Conscience, Liberty and God's Word: A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience

The name of Samuel Rutherford has been commonly associated with the literary upheaval of seismic proportions that was brought by his book, Lex Rex, or The Law and the Prince (1644), against the arbitrary rule of kings claiming a Divine right from God to exercise absolute power (tyranny) over a nation (in both church and state). Conscience, Liberty and God's Word (previously known as A Free Disputation Against Pretended Liberty of Conscience) takes aim at another gross error of treason against God and the supreme authority he exercises over the moral person of church, state, and the individual person. Now Rutherford (arguably the brightest star in the constellation of Scottish commissioners sent to the Westminster Assembly) exposes both the treason against God endemic in asserting the freedom of conscience to worship God in whatever way a person believes is right (regardless of what God actually states in his Word), and the tyranny that consequently results against our neighbor when the individual conscience has no higher Divine Law to which it must submit. The consequences for the Christian are enormous in how one views the conscience in relationship to God's Law, and how he will consequently behave in both Church and State. This is the classic Reformed, Protestant treatment of the biblical role the conscience plays in the church, in the state, and in the individual.