A92140:346
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.
Some say, as a right informed conscience obligeth to do what it dictates, so an erroneous conscience obligeth to do according to its prescript. Durandus and others saith, •gat non obligat, it bindeth that ye cannot do against it, which some call negative obligation, but non obligat, it obligeth not as a divine rule,1 which is positive obligation.
Some say, as a right informed conscience obliegeth to doe what it dictates, so an erroneous conscience obliegeth to do according to its prescript. Durandus and others saith, •gat non obligat, it bindeth that yee cannot doe against it, which some call negative obligation, but non obligat, it obliegeth not as a divine rule,1 which is positive obligation.
- 1Tanner. Jesuit• to 2. in 12. disp. 2. q 4. dub. 2. n. 21.
Tannerus saith, A Conscience that invincibly erreth, both bindeth, that we cannot do against it, and obligeth that we should not follow it. Which hath truth in the matter of fact, a Judge invincibly ignorant of an accused mans innocency, when two or three witnesses do swear he is guilty, doth lawfully condemn the innocent man, having used all […] diligence to find out the truth, and not being […] to find it, but this is rather error or ignorance of the fact, than an erroneous conscience, for he proceeds according to the ⟨p. 136⟩law, with a well-informed conscience, following what the law saith, by the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every thing be established. The erroneous conscience so long as it remaineth, by the law of nature, layeth on an obligation on a man, not to do against it,