A92140:470
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.
Christs no when reproving Church and State for not punishing Sadducees and Heretics denying the resurrection is,1 1. A poor argument to prove the lawfulness of tolerating them, 1. The Sadducees were chief Rulers themselves; Act. 23. 6. And he that reproves a Judge for murder, must in that same; reprove him for tolerating murders. He that said the guide leading, & the blind led, should fall in the ditch, he reproved the mis-government and wicked toleration of the Rulers. Nor read we that Elijah reproved Ahab for not killing Baals priests, ergo, Ahab transgressed not the Law, Deut. 13. 1, 2, 3. Deut. 17. 1, 2, 3. in tolerating false teachers? Nor doth God Deut. 32. 6, 7, 8. reprove the Rulers for not punishing the worshipping of the golden calf, or the making of it for worship, because Aaron and the Rulers under Moses were guilty of it; will it follow that the Rulers and the sons of Levi should tolerate it? since the Lord commanded the contrary. Nor does the man of God reprove Jeroboam for tolerating the people to worship the golden calves, or because he suffered the lowest of the people to intrude themselves in the priests office against the word and law of the Lord, because the less sin was swallowed up in the greater, but it follows not, that Jeroboam did the duty of a Magistrate in suffering the people to go to Dan and Bethel to such abominable Idolatry, or in suffering the basest of the people to take on•them the Priests Office, but the Prophets reproving Jeroboam's commanding of that Idolatrous worship, and Priests, which is a greater sin, must ⟨p. 204⟩by consequence condemn his not punishing of it, which is a less sin, so David sinned as a Magistrate in suffering Bathsheba to commit adultery, and to wrong her husband, and to violate Gods Law, and should not only as a Magistrate have hindered her, but should have put her to death for adultery, he being the supreme Magistrate, and there being an express Law of God that the adulterer, man or woman, should dye the death,