wardly avow a belief of this doctrine: there are pretenders who, while they profess to believe in God, in works they deny him. But it has been so from the beginning. The miscarriages of such persons are charged indiscriminately upon the societies among whom they are mixed, and upon the truths which they seem to approve; but there is a righteous God, who in due time will vindicate his own gospel, and his own people from all aspersions. St. Paul observed such things in his day, and he spoke of them likewise, but he spoke of them weeping. The true state of the mind may be determined from the temper with which the miscarriages of professors are observed. The profane expatiate on them with delight, the self-righteous with disdain; but they who know themselves, and love the Lord, cannot speak of them without the sincerest emotions of grief: they are concerned for the honour of the gospel, which is defamed under this pretence; they are grieved for the unhappy and dangerous state of those by whom such offences come, and they fear for themselves, lest the enemy should gain an advantage over them likewise, for they know they have no strength nor goodness of their own; therefore, avoiding unnecessary reflections on others, they endeavour to maintain a watchful jealousy over themselves, and to fix their hearts and hopes upon Christ Jesus their Lord, who, they are persuaded, is able to keep them from falling, to save them to the uttermost, and at length to present them faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy. CHAPTER IV. the solicitations of pleasure, choke the word which they seem to receive, so that it brings forth no fruit to perfection: a part, however, (usually the smallest part,) who are compared to the good ground, are disposed and enabled, by divine grace, to receive it thankfully, as life from the dead. And though they meet with many difficulties, and, like the corn upon the ground, pass through a succession of trying and changing seasons, yet, having the love, promise, and power of God engaged in their behalf, in defiance of frosts, and blasts, and storms, they are brought to maturity, and, when fully ripe, are safely gathered into his garner, Matth. iii. 12. This is an epitome of the ecclesiastical history of every nation, and of every parish, to which this word of salvation is sent. But the parable of the tares (Matth. xiii. 12,) teaches us farther to expect, that besides the general influence which Satan, as the God of this world, will exert to blind the eyes of mankind, lest the light of the glorious gospel should shine upon them (2 Cor. iv. 4,) he will take occasion, from the knowledge of the truth, to insinuate a variety of errors. His first attempts in this way are often so specious and unsuspected, that they are compared to a man's sowing seed by stealth, and in the night, but, as the corn grew, a large crop of tares springing up with it, demonstrated that an enemy had been there. This, in fact, has been universally the case, in every country and age where the gospel has been received; and we may remark, that the sowing the good seed was the occasion of the tares being cast into the same ground. When a people are involved in gross darkness and ignorance, sleeping in a false peace, and buried in the pleasures and pursuits of the world, they have neither leisure, nor inclination, to invent or Of the heresies propagated by false teachers attend to novelties in religion; each one is in the apostles' days. THE parables in the 13th chapter of St. Matthew are prophetical of the reception and event of the gospel in succeeding ages. In this view our Lord himself has explained them. Wherever it is preached, the hearers may be classed according to the distribution in the parable of the sower: some hear without understanding or reflection; in some it excites a hasty emotion in the natural affections, and produces an observable and sudden change in their conduct, resembling the effects of a real conversion to God; but the truth not being rooted in the heart, nor the soul united to Christ by a living faith, these hopeful appearances are sooner or later blasted, and come to nothing: others are really convinced in their judgment of the truth and importance of what they hear, but their hearts cleave to the dust, and the love of this world, the care of what they have, the desire of what they have not, the calls of business, or satisfied with that form (if even the form of godliness is retained,) which he has received from his parents, and neither pretends nor desires to be wiser than those who went before him: but when the truth has shone forth and been received, and seems to bid fair for farther success, Satan employs all his power and subtlety, either to suppress or counterfeit it, or both. Much has been done in the former way; he has prevailed so far as to enkindle the fiercest animosities against the nearest relatives, and persuaded men that they might do acceptable service to God, by punishing his faithful servants with torture, fire, and sword (John xvi. 2:) and no less industrious and successful has he been in practising upon the passions and prejudices of mankind to admit and propagate, instead of the gospel of Christ, and under that name, an endless diversity of opinions, utterly incompatible with it. Of these some are ingenious and artful, adapted to gratify the pride of those who are wise in their own