A92140:764
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.
It is a token the man is scant and ebb of proofs in Scriptures,1 when he can prove liberty of conscience by no Scripture, but one wing and tithe of a Parable, never expounded by Christ, who yet expoundeth all the rest of the parts of the Parables, and yet (as I have said before) the tares are not expounded by Christ to be Heretics, but ver. 38. The tares are the children of the wicked one, and ver. 41. all things that offend and do iniquity. Mr. Goodwin denies that Heretics are ill doers, Mr. Williams saith, they do iniquity but if he would expound and apply all the tithes and joints of the Parable, then Mr. Williams must tell us what the sleeping of men, v. 25. and what the springing up of the blade is, and the bringing forth of the fruit is, v. 26. and how men quarrel with God, because of the prosperity of Heretics, when as Scripture extends the prosperity that stumbles men, to the most wicked, who are fat and rich, Psal. 37. 1, 2, 3, 4. Jer. 12. 12. Job 22. 1, 2, 3. and what the bundles are, vers. 30▪ since Mr Williams (as all Libertines and Anabaptists are) is bold with the word to expound tares otherwise then the word of God and ⟨p. 328⟩our Saviour Christ doth, who of purpose expoundeth the ••res to be workers of iniquity, and ill doers, now Heretics to Master Williams and Libertines are no ill doers, but innocent men, men that fear God, such as suffer persecution for conscience, the children of light, of the promise, of the free woman, persecuted by the children of this world, and the sons of the bondwoman, as all their Books say; how doth Christ make these Heretics that are named tares, such as grow and flourish till harvest, and then these innocent men that feared God are judged by God offenders in Christs Kingdom, workers of iniquity, cast into a furnace of fire, where there shall be wailing and g•ashing of teeth? To conclude why doth Mr Williams say the Magistrate oweth protection, to the true Church apart and met together,