Discourse of Mental Errors, Part · Section 30
The Remedies.
Now the Remedies in this Case are such as follow.
Remedy I.
Whatever Doctrine or Practice seeks credit to it self this way, falls justly thereby under suspicion, that it wants a solid Scripture-foundation.
God hath not left his People to seek satisfaction in such uncertain ways as these; but hath given them a surer word of Prophecy, to which they do well to take heed, 2 Pet. 1. 19. He hath tyed us to the standing Rule of the Word, forbidding us to give heed to any other Voice, or Spirit, leading us another way, Isa. 8. 19. 2 Thess. 2. 1, 2. Gal. 1. 8. Scripture-light is a safe and sure Light, a pleasant and sufficient Light.
The Scripture (saith Luther) is so full, that as for Visions and Revelations, nec curo, nec desidero, I neither regard, nor desire them. And when he himself had a Vision of Christ after a day of fasting and prayer, he cried out, Avoid Satan, I know no Image of Christ, but the Scripture. An hankering mind after these things, speaks a sickly and distempered state of Soul, as longing after Trash in young distempered Persons, doth a distempered state, or ill habit of Body.
Mr. William Bridges somewhere tells us of a Religious Lady of the Empresses Bed-chamber, whose name was Gregoria, who being greatly troubled about her Salvation, wrote to Gregory, That she would never cease importuning him, 'till he had sent her word, that he had obtained a Revelation from Heaven that she should be saved: to whom he returned this Answer; Rem difficilem postulas & inutilem, Thou requirest of me that which is difficult to me, and unprofitable for thee.
Remedy II.
Consider how often the World hath been abused by the Tricks and Cheats of that officious Spirit, the Devil, in such ways as these.
What hath propagated Idolatry among Heathens and Christians more than this? Hinc fluxerunt multae peregrinationnes, Monasteria, delubra, dies festi & alia, saith Lavater, in Iob 33. Pilgrimages, Monasteries, Shrines of Saints, Holydays, &c. have been introduced by this Trick. 'Twere endless to give Instances of it in the Histories of former Ages.*Of the Prophesies, Visions and pretended Inspirations of Storke, Pfeiffer, Becold, Warendorp, &c. with the efficacy of them on the deluded People, and fatal consequences of them both to the Deceived, and Deceivers: See Mr. Samuel Rutherford's survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, p. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
We have a notable late Account of it among our selves, in a Book, entitled, [A Discovery of the notorious Falsehood and Dissimulation contained in a Book, stiled, The Gospel-way confirmed by Miracles] Licensed and published 1649. wherein is laid open to the World, the free Confession of Ann Wells, Matthe… Hall, &c. deluding the People of Whatfield in Suffolk with such pretended Voices, Visions, Prophecies and Revelations, the like have scarcely been heard of in England since the Reformation. Multitudes of People were deluded by them.
At length the Lord extorted from this Woman a full Confession of the notorious falseness of these things, by a terrible Vision of Hell: her Partizans laboured four days to suppress and stifle it, but to no purpose: for the Horrors of Conscience prevailed with her to confess the notorious Dissimulations contained in that Book, before the People of Whatfield, and a Justice of the Peace. And thus the Lord out-shot Satan in his own Bow.
Remedy III.
Consider how difficult, yea, and impossible it is for a man to determine that such a Voice, Vision, or Revelation is of God; and that Satan cannot feign or counterfeit it; seeing he hath left no certain marks by which we may distinguish one Spirit from another: an albus? an ater?
Sure we are, Satan can transform himself into an Angel of Light; and therefore abandoning all those unsafe and uncertain ways, whereby Swarms of Errors have been conveyed into the World, let us cleave inseparably to the sure Word of Prophecy, the Rule and Standard of our Faith and Duty.