A92140:707
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
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.
5 The author of the bloody Tenet saith,1 the sword maketh a nation of hypocrites, but converteth none, and he citeth, If. 10 which speaketh no such thing; But that God sendeth the sword of the Assyrians against an hypocritical nation. That the Sword maketh hypocrites, and men to profess the truth against their conscience; not kindly, nor per•se, but through the corruption of mens hearts, who make themselves hypocrites, of it self, and per•se all Israel fear the sword, and shall no more tempt others to go after other Gods, Deut. 13. 11. but that they do this in an hypocritical manner, is not from the innocent sword, but from this, that men fear him that can kill the body, more than they fear him that can destroy both soul and body in bell, Mat. 10. 28. for upon this ground, the Sword should make hypocrites, because for fear of the Sword, men abstain from bloodshed Sorcery, Parricide, Sodomy, more then for fear of God, and shall therefore the Magistrate not use the sword against Parricides and Sodomies? so many are made hypocrites by hearing, and external performances, drawing near to God with their lips, when their hearts are far from God, shall therefore the hearing of the word and the prosperity that followeth the Gospel which begetteth believers for a time, who wither when the sun riseth, and shall power in the hands of the people of God, that maketh the enemies lye, and hypocritically submit, Psal. 81. 15. be as unlawful as the drawing of the sword against false teachers? for all these beget hypocrites, but they do it by accident, not kindly; and if we made the sword a means of conversion of sinners, as Libertines falsely suppose, the Argument should have some colour: or if drawing of the sword against Seducers, were of it self indifferent, and yet by accident did make hypocrites, ⟨p. 296⟩they might conclude against it, as we argue against humane ceremonies, in the supposition of many who suppose their indifferency.