A92140:562
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.
But (saith Celsus) if the Lord understand by tares,1 thefts, adulteries, robberies, extortion, he would not have used the metaphor of tares, but of briars, thorns, nettles, hemlocks, or the like, th•• are easily discerned from wheat whereas tares are like wheat.
But (saith Celsus) if the Lord understand by tares,1 thefts, adulteries, robberies, extortion, he would not have used the metaphor of tares, but of briars, thornes, nettles, hemlocks, or the like, th•• are easily discerned from wheat whereas tares are like wheat.
- 1What is understood by Tares.
Answ. We will not take on us to teach our Saviour to speak, we answer, The Lord understands, whatever wickedness cannot be punished without ••rt to the godly, and that heretics and Idolaters may be known by ordinary Christians, as well as robbers and thieves, by Magistrates, the Holy Ghost teacheth when he hideth us not eat with them,1 but reject and avoid them, and judge them accursed, Gal. 1. 8. 1 Cor. 5. 11. and forbiddeth us to receive them into our house, Tit. 3. 10. 2 Jo•. 10. Now if they cannot be discerned, he should bid us eat, converse with them▪ lodge them bless them, till the harvest come and also thieves and robbers are as undiscernible under the notion of thieves, so are murderers, adulterers, plotters of treason; for all these have such shifts and coverings, that it is hard for the Judge to pluck them up, and as hard in the matter of fact, and more, then to know who are heretics: now heresy is known to be a work of the flesh, no less then witchcraft, but to find out who is the heretic and what is heresy, the Holy Ghost supposeth it to be feasible, else he could not bid us avoid them, and judge them accursed, but by this exposition, because there is danger, that we judge them accursed whom God hath blessed, private Christians should no more judge them cursed the public Magistrates, but both should lodge them in their hearts, in the state, in their houses, bless them till the harvest. Yea and Minus Celsus, and other Libertines speak against the Holy Ghost, so why shall ye judge a false teacher, and a heretic to be accursed should you reject and avoid him, and deny him lodging for he is not a thief, a robber, or a murderer nor sins he against the light of nature, nor is he seduced by Satan, but to be pitied, yea he is innocent and godly, and so pious, that ere he sin against the word and his own conscience, he had rather be forsaken cast out of our houses and so not to be rebuked, contrary to Tit. . 13.