conceits; others more gross and extravagant, suited to inflame the imaginations, or to gratify the appetites of such persons as have not a turn for speculation and refinement. against the light of truth and fact, they laboured to persuade the world, that these were the necessary consequences of Luther's doctrine; and that no better issue could be justly hoped for when men presumed to depart from the authorised standards of popes and councils, and to read and examine the scriptures for themselves. This religious madness, was, however, of no long duration: the people who held tenets inconsistent with the peace of society, were ble names. As these appearances have always accompanied the gospel, so they have always been a stumbling-block and offence to the world, and have furnished those who hated the light | with a pretext for rejecting it: and the doctrines of truth have been charged as the 'source and cause of those errors which have only sprung from their abuse and perver-deservedly treated as rebels and incendiaries sion. When Popery, for a series of ages, de- by the governing powers; the ringleaders tained mankind in darkness and bondage, were punished, and the multitudes dispersed; and deprived them of the knowledge of the their most obnoxious errors were gradually holy scriptures, the tide of error ran uni- abandoned, and are now in a manner forgot. formly in one great channel; when dead After the peace of Passau, the Reformation works were substituted in the place of living acquired an establishment in Germany, and faith; and the worship and trust which is other places; and since that time error has only due to Jesus the great Mediator, was assumed a milder form, and has been supblasphemously directed to subordinate inter-ported by softer methods, and more respectacessors, to angels and to saints, whether real or pretended; when forgiveness of sin was expected, not by the blood of Christ, but by penances, pilgrimages, masses, and human absolutions, by the repetition of many prayers, or the payment of sums of money; while things continued thus, the world was generally in that state of stupidity and blind security which is miscalled religious peace and uniformity; and the controversies of the times were chiefly confined to those points which immediately affected the power, wealth, or pre-eminence of the several religious orders by whom the people were implicitly led. Some differences of opinion were indeed known; but the charge of heresy and dangerous innovations was seldom so uch as pretended against any, but the few who refused to wear the mark of the beast upon their right hands and foreheads, and who, by the mercy of God, retained and professed the main truths of christianity in some degree of power and purity. But when it pleased God to revive the knowledge of the gospel, by the ministry of Luther and his associates, and many were turned from darkness to light, the enemy of mankind presently changed his methods, and, by his influence, the sowing of the good seed was followed by tares in abundance. In the course of a few years, the glory of the Reformation was darkened, and its progress obstructed, by the enthusiasm and infatuation of men, who, under a pretence of improving upon Luther's plan, propagated the wildest, most extravagant, and blasphemous opinions, and perpetrated, under the mask of religion, such acts of cruelty, villany, and licentiousness, as have been seldom heard of in the world. The papists beheld these excesses with pleasure: many of them could not but know that Luther, and the heads of the Reformation, did all that could be expected from them, to show the folly and iniquity of such proceedings; but, In our own country, the same spirit of enthusiasm and disorder has appeared at different times, though it has been restrained by the providence of God, from proceeding to the same extremities, and has been most notorious, when, or soon after, the power of gospel-truth has been more eminently revived; for, as I have already observed, when religion is upon the decline, and only so much of a profession retained as is consistent with the love of the present world, and a conformity to the maxims and practices of the many, we seldom hear of any errors prevailing, but such as will find a favourable toleration, and may be avowed without exciting very strong and general expressions of contempt and illwill against those who maintain them. But whenever real religion, as a life of faith in the Son of God, is set forth upon the principles of scripture, and, by the operation of the Holy Spirit, witnesses are raised up, who by their conduct demonstrate that they are crucified with Christ, to the law, to sin, and to the world, then is the time for Satan to discredit this work, by imposing a variety of false views and appearances upon the minds of the ignorant and unwary; and he is seldom at a loss for fit instruments to promote his designs. Since the late revival of the Reformation doctrines amongst us, we have perhaps fewer things of this kind to apologize for, than have been observable on any similar occasion; and the best apology we can offer for what has been really blameable, is, to show that it was even thus in the apostles' days; and that, if any arguments taken from these blemishes are conclusive against what some choose to call the novel doctrines now, they would, with equal reason, conclude against the validity of