A92140:584
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 21: Of the Samaritans, and of no compelling of Heathens. How the Covenant bindeth us.
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.
CHAP. XXI. Of the Samaritans, and of no compelling of Heathens. How the Covenant bindeth us.
Libertines allege, Luke▪ 9. 51, 52, 53. &c. When Christ by a village of the Samaritans, was rejected and denied lodging, James and John say, Lord, wilt thou that we command […] come down from heaven, and consume them, even as […] did? But Christ rebuked them and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye ⟨p. 249⟩are of? for the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them.1 Then are we to spare the lives of those that refuse the true and sound doctrine of the Gospel, yea who oppugn it, and to admonish them; Celsus saith, this example is not proposed to compare the Samaritans with heretics, or the Apostles with the Ministers and the Magistrate, but that the benign and meek engine of Christ, in matters of Religion, may be clear, and that we should abhor cruelty, in matters of Religion, for if the Apostles had moved the same question touching heretics at that time, Christ would have given the same answer. The Holland Arminians say, if Christ suffered not his Disciples to conceive a desire of revenge from heaven from the only love and zeal of Religion against the Samaritans that denied lodging to him,2 far less must we believe that he will suffer, that in matters of Religion, for mere conscience any manifest violence should be exercised; for Christ saith, the spirit that leads you is raging, vehement, fiery, the spirit of my Disciples is not so. 2. Your spirit seeks to destroy lives, out of a zeal for Religion, the Spirit of the Son of man is for saving, not for destroying of mens lives. And this general answer of Christ forbids all cruelty in the matters of Religion, saith Celsus.
LIbertines alledge, Luke▪ 9. 51, 52, 53. &c. When Christ by a village of the Samaritans, was rejected and denied lodging, James and John say, Lord, wilt thou that we command come downe from heaven, and consume them, even as did? But Christ rebuked them and said, yee know not what manner of spirit yee