A92140:360
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.
Answ. He is self-condemned, who may be condemned by his own conscience, though for the present the conscience be burnt with a hot iron, and the man will not permit it to summon, accuse, condemn, no less then he who is actually condemned of his conscience, for it is a laudable act, and a natural virtue of the conscience to give sentence against a heresy when it ought so to do, as it is a vice of the conscience to be dumb at heresies; but if he love the truth, though he cannot actually condemn the heresy, he is not self-condemned.
Answ. He is selfe-condemned, who may be condemned by his owne conscience, though for the present the conscience be burnt with a hot iron, and the man will not permit it to summon, accuse, condemne, no lesse then hee who is actually condemned of his conscience, for it is a laudable act, and a naturall vertue of the conscience to give sentence against a heresie when it ought so to doe, as it is a vice of the conscience to be dumbe at heresies; but if he love the truth, though he cannot actually condemne the heresie, hee is not selfe-condemned.
The heretic (saith Celsus) is an innocent man, and is not such a man as sins against light, nor maliciously, nor with an ill conscience, nor is his end gain, pleasure, nor an ambitious lusting after a name, he seeth none of these are attainable, yea, it is his desire of life eternal, and his •eale that setteth him on work, and rather or he dishonour God and deny the known truth, and sin against his conscience, he had rather choose torment, and dye a martyr, and drink that direful and bitter cup of death, which was so terrible to Jesus Christ, that it caused him to fall to the earth, sweat blood and water. So he, fol. 14, 15, 16. which if it be true, an heretic is rather an innocent Angel, then a guilty man, condemned of his own conscience. Yet Minus C•lsus saith here, he behaveth himself as one worthy of damnation, and damned, though none but himself condemn him, 1 Joh. 3. 20. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater then our heart and knoweth all things. It is like then, an innocent man is