the New Testament. And not to confine myself to such things as the world is most prone to except against, I shall endeavour to show, that the seeds of all errors and heresies, the fashionable as well as those which are more generally despised, were sown in the first age, and appeared so early as to give occasion for the apostles' censures against them. I do not mean by this to parallel every name and every singularity that a subtle head or a warm imagination may have started; but to assign, in general, the principles to which all these delusions may be reduced, the sources to which these inebriating and dangerous streams may be traced for, indeed, the operations of the human mind seem to be much more simple and limited than we are ordinarily aware. As there can be no new truths, though every truth appears new to us which we have not known before, so it is probable, that there can be now no new errors; at least it is certain, that a competent knowledge of antiquity, or even a careful perusal of the apostles writings, will furnish sufficient evidence, that some modern authors and teachers are by no means the inventors of the ingenious schemes they have presented to the public. Truth, like the sun, maintains a constant course; every thing would stagnate and die if we were deprived of it for a single day; but errors are like comets; which, though too eccentric to be subject exactly to our computations, yet have their periods of approach and recess, and some of them have appeared and been admired, have been withdrawn and forgot, over and over again. this point are fundamental, dangerous, and if persisted in, destructive; for as such a knowledge of God as is connected with his favour and communion is eternal life, so none can come to the Father but by the Son (John xvii. 3; and xiv. 6,) nor can any know him, but those to whom the Son will reveal him, Matth. xi. 27. On this account Satan's great endeavour (and on his success herein the strength of his kingdom depends) is to darken and pervert the minds of men, lest they should acknowledge and understand what the scriptures declare of his person, character, and offices, as well knowing, that if these are set aside, whatever else is left of religion will be utterly unavailing. Jesus Christ is revealed in the scriptures, and was preached by his first disciples, as God manifest in the flesh, a divine person in the human nature, who, by submitting to ignominy, pain, and death, made a full and proper atonement for sin, and wrought out an everlasting righteousness in favour of all who should believe in his name; and he is set forth in that nature in which he suffered, as the object of our supreme love, trust, and adoration. Other important doctrines, largely insisted on in the word of God, such as the demerit of sin, the obnoxiousness of sinners to punishment, and the misery and incapacity of man in his fallen state, are closely connected with this, and cannot be satisfactorily explained without it. The necessary method of our recovery exhibits the most striking view of the ruin in which sin has involved us, and is the only adequate standard whereby to estimate the unspeakable love of God manifested in our redemption. On the other hand, a knowledge of the true state of mankind, in consequence of the fall, is necessary to obviate the prejudices of our minds against a procedure, which, though in itself the triumph of divine wisdom, is in many respects contradictory to our natural, and therefore false, notions of the fitness of things. St. Paul declares, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he discern them (1 Cor. ii. 14;) and in another place, that no man can say (that is, sincerely, and upon solid conviction) that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. xii. 3. To worship him who had been hanged on a cross, and to expect eternal happiness from his Error, in the simplest form, is a misapprehension of the truth. Some part of the gospel must be known before any erroneous conceptions of it can take place. Thus we read (Acts viii. 9-22,) that Simon Magus was truck with Philip's preaching, and the effects which attended it: he was so far impressed, that it is said he believed; that is, he made a profession of faith; he was convinced there was something extraordinary in the doctrine, but he understood it not: and the event showed he had no part nor lot in the matter. He is thought by the ancients to have been the founder of that capital sect, which is known in general by the name of Gnostics, and which, like a gangrene, spread far and wide, in various branches and subdivisions, each successive head refining upon the system of the preceding. In Sir Peter King's History of the Apostles' Creed, and Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, the Eng-death, was to the Jews a stumbling-block; it lish reader may see the substance of the figments which these unhappy men, wise in their own conceit, vented under the name of the christian religion. The doctrine of Jesus Christ, and of him crucified, which St. Paul preached, and in which he gloried, is the pillar and ground of truth, the rock upon which the church is built, and against which the gates of hell shall never prevail, 1 Cor. ii. 2; Gal. vi. 14; 1 Tim. iii. 15; Matth. xvi, 18. Mistakes in offended their notions of the unity of the godhead, and opposed their high esteem of their own righteousness; and to the