A92140:779
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 26: Whether punishing of Seducing Teachers be persecution for Conscience.
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.
2.1 Asser. There is a persecution with the tongue by words like coals of Juniper, Psal. 120. 2, 3. and like the arrows of the mighty, like a sharp razor, Psal. 52. 23. Job 19. 3. These ten times ye have reproached me, and are not ashamed, v. 21. Why do ye persecute me as God? Jobs friends never put hand on him, but by arguing him to be an hypocrite, from the mistaken doctrine of providence, as is clear, chap. 4 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, &c. yet they persecuted him, Job 19. 28. they that mocked Jeremiah and in arguing opposed his doctrine, and said, Jer. 17. 15. Where is the word of the Lord, persecuted him, v. 18. Let them be confounded that persecute me, Jer. 18. 18. Then said, they, come let us devise devices against Jeremiah, for the Law shall not perish from the Priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word of the Lord from the Prophet: and they had much to say from the word, that the Law was with the Priests, and the word of the Lord with their Prophets, as well as with Jeremiah, yet they resolve to persecute Jeremiah, come and let us smite him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words. And the Scripture tells us of the scourge of the Tongue, Job 5. 21. and the place cited by Libertines, Gal. 4. 28, 29. where it is said that Ishmael the son of the handmaid, persecuted Isaac the son of the Promise, it was not by offering any bodily violence to Isaac, as we teach the Christian Magistrate, is to use the sword against Seducers; but as Pareus, Meyer, Calvin, Piscator, Beza, Luther, Perkins, and all Interpreters do well expound it, Ishmael but mocked Isaac, and said, the promises made to him were but a mock, and he would have, forsooth, the dignity of the birth-right. Calvin saith, the mocking and blaspheming of Christ on the Cross, He trusted in God, let him deliver him,