the grace of a circular faith, running like the wheels of the wind-mill; for the growing knowledge we seek of God as in a way of growing ever in this life, till grace be turned into glory, 2 Pet. 3. 18. if our growth of knowledge stand, as Libertines say, in a circular motion from darkness to light, and back again from light to darkness, like the motion of a beast in a horse-mill, so as I know, and learn and believe this topic truth of faith to day, I unknow, I unlearn and deny it to morrow as an untruth: And again, I take it up the third day as a truth; then we seek in prayer not settled and fixed knowledge, and a well-rooted faith of truths to believe them without a reserve, or a demur, to sen• way the opinion I have of this non-fundamentall or fundamental truth as a gross mistake, and to welcome the just contrary opinion as a truth: And again, to send it away upon a new light, &c. now this is but a mocking of God to pray for his Spirit that we may barter and change opinions with every new Moon; for our prayer for new light, is not that the Holy Ghost would teach us faith and opinion of truths and falsehoods in a circle; but that God, 1. Would give the Spirit of revelation to see Gospel truths with a clear revelation of faith. 2. That he would be pleased to cause that light by which we see the same ancient Gospel-truths, ⟨p. 82⟩shine more fully, with a larger measure of heavenly evidence. 3. That our light may so grow into the perfect day, that we see new deductions, consequences, and heavenly new fresh conclusions from the former truth of God.
7.1