A92140:572
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.
And clear it is, as in this Parable, the Lord will not have us to murmur, that the godly and wicked grow together, so he will have us to know there cannot be an exact purging of the visible Church until the day of judgement come. Acontius, and Celsus answer 1. But so he forbids to purge the Church universal, but if men shall be so diligent in purging all particular Churches, what else should they do but contravene the command of God, who forbids to pluck up the tares? 2. The Lord forbids the plucking up, in either universal or particular Churches, because this is a general command, let them grow till harvest.
And cleare it is, as in this Parable, the Lord will not have us to murmure, that the godly and wicked grow together, so he will have us to know there cannot be an exact purging of the visible Church untill the day of judgement come. Acontius, and Celsus answer 1. But so hee forbids to purge the Church universall, but if men shall be so diligent in purging all particular Churches, what else should they doe but contravene the command of God, who forbids to plucke up the tares? 2. The Lord forbids the plucking up, in either universall or particular Churches, because this is a generall command, let them grow till harvest.
Answ. 1We constantly deny that (let them grow) is a command at all, but only an inhibition to us that we quarrel not with God who suffers them to grow, and yet it follows not that Magistrates and Pastors sin in doing their duty so far to pluck them out, as the wheat be not also plucked up; for as we are not to fret and impatiently grudge at the permissive will and providence of God,2 in that he permits tares to grow, so we may, without sin, both pray the contrary of that which the permissive will ordains to be done, and labour to do the contrary, and yet not sin, the Disciples were not to grudge and fret at that decree of God, when ⟨p. 249⟩