A92140:738
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.
I come to the assumption, The punishing of a seducing Prophet is moral.1 In that it is commanded to father and mother, not to pity him, Deut. 13. 6. holden forth as the zeal of God, in father and mother, under the Messiahs Kingdom, Zach. 13. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. and every one is forbidden, To bid him God speed, yea, and commanded to deny him an act of humanity, and hospitality, and not receive him in his house, 2 Joh. 1. If we be commanded to put any shame on him, far more must the Ruler be taught of God, what shame he should put on him. For what ever under the New Testament is capable of a command, is moral. And if moral, what the Magistrate should do to him can no more be determined by the will and wit of man, than it can be determined what punishment the Magistrate must inflict upon the murderer, the adulterer, the Sorcerer, the Sodomite; which all the wisdom of God hath determined: in the word, otherways God hath left the Magistrate in the dark, that from the word he hath no direction, when he committeth murder, or when he doth acts of justice. And ⟨p. 311⟩that it is a moral act also to seduce souls is clear, in that, 1. We are commanded to beware of such. Matth. 7. 5. and avoid them, Tit. 3. 10. Rom. 16. 17. 2. That the Lord condemneth them in his word, as such as make their followers the children of perdition, Yea Matth. 22. 15. They subvert the hearers; their word cate as a Canker, 2 Tim. 2. 15, 17. Lead silly women Captive, 2 Tim. 3. are Deceivers,