Greeks, or Heathens, it appeared the greatest folly and absurdity imaginable. For these reas sons the gospel was rejected by multitudes as soon as proposed, and those who preached it were accounted babblers and madmen, not because they were at a loss for propriety of expression, or discovered any thing ridiculous in their conduct, but because they enforced tenets which were adjudged inconsistent with | custom, and human authority, is very consithe common sense of mankind. derable: nor is even persecution a sufficient bar against hypocrites and intruders. They who suffer for the gospel, though despised by the world, are highly esteemed and considered by their own side; it procures them an attention which they would not have otherwise obtained; it may give them an importance in their own eyes, furnish them with something to talk of, and make them talked of by others. There are people who, for the sake of these advantages, will, for a season, venture upon many hardships, though, when the trial comes very close, they will not endure to the end. In a word, there is no rea who professed the gospel at first, there would But, notwithstanding these prejudices, the energy of their preaching, and the miraculous powers with which it was accompanied, made an impression upon many persons, so far as to induce them to profess the name of Jesus, though they were not spiritually enlightened into the mysteries of his religion, nor their hearts thoroughly subdued to the obedience of the faith. There are other points within the compass of the gospel-ministry more adapted to affect the minds of men in their natural state. Few are so hardened, but they have a conscience of sin, some fears with respect to its consequences, and a pre-son to doubt but that, amongst the numbers intimation of immortality. Such are capable of being greatly affected and moved by a pathetic declaration of the terrors of the Lord, the solemnities of a future judgment, the joys of heaven, or the torments of hell. We cannot doubt that these topics, when insisted on with that strength of argument and warmth of spirit, of which the apostles were capable, would engage the attention of many who were not partakers of that divine light, by which alone the whole scheme of truth, in its harmony and beauty, can be perceived. The seed sown upon the rock sprang up immediately, the quickness of its growth, and the suddenness of its decay, proceeding from the same cause, a want of depth in the soil. Not a few of these hasty believers presently renounced the faith altogether, and others, who went not so far as to disown the name, endeavoured to accommodate the doctrine to When christianity first appeared, the Heatheir prepossessions, and to explain or reject then wisdom, known by the name of Philowhat they could not understand, in such a sophy, was in the highest repute: it had two manner as to form a system upon the whole principal branches, the Grecian and the Eastagreeable to their own wills. Men of corrupt ern. The former admitted (at least did not and prejudiced minds thus tampered with the condemn) a multiplicity and subordination of truth; and their inventions, when made deities; amongst whom, as agents and mediknown, were adopted by others of the same ators between their supreme Jupiter and morcast of thought: as they were differently in- tals, the care and concerns of mankind were clined, they directed their inquiries to dif- subdivided, to each of which homage and saferent points, and each found partizans and crifices were due: their mythology, or the adherents in their respective ways. Thus pretended history of their divinities, was errors, and in consequence, sects and divi- puerile and absurd, and many of their relisions, were multiplied; for when men depart gious rites inconsistent with the practice of from the unerring guidance of God's word, public decorum and good morals. Some of there is no end of their imaginations; one the philosophers endeavoured to guard against singularity produces another, and every new the worst abuses, and to form a system of leader is stimulated to carry his discoveries | religion and morality, in which they seem to farther than those who have gone before him. have proceeded as far as could be expected Farther, as human nature is universally the from men who were totally ignorant of the same, we may judge from what we have true God, and of their own state: some truths seen, that there always have been persons they were acquainted with, truths in theory, inclined to join in a religious profession, from but utterly impracticable upon any principles the unworthy motives of worldly interest, but those of revelation. Amongst a vast and a desire to stand fair with their fellow-number of opinions concerning the chief good creatures. Temptations to this were not so of man, a few held, that man's honour and strong indeed at first, nor so general, as they happiness must consist in conformity to, and have often been since; yet the force of friend- communion with, God; but how to attain ship, relation, (and when christianity had these desirable ends, they were entirely ig been of some years standing,) education, norant. The eastern philosophy was solemn and mysterious, and not less fabulous than the other; but the fables were of a graver cast. It seemed to mourn under the sense of moral evil, and laboured in vain to account for its entrance; its precepts