A92140:561
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.
2 That, Let them grow till the Harvest, (say we) is neither a charge nor a command given to Magistrate or Church, touching censures to be inflicted by men: For Christ expones no where, let them grow, to any such meaning, Libertines yield that sense, and Calvin undeniably infers by this all censures of Magistrate or Pastors are cut off and cast over till the day of judgement, both the word in rebuking or excommunicating, and so Ecclesiastical plucking up, and the sword must go and sleep: but the sense of [let them grow] is, Why do ye quarrel at the wisdom and providence of the Lord of the field, that he suffers the children of the devil to flourish? and whereas the servants say, 28. wilt thou then that we go and •ather them up? It is a parable, and this part not being exponed can yield no new doctrine, and the most can be, is, Lord give us a providence of our own, and a power not to leave one son of that wicked one in the earth (& we shall make a clean field to our Lord) rather then suffer them thus to suffocate and corrupt the wheat. The Lords answer is, I have ordained rather then such a providence be committed to you, that the •ares should grow till harvest; though the Lord have appointed a way how to purge leaven out of the Church, 1 Cor. 5. 1. Mat. 1•. 15, 16. and how evil doers shall be •ut off, Rom. 13. though not in so strict and accurate a way as we dream, who would not have one thistle in our Lords field. Yea, would not suffer one sin to be in the world (as we dream) if we could hinder it, though God seeth a ⟨p. 241⟩permitting providence to be more glorious.
2 That, Let them grow till the Harvest, (say we) is neither a charge nor a command given to Magistrate or Church, touching censures to bee inflicted by men: For Christ expones no where, let them grow, to any such meaning, Libertines yeeld that sense, and Calvin undeniably inferres by this all censures of Magistrate or Pastors are cut off and casten over till the day of judgement, both the word in rebuking or excommunicating, and so Ecclesiasticall plucking up, and the sword must go and sleepe: but the sense of [let them grow] is, Why doe ye quarrell at the wisdome and providence of the Lord of the field, that he suffers the children of the devill to flourish? and whereas the servants say, 28. wilt thou then that we go and ather them up? It is a parable, and this part not being exponed can yeeld no new doctrine, and the most can be, is, Lord give us a providence of our owne, and a power not to leave one son of that wicked one in the earth (& we shal make a clean field to our Lord) rather then suffer them thus to suffocate and corrupt the wheat. The Lords answer is, I have ordained rather then such a providence be committed to you, that the ares should grow till harvest; though the Lord have appointed a way how to purge leaven out of the Church,