A92140:574
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.
nor is the conceit of Celsus of worth that by a figure he understands by tares heretics that are horn of corrupt doctrine; for then Celsus shall first have no ground from the former Parable to expound the seed to be the word, and the tares to be corrupt doctrine, for then these words a certain s•wer went to sow seed, and as he sowed some fell by the side, must have this sense, if Celsus make this parable to agree with that in the signification of the word seed, that the preacher of the Gospel went forth to sow seed, that is to sow true and false teachers, and some seed, that is some false teachers fell upon the […] side, &c. which is non-sense.
nor is the conceit of Celsus of worth that by a figure he understands by tares hereticks that are horne of corrupt doctrine; for then Celsus shall first have no ground from the former Parable to expound the seed to be the word, and the tares to be corrupt doctrine, for then these words a certaine s•wer went to sow seed, and as he sowed some fell by the side, must have this sense, if Celsus make this parable to agree with that in the signification of the word seed, that the preacher of the Gospel went forth to sow seed, that is to sow true and false teachers, and some seed, that is some false teachers fell upon the 〈…〉 side, &c. which is non-sense.
2 It is against the justice of God,1 that Heretics, since they but simply err, and are innocent, holy, and so fear God, that they had rather suffer torment and burning quick, and are commiseration digni (as say the Belgic Arminians, Celsus, and other Libertines) should be for mere innocency and godliness gathered by the Angels, in the harvest of the world, and cast into the fire and furnace of everlasting vengeance: I grant out of imitation of the fathers, and particularly of Augustine, who retracted his opinion touching heretics, and the coercing of them: Divines use this expression, hereseon zizania, tares of heresy, but alluding to, rather then expounding the parable.