were gloomy and severe; and a perfect course of bodily mortification was recommended as the great expedient to purify the soul from all its defilements, and to re-unite it, by degrees, to its great Author. On though equally, remote from the truth. The one thing in which they all agreed was, in perverting and opposing the scripture-doctrine concerning the person of Christ. this point their opinions were as discordant as absurd: some denied that Christ was come in the flesh; they pretended that Christ was sent from heaven by the supreme God, and united himself to Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, at his baptism; and that, when the Jews apprehended the man Jesus, and St. Paul, in several passages (Col. ii. 8; nailed him to the cross, Christ returned to 1 Tim. vi. 20,) cautions the christians against heaven, and left him to suffer by himself. corrupting the simplicity of their faith, by Others ascribed a heavenly derivation to his admitting the reasoning and inventions of body, affirming that it passed through the vain men. In some places (1 Tim. i. 4; 2 Tim. Virgin Mary, without any participation of her ii. 9) he seems to speak more directly of the substance; while others asserted, that he had Gnostics, whose heresies were little more no substantial flesh; but that his body was a than the fables of the eastern philosophy, in mere phantom, or apparition, which was neia new dress, with an acknowledgment of ther really born, nor did or could truly suffer. Jesus Christ as an extraordinary person, yet Again, there were others who held the reality so as utterly to exclude and deny all the im- of his human nature, yet maintained, that portant truths revealed in the scriptures con- Christ did not suffer at all, but that Simon of cerning him. They dignified their scheme Cyrene, the bearer of his cross, being taken with the name of Gnosis, or Science; but it by the Jews for him, was crucified in his was falsely so called, and stood in direct op- stead, while he stood by, and laughed at their position to the gospel. On other occasions mistake. A brief recital of these extrava(Rom. i. 21-23; 1 Cor. i. 20-23,) he ap-gancies is sufficient for my present purpose: pears to have had the Grecian philosophy for a more particular account, I refer the chiefly in view. But, notwithstanding his reader to Sir Peter King's History of the admonitions, it was not long before the errors of philosophy had an ill influence upon the professors of the christian faith; and even several of the fathers darkened the glory of the truth, by endeavouring to accommodate it to the taste and genius of that Heathen wisdom which they had before admired, and still thought might be useful to embellish and recommend the gospel. Creed, already mentioned. Many passages in the apostles' writings are directed against these dangerous errors; for they strike at the root of the faith and hope of the gospel, and are subversive of the whole tenor both of the Old and New Testament. It was believed by the ancients, that St. John wrote his gospel with some view to these heresies; and it is certain that, in his first epistle, where, putBut to confine myself to the apostles' times, ting the disciples upon their guard against it is plain, from the epistles of St. Paul, John, the many false prophets who were gone out Jude, and Peter (Tit. i. 10; 1 John iv. 1; into the world, he observes, that the common 2 Pet. ii. 18, 19; Jude 4,) that many false point, in which all their divers opinions prophets and teachers had, in their days, crept agreed, was a denial that Jesus Christ was in, who propagated damnable heresies, even come in the flesh, 1 John ii. 22, and iv. 3. denying the Lord who bought them, turning He reminds them, that as they had heard the grace of God into licentiousness, speak- Antichrist must come, even so now there ing great swelling words of vanity, boasting were many Antichrists; and that the name themselves of freedom, while they were in was applicable to all who denied that Jesus bondage to their own lusts. And in the epis- is the Christ. He admits that these false tle to the church of Ephesus (Rev. ii. 6,) our teachers went out from amongst themselves, Lord himself mentions a sect, who bore the that is, they had borne the christian name; name of Nicolaitans, and expresses his dis- but he refers to the doctrines they taught, as approbation of them in these awful terms: a sufficient proof that they had never been of Whom I also hate!" The peculiar tenets the number of true christians; for if they had of the people condemned in these passages of been of us, no doubt they would have conscripture are not expressly mentioned; but tinued with us, 1 John ii. 19. If opinions, from these sources were most probably de-equally wild and extravagant, were at this rived the sects which, in the second century, time maintained and propagated by persons were known by the names of their several who, for a season, had been warm for truth leaders, Cerinthus, Saturninus, Cerdo, Mar- and reformation, we are not afraid that they cion, Basilides, Valentinus, and others: who would prejudice our cause with any who will all, building upon the common foundation of allow due weight to the reasoning of St. the eastern philosophy, or Gnosis, superadded John; for if they had been really of us once, their own peculiarities, and were differently, they would have still continued with us. |