A92140:569
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.
Celsus, If long ago the City into which a false Prophet fled was to be burnt with fire, cattle, and all, and if Angels killed many thousands at once, why doth not God by Angels now kill many, and destroy them, City and cattle? and if sins under the Gospel be more heinous, and God not a whit meeker to sinners under the Gospel, then under the Law, and if the punishment of the Magistrate must grow, as the sins grow more heinous, why? then as false Prophets were but stoned of old, Papists and others do, well to burn them quick with a slow fire, for the more light and grace we have under the Gospel, the more heinous the sin is, and the punishment must be more then death now, else Christs death hath made God milder, not to men, but more severe, and only meeker toward the walls of the Town; the cattle, the spoil.
Celsus, If long agoe the City into which a false Prophet fled was to be burnt with fire, cattle, and all, and if Angels killed many thousands at once, why doth not God by Angels now kill many, and destroy them, City and cattle? and if sinnes under the Gospel be more hainous, and God not a whit meeker to sinners under the Gospel, then under the Law, and if the punishment of the Magistrate must grow, as the sins grow more hainous, why? then as false Prophets were but stoned of old, Papists and others doe, well to burne them quicke with a slow fire, for the more light and grace we have under the Gospel, the more •ainous the sinne is, and the punishment must be more then death now, else Christs death hath made God milder, not to men, but more severe, and only meeker toward the walls of the Towne; the cattle, the spoyle.
Answ. If a Becold fly to Munster, and gather a number of ⟨p. 244⟩robbers in to him,1 and upon pretext of conscience kill and destroy, and if that City will join with him, and defend such bloody heretics, we think under the New Testament sadder punishment is due to him, because the sin is more heinous, and the false Prophet so flying to a City, is not only a false Prophet, but a public robbing murderer. And the punishment should be greater as the Lord augments punishment for greater sins, as is clear,