A92140:357
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. Gods not forcing of freewill is no rule to the Magistrate not to awe men to abstain from perverting of souls for ⟨p. 142⟩fear of the sword, for by the same reason, because Gods Spirit moves the Saints to be subject to every ordinance of […], Judge, or good Law, for the Lords sake, and for conscience, for he must obey this, Rom. 13. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 13. and the Spirit compels not in these more then in the others; so this argument, God must work faith, give repentance, and make a willing people, ergo, 1the Christian Magistrate cannot with his authority do it, is all granted. This is but a very rotten rush, a straw, Enthusiasts so argue, God teacheth sufficiently, ergo, the Scriptu•• and ministry of men are not requisite, the discipline of the godly Magistrate cannot ascend so high as to have influence on the conscience and beget faith no more then the preaching of the word by the Ministers of the Gospel without the […], ergo, the godly Magistrate cannot with the sword keep the external man in outward obedience to Gospel-ordinances, it in no sort can can be a good consequence, nor is it good divinity to say with Pelagians and Arminians, that the calling of God extends no further then to arguments, persuasions, entreaties and threatenings, for the calling of God extendeth further then to so much as man can do, in calling of sinners to repentance, but men can act upon the mind, will, and reasonable soul, by arguments, persuasions, entreaties and threatenings, for all that is done by the Ministry of men. But in effectual calling (of which we here speak) it is certain, the Lord infuseth a new heart, a new spirit, […] efficaciously to the Son, which is a further and higher […] of omnipotencies, calling and drawing, then all the moral persuasion by arguments, entreaties, and threatenings, performable by men or Angels; so this man is either an ignorant or a gross Arminian.
2. Gods not forcing of freewill is no rule to the Magistrate not to awe men to abstaine from perverting of soules for ⟨p. 142⟩