A92140:548
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
Chapter 20: The parable of the Wheat and the Tares, discussed and cleared.
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.
The scope of the parable hath nothing to do with the office of Magistrates, in punishing or not punishing heretics, but tendeth to moderate the too forward zeal of the Disciples,1 and of all the godly that are inclined to murmur at providence that suffers wicked men to flourish and live with the godly, and that they are not cut off before the day of judgement, so doth the godly complain and stumble at this dispensation, Job 21. Jer. 12. 1, 2. Psal. 73. 1, 2, 3. &c.
The scope of the parable hath nothing to doe with the office of Magistrates, in punishing or not punishing hereticks, but tendeth to moderate the too forward zeale of the Disciples,1 and of all the godly that are inclined to murmure at providence that suffers wicked men to flourish and live with the godly, and that they are not cut off before the day of judgement, so doth the godly complaine and stumble at this dispensation, Job 21. Jer. 12. 1, 2. Psal. 73. 1, 2, 3. &c.
- 1The scope of the pa••ble of the tares, and the vindication thereof.
1. Christ forbids not simply to pluck up the tares, but onely secundum quid, in a case, when there is danger to pluck up the wheat with the tares, as in punishing a multitude or a whole society.