Errors, like some sorts of weeds, having once seeded in a field or garden, it is scarce possible to subdue and destroy them ; especially if they be hereditary errors, or have grown up with us from our youth ; a teneris assuescere multum est, saith Seneca ; it is a great advantage to truth or error to have ail early and long possession of the mind. The Pharisees held many erroneous opinions about the law, as appears by their corruptive commentaries upon it, re- futed by Christ, Mat. 5. But did he root them out of their heads and hearts thereby .'' No, no ; they sooner rid him out of the world. The Sadducees held a most dangerous error about the resurrection ; Christ disputed with them to the admiration of others, and proved it clearly against them ; and yet we find the error remaining long after Christ's death, 2 Tim. ii. 18. The apos- tles themselves had their minds tinctured with this error, that Christ should be outwardly great and magnificent in the world, and raise his followers to great honours and preferments amongst men. Christ plainly told them it was their mistake and error; " for the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minis- "ter; yet this did not rid their minds of the error; it stuck fast in them, even till his ascension to heaven. O how hard is it to clear the heart of a good man once leavened with error ! and much more hard to separate it from a wicked man *.
Some have chosen rather to die than to part with their darling errors and soul-damning heresies. I have read (saith Mr. Bridges) of a great Atheist who was burnt at Paris for blaspheming Christ, held fast his atheistical opinions till he came to the very stake; boasted to the priests and friars that followed him, how much more confidently he went to sacrifice his life in the strength of reason, under which he suffered, than Christ himself did ; but when he
• I am persuaded (saith Mr. Gumal) some men take more pains to furnish them- selves with arguments to defend some error they have taken up, than they do for the most saving truths in the Bible. Austin said, when he was a Manichaean, Non tu eras^ scd e^Tor meus erat Deus mens : Thou, O Lord, wert not, but my error was my God. Gurnul^s Christian Armour^ part 2. ]>. 36,
THE CAUSES AND CURE OF MENTAL ERROES. 431
beo-an to feel torments indeed, then be roared and raged to the purpose. Vidi ego hominem^ saith the author : In his hfe he was loose, in his imprisonments sullen ; and at his death mad with the horrors of conscience.
Some, indeed, have recovered the soundness of their judgments after deep corruptions by dangerous errors. Austin Avas a Mani- chee, and fully recoverecl from it. So have many more ; and yet multitudes hold them fast even to death, and nothing but the fire can reveal their work, and discover what is gold, and what is straw and stubble.
Observ. 7. It deserves a remark. That men are not so circumspect and jealous of the corruption of their minds by errors, as they are of their bodies in tirnes of contagion; or of their lives with respect to gross immoralities.
Spiritual dangers affect us less than corporal ; and intellectual evils less than moral. Whether this be the effect of hypocrisy, the errors of the mind being more secret and invisible than those of the conversation, God only knows, man cannot positively de- termine.
Or whether it be the effect of ignorance, that men think there is less sin and danger in the one than in the other ; not considering that an apoplexy seizing the head, is every way as mortal as a sword piercing the body : And that a vertigo will as much unfit a man for service as an ague or fever. The apostle, in 2 Pet. ii. 1. calls them ai£sgiig acwXs/ag, damnable lieresies, or heresies of des- truction. An error in the mind may be as damning and destruc- tive to the soul as an error of immorality or profaneness in the life.
Or whether it may come to pass from some remains of fear and tenderness in the conscience, which forbid men to reduce their er- roneous principles into practice ; there lying under many confident errors in the mind, a secret jealousy, which we caW^brmido oppositi, which will not suffer them to act to the full height of their pro- fessed opinions. Austin gives this character even of Pelagius him- self. Retract, lib. II. cap. 33. Nomen Pclagii non sinclaude aliqua posuU quia vita ejus a multis p)ra:dicabatur : I have not mentioned (saith he) the name of that man without some praise, because his life was lamed by many. And of Swinkfeldius it is said/ Caput rr- gulatum illi diffuit, cor bonum non defuit : His heart was much more regular than his head. Yet this falls out but rarely in the world ; for loose principles naturally run into loose practice? : and the errors of the head into the immoralities of life.
432 A BLOW AT THE ROOT ; OH,
Observ. 8. It is a great judgment of God to he given over to an erroneous mind.
For the understanding being the leading faculty, as that guides, the other powers and affections of the soul follow, as horses in a team follow the fore -horse. Now, how sad and dangerous a thing is this, for Satan to ride the fore-horse, and guide that which is to guide the life of man? That is a dreadful, spiritual, judicial stroke of God which we read of, Rom. i. 26. cra^sow^sv aumg o Qsoc nc 'itaM a-iijAai : God, by a penal tradition, sniftered them to run into the dregs of immorality, and pollutions of life ; and that, because they abused their light, and became vain in their imaginations, ver. 21.
Wild whimsies and fancies in the head usually mislead men in- to the puddle and mire of profaneness, and then it is commonly observed God sets some visible mark of his displeasure upon them ; especially the Heresiarchs, or ring-leaders in error. Nestorius' tongue was consumed by worms. Cerenthus' brains knocked out by the fall of an house. Montanus hanged himself: It were easy to instance in multitudes of others, whom the visible hand of God hath marked for a warning to others ; but usually the spiri- tual errors of the mind are followed with a consumption and decay of religion in the soul. If grace be in the heart, where error sways its sceptre in the head, yet usually there it languishes and withers. They may mistake their dropsy for growth and flou- rishing ; and think themselves to be more spiritual, because more airy and notional; but if men would judge themselves impartially, they will certainly find that the seeds of grace thrive not in the heart, when shaded and over-dropt by an erroneous head.
Observ. 9. It is a pernicious evil, to advance a mere opinion into the place and seat of an article of faith ; and to lay as great a stress upon it, as they ought to do upon the most clear and fundamental point. To be as much concerned for a tile upon the roof, as for the corner-stone, which unites the walls, and sustains the building.