A92140:347
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.
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, Rom. 14. 14. To […] the esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean, vers. 23. He that doubteth is damned, if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. So Ambrose, our opinion layeth a law upon us. Gammacheus saith it is a vain distinction of binding and obliging, 1Inter ligationem & obligationem. And that we are obliged to follow an erroneous conscience so long as it continueth erroneous, because here (saith he) […] dispute not concerning that which is good, but that which is commanded, But if the conscience dictate that something is to be commanded and to be done under pain of sin, and yet we do i• not, we resist conscience, and so we sin, because the obligation is no mere […] good only, 2but rather to that which is commanded. The Jesuit M•lderus saith the same; Contientiam erroneam & ligare & oblig•re, because an object materially considered is such, an object by […], but it is an object per se, kindly when it is proposed by practical ••• son, for what is not of faith is sin, Gal. 5. 3. I testify to […] one that is circumcised, that he is debtor to do the whole law.