Discourse of Mental Errors, Part · Section 24
The Remedies.
The proper Remedies in this Case are principally two.
Remedy I.
Pray fervently, and labour diligently in the use of all God's appointed means, to get more solidity of Judgment, and strength of Grace to establish you in the Truth, and secure your Souls against the cunning craftiness of Men that lye in to deceive.
'Tis the ignorance and weakness of the people, which makes the Factors for Error so successful as they are. Consult the Scriptures, and you shall find these cunning Merchants drive the quickest and gainfullest trade among the weak and injudicious. So speaks the Apostle, With good words and fair speeches, they deceive the hearts of the simple; foreign, harmless, weak, easie Souls, who have a desire to do well, but want wisdom to discern the subtilties of them that mean ill; who are void both of fraud in themselves, and suspition of others. Oh! what success have the Deceivers, foreign, their fair words and sugared speeches, sweet and taking expressions, among such innocent ones!
And who are they among whom Satan's cunning Gamesters commonly win the Game, and sweep the Stakes, but weak Christians, credulous Souls, whom for that reason the Apostle calls foreign, Children. The word properly signifies an an Infant, when 'tis referred to the Age; but unskilful and unlearned, when referred (as it is here) to the Mind. So again, 2 Pet. 2. 14. They (that is, the False Teachers there spoken of) beguile foreign, unstable Souls, Souls that are not confirmed and grounded in the Principles of Religion. Whence by the way, take notice of the unspeakable advantage and necessity of being well Catechized in our youth: the more judicious, the more secure.
Remedy II.
Labour to acquaint your selves with the sleights and artifices Satan's Factors and Instruments generally make use of, to seduce and draw Men from the Truth. The knowledg of them is a good defensative against them. Now there are two common Artifices of Seducers, which it is not safe for Christians to be ignorant of
First, They usually seek to disgrace and blast the reputations of those Truths and Ministers set for their defence, which they design afterwards to overthrow and ruin; and to beget credit and reputation to those Errors which they have a mind to introduce. How many precious truths of God are this day, and with this design defamed as legal and carnal Doctrines; and those that defend them, as Men of an Old Testament spirit?
Humiliation for Sin, Contrition of Spirit, &c fall under disgrace with many, and indeed all qualifications and pre-requisites unto coming to Christ, as things not only needless, but pernicious unto the Souls of Men, although they have not the least dependance upon them: Yea, Faith it self, as a pre-requisite unto Justification, as no better than a Condition pertaining to Adam's Covenant.
And so for the persons of Orthodox Ministers; you see into what contempt the false Teachers would have brought both the Person and Preaching of Paul himself, 2 Cor. 10. 10. His bodily presence (say they) is weak, and his speech contemptible.
Secondly, Their other common Artifice is, to insinuate their false Doctrines among many acknowledged and precious Truths, which only serve for a convenient vehicle to them; and besides that, to make their Errors as palatable and gustful as they can to the vitiated Appetite of corrupt Nature.Mr. W. G. The forementioned Worthy hath judiciously observed how artificially Satan hath blended his baneful Doses, to please the Palate of Carnal Reason, Spiritual Pride, and the desire of Fleshly Liberty.
Carnal Reason is that great Idol, which the more intelligent part of the carnal World worships. And are not the Socinian Heresies as pleasant to it, as a wellmixt Iulep to a feverish Stomach.
Spiritual Pride is another Diana, which obtains greatly in the World; and no Doctrine like the Pelagian and Semipelagian Errors, gratify it. A Doctrine that sets fallen Nature upon its Legs again, and persuades it, it can go alone to Christ; at least, with a little external help of Moral suasion, without any preventing or creating work in the Soul. This goes down glib and grateful.
And then for Fleshly Liberty, How do those that are fond of it rejoice in that Doctrine or Opinion, which looses Nature from the yoke of restraint? How does the poor deluded Papist hug himself, to think he hath liberty by his Religion, to let loose the reins of his Lust to all sensualities, and quit himself from all that guilt, by Auricular Confession to the Priest once a year? How doth the Familist smile upon that Principle of his, which tells him, the Gospel allows more Liberty than severe Legal Teachers think fit to tell them of: They press Repentance and Faith; but Christ hath done all this to thy hands.