Commentary on the Gospels and Acts, Commentary 1 · Chapter 7 · Verse 15
Verse 15. Beware of false Prophets which come to you &c.]
This is another dangerous rock, that the lesse carefull may easily split against. Take heed rherefore, lest whiles ye shun a shelf, ye fall not into a whirle-poole. By corrupt teachers Satan catcheth men, as a cunning fisher by one fish catcheth another, that he may feed upon both. He circuiteth the world, seeketh whom to devour, and … beginneth with violence and cruelty. If this take not, then he puts off the frock of a wolfe, and makes his next encounter in sheeps-clothing. Now what havock he hath made by this means of silly soules laden with lusts, who knows not? The old Church was pestred with false Prophets, Deut. 1. 3. 1. 2 Pet. 2, 1. There were false Prophets among the people, and there shallbe false teachers among you, who privily shall bring … haeresies and many shall follow their pernicious waies. This was Peters prophecy: and Paul saith the same, Act. 20. 30. Grievous wolves shall enter in amongst you (in sheeps-clothing you must think) speaking perverse things (whiles they pervert the scriptures to the defence of their own devices) to draw away disciples after them. The word signifieth to pull them limmeal, as wolves use toforeign do the sheep they seize upon. A like expression there is, Deut. 13. 13. where these … men are said to thrust or drive away 2 King. 17 ….folk from the true God, as Jeroboam is said to have driven Israel from following the Lord. This they do, not so much by … as by craft, by force as by fraud: deceitfull workers St Paul calles2 Cor. 11. …, …. them, transforming … into the Apostles of Christ, and Rom. 16. 18.ministers of righteousnesse, and by good words and fair speeches … the hearts of the simple and …. This they have learned of the devil that grand jugler, who can soon transform himself into an Angel of light. St John in his first … tells us of many petty Antichrists, even then gon out; who professing1 John 4. 1. Christs name, did yet oppose his truth. And in his …,Revc. 13. 11. that the beast, (which is the great Antichrist) hath two … like the lambs, but speaks like the Dragon. The locusts also (which are his limbs and agents) have faces like women, insinuative and flattering. Tertullian tells us, that the … Abduxit a … plures … versutia, quam … omnium … saevitia. D. Prid.haereticks had a trick to perswade before they taught, whereas the Truth … by teaching, doth not teach by perswading. And how much hurt Julian the Apostate did by this art in the Church of God, is better known, then that I need here to relate it. It was not therefore without good ground of reason, that Placilla the …, (when Theodosius senior desired to conferre with … the …) disswaded her husband very earnestly: lest being perverted by his speeches, he might fall into heresie; … S zomen, lib. 7. cap 6, 7.knew their cunning and as it were, cogging of a dye, Ephe. 4. 14. where the Apostle compareth seducers to cheaters, and falseforeign … auctum est a …. gamesters, who have a device, by cogging of a dye, to deceive the unskilfull: and further telleth us, that they are wittily wicked, by methods and crafty conveyances, winding up and down, and turning…. every way, to get the greatest advantage. Neither was thatforeign b. … sunt …. good Empresse ignorant, how catching we are this way and inclinable to the worse side: as the Israelites soon forgot their God, and called for a Calf, as the ten tribes were easily prevailed with … go after the two golden calves, and as the whole world wondred and wandred after the beast. This to prevent, as much as may be, God in delivering the law is most large in the second and fourth Commandments, which we are most apt to transgresse; that … superstition, this, by profanenesse.