And this instability of the judgment proceeds either from hypO' crisy or weakness. Sometimes from hypocrisy : All hypocrites are double-minded men. James iv. 8. " The double-minded man " (that is, the hypocrite) is unstable in all his ways :" one of that number was not ashamed to sav, ^S*^ duas habere animas in eodem corpore^ unam Deo dicatam, alteram unicuique qui illam vellet ; i. e. That he had two souls in one body, one for God, and another for whosoever would have it.
Sometimes instability of the mind is the effect only of weakness in the judgment, proceeding merely from want of age and growth in Christ, not having as yet attained senses exercised to discern both good and evil, Heb. v. 14. they are but children in Christ, and children are easy and credulous creatures, Eph. iv. 14. presently taken with a new toy, and as soon weary of it ; such a wavering and unstable temper invites temptation, and falls an easy prey into its hands.
I confess some cases may happen where the pretences on both sides may be so fair as to put a judicious Christian to a stand what to choose ; but then their deliberation will be answerable, and then they will not change their opinions every month as Sceptics do. Wherever error finds such a mutable disposition, its work is half done before it makes one assault. How many wavering professors at this day lie in temptation's way ? and how great a harvest have errorists and heretics had among them ? There is not a mounieban'k comes upon the stage, but he shall find ten times more customers for his drugs than the most learned and experienced j9/«/52ci«7?. The giddy -headed multitude have more regard to novelty than truth.
How necessary and desirable are some effectual rules and reme- dies in this case ! O what a mercy would it be to the professors of these days to have their minds fixed, and their judgments settled in the truths of Christ.? Happy is that man whose judgment is so guarded, that no dangerous error or heresy can commit a rape upon it. To this end I shall here commend the four following rules, to prevent this vertiginous malady in the heads of Christians.
Rule 1. Look warily to it, that you get a real inward implanta- tion into Christ, and lay the foundation deep and firm in a due
456 A BLOW AT THE ROOT ; OR,
and serious deliberation of religion, whenever you engage in the public profession of it.
To this sense are the apostle's words, Col. ii. 6, 7. " As you «' have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him : *' rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you *' have been taught."" Fertility and stabtUty in Christ, a pair of inestimable blessings, depend upon a good rooting of the soul in him at rirst. He that thrusts a dead stick into the ground may easily pull it up again, but so he cannot do by a well-rooted tree. A colour raised by violent action, or a great fire, soon dies away ; but that which is natural or constitutional will hold : every thing is as its foundation is; it was want of a good root, and due depth of earth, which soon turned the green corn into dry stubble, Matth. xiii. 21.
Rule 2. Labour after an inward, experimental taste of all those truths v.hich you profess.
This will preserve your minds from wavering and hesitation about the certainty and reality of them. We will not easily part with those truths, which have sensibly shed down those sweet in- fluences upon our hearts, Heb. x. 34. No sophister can easily per- suade a man that hath tasted the sweetness of honey, that it is a bitter and unpleasant thing ; Non est duputandum de gusti : You cannot easily persuade a man out of his senses.
Rule 3. Study hard and pray earnestly for satisfaction in the present truths, 2 Pet. i. 1^. " That you may be established " iv rri rtaoacyi akr,kia, in the truth that now is under opposition and " controversy." Be not ignorant of the truths that lie in present hazard.
Antiquated opinions that are more abstracted from our present interest are no trials of the soundness of our judgments and integri- ty of our hearts, as the controversies and conflicts of the present times are. Every truth hath its time to come upon the stage, and enter the lists ; some in one age, and some in another ; but Provi- dence seems to have cast the lot of your nativity for the honour and defence of those truths with which error is struggling and con- flicting in your time.
Ride 4. Lastly, Be thoroughly sensible of the benefit and good of establishment, and of the evil and danger of a wavering mind and judgment.
" Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines, (saith " the apostle,) for it is a good thing that the heart be established,"' ^c. Heb. xiii. 9. Established souls are the honour of the truth. It was the honour of religion in the primitive days, that when the Heathens would proverbially express an impossibility, they used to pay, You may as soon turn a Christian from Christ as do it.
THE CAUSES AND CURE OF MENTAL ERRORS. 457
The sickness of professors is a stumbling-block to the world. They will say as Cato of the civil wars betwixt Caesar and Ponipey, Quern fit gicim^ video, quern sequar, non video : they know whom to avoid, but not whom to follow. And as the honour of truth, so the flourishing of your own souls depend upon it. A tree, of'ten removed from one soil to another, can never be expected to be fruit- ful ; it is well if it makes a shift to live.
Cause 5. Another inward cause, disposing men to receive erro- neous impressions, is an vmreasonable eagerness to snatch at any doctrine or opinion that promiseth ease to an anxious conscience.
Men that are under the frights and terrors of conscience are willing to listen to any thing that offers present relief Of all the troubles in the world those of the mind and conscience are most intolerable : and those that are in pain are glad of ease, and readily catch at any thing that seems to offer it.
This seems to be the thing which led those poor distressed wretches, intimated Micah vi. 6. into their gross mistakes and er- rors about the method of the remission of their sins. " Wherewith " shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high *' God ? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves " of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, " or with ten thousand of rivers of oil ? Shall I give my first-born " for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul .?" They were ready to purchase inward peace, and buy out their par- don at any rate. Nothing but the twinges of conscience could have extorted these things from them. Great is the efficacy and torment of a guilty conscience.