A92140:305
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.
2▪ Quench not the Spirit, must have this meaning, Quench not the dreams of Independents, Libertines, Antinomians, for they persuade themselves they have the Spirit of God and mind of Christ, in all they speak.
2▪ Quench not the Spirit, must have this meaning, Quench not the dreames of Independents, Libertines, Antinomians, for they perswade themselves they have the Spirit of God and minde of Christ, in all they speak.
3 But this Quench not the Spirit, is, cherish, entertain the gracious motions and inspirations of the Spirit in your selves, and despise not, that is, highly reverence the preaching of the Gospel, separate not the Spirit and the Word, for it is a litote, where less is spoken but more intended, as Isaiah 50. 5. Joh. 6. 37. but this gloss yieldeth this sense. Despise not the Spirit, that is, believe what ever a godly preacher saith, be it his own dreams and rovings to be the word of God, and reverence it, for he persuades himself it is so, and speaketh them as the oracles of God, though they be his own wind-mils, and sparkles of his own vain-glory. For this, (not to quench, not to despise) is undeniably to believe these prophesyings as the word of God▪ how then are we to try all doctrines and spirits, if we are to take all for fi•st that comes into the net? But since you are not infallible (say Libertines) it is an extinguishing of the Spirit to account that to be the spirit of Satan which agreeth not with your spirit, 1if your authority were infallible, as that of the Apostles was, the answer would have some colour, though the Apostles used not that authority to crush liberty of prophesying, but they commend the trying of the Spirits, and since our judgement is not infallible, reason requires that we should not desire other spirits pious and good to be oppressed and suffocated.