A92140:541
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.
Argument XVI.
Christ hath left the consciences of false teachers and heretics under Ecclesiastical censures of admonitions, rebukes,1 excommunication, so as those that hold the doctrine of Balaam and Jezebel, and such as call themselves Apostles and are not, and grievous wolves must not be suffered, Rev. 2. 1, 2. v. 13, 14. v. 20. Tit. 1. 13. Matth. 18. 15, 16, 17, 18. Act. 20. 28, 29, 30. and these do no more act upon the consciences of men by way of teaching, but by way of punishment, then the sword of the Magistrate doth, and they are as compulsory as the sword for this threatening (if yet still pervert the right ways of the Lord, and teach false doctrine, then must ye be cast out of the Church, delivered to Satan, branded and shamed as ravening wolves, foxes, wasting the stocks and the vineyard) this (I say) doth as much in way of compelling, as the weapon of iron and steel, yea and in the New Testament, heretics are to be no less compelled then under the Old Testament (though Libertines most ignorantly talk of compelling of consciences and forcing of men to opinion•) for we are to reject and avoid the company of heretics, and to put them to shame and reproach, not to eat with an Idolater, nor to lodge in our houses, him that brings another Gospel, Tit. 3. 10.