Satan is well aware of this humour in men, and how exceeding serviceable it is to his design : and therefore, having the very knack of clawing and pleasing itching ears with taking novelties, he is never wanting to feed their minds with a pleasing variety, and fresh succession of them ; new opinions are still invented, and minted, in which the dangerous hooks of error are hid: if men were once cured of this spiritual itch, and their minds reduced to that temper and sobriety, as to be pleased with, and bless God for the plain revealed truths of the gospel, Satan would drive but a poor trade, and find but few customers for his erroneous novelties.
The proper remedies to cure this itch after novelty, or dangerous curiosity of the mind are.
Remedy 1. Due reflection upon the manifold mischiefs that have entered into the world this way.
It was this curiosity and desire to know, that overthrew our first parents, Gen. iii. 6. " When the woman saw that the tree " was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a " tree to be desired to make one wise ; she took of the fruit " thereof* The very same way by which he let in the first error, he hath let thousands into the world since that day. Nothing is more common in the world, than for an old error to obtain afresh under the name of new light. Satan hath the very art of turning
THE CAUSES AND CURE OF MENTAL EURORS. 468
Stale errors after the mode of the present times, and make them current and passable as new discoveries, and rare novelties.
Thus he puts off Libertinism, the old sin of the world, under the title of Ckristian Liberty. What a troop of Pagan id<;latrous rites were by this means introduced among the Papists ? A great part of popery is but Ethnicismus redivivus. Heathenism revived. The Pagans Pontifcx maccimus, was revived under the new title of Pope. The Gentiles Lustrations in the Popish Jtol/j water. Their novendiale sacrum^ or sacrifice nine days after the burial of the party, in the Popish Masses for the dead. Their Alvarium Fro- trum^ in cloisters of Monks and Friars ; their Enchanters, in Popish Exorcists ? their Asyla, in Popish Sanctuaries ; with multitudes more of Pagan rites, quite out of date in Christendom, introduced again under new names in Popery ; as was intimated, Rev. xi. 2. and Rev. xiii. 15.
Remedy 2. Be satisfied that God hath not left his people to seek their salvation, or spiritual substance among curious, abstruse and doubtful notions ; but in the great, solid, and plainly revealed truths of the gospel *, John xvii. 3. " This is life eternal, that " they may know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom •' thou hast sent." In facili ct ahsoluto stat ceternitas : the great concerns of our salvation are plain and easy to be understood.
Remedy 3. Vain curiosity is a dangerous snare of Satan : By such trifles as these, he devours our time, eats up our strength, and diverts our minds from the necessary and most important business of religion. Whilst we immerse cur thoughts in these pleasing, but barren contemplations, heart- work, closet- work, family- work, lie by neglected. Whilst we are employed in garnishing the dish with flowers, and curious figures, the cunning cheat takes away the meat our souls should subsist by.
Cause 8. Pride and arrogancy of human reason is another evil disposition, moulding and preparing the mind for errors. When men are once conceited of the strength and prespicacity of their own carnal reasons and apprehensions, nothing is more usual than for such men to run mad with reason into a thousand mistakes and errors. To this cause Ecclesiastical historians ascribe the errors that infest the church f.
♦ What we may be ignorant of without a fault, we should not pry into with danger.
I Pliilosophy or the wisdom of human reason, which always hath done very much hurt to religion, hath produced of itself not a few Heresies ; for at that time philosophical studies chieHy tiourished ; and men by their own suhtiities, or (as they thoiight) domonstrutions, were so confirmed in their opinions, lluit they thought nothing true which differed from their preconceived opinions. Mcj^deb in. Cent. 2. cap. 5. p. 59.
46i! A BLOW AT THE ROOT ; OR,
Reason, indeed, is the highest natural excellency of man ; it exalts him above all earthly creatures, and, in its primitive per- fection, almost equalized him with angels, Heb. ii. 7. The pleasui;es which result from its exercises and experiments, transcend all the dehghts and pleasures of sense. How common is it for men to dote upon their own intellectual beauty, and glory in their victories over weaker understandings ? And though the reason of fallen men is greatly wounded and weakened by sin ; yet it con- ceits itself to be as strong and clear as ever ; and, with Samson, when his locks were shorn, goes forth as before time ; being neither sensible of its own weakness, or of the mysterious and un- searchable depths of scripture.
Reason is our arbiter, and guide, by the institution and law of nature, in civil and natural affairs : It is the beam, and standard, at which we weigh them : It is an home-born judge, and king in the soul : Faith comes in as a stranger to nature, and so it is dealt with, even as an intruder into reason's province, just as the So- domites dealt with Lot : It refuseth to be an underling to faith. Out of this arrogancy of carnal reason, as from Pandora's Box, swarms of errors are flown abroad into the world.
By this means Socinianism first started, and hath since propa- gated itself They look upon it as a ridiculous, and unaccountable thing to reason, that the Son should be co-equal, and co-eternal with the Father : That God should forgive sins freely, and yet forgive none but upon full satisfaction. That Christ should make that satisfaction by his sufferings, and yet be pars loesa^ the party offended, and so make satisfaction to himself; with many more of the like stamp.
Yea Atheism, as well as Socinianism, are births from this womb. It is proud and carnal reason, which quarrels at the creation of the world, and seems to triumph in its uncontroulable maxim. Ex nihilo nihil Jit : Out of nothing, comes nothing. It looks upon the doctrine of the resurrection with a deriding smile, as a thing in- credible. It thinks it hard and harsh, that God should com- mand men to turn themselves to him, and threaten them with damnation, in case of refusal ; and yet, at the same time, man should not have in himself a sufficient power, and a free will to do this, without the supernatural, and preventing grace of God. It thinks it a ndiculous thing for such a great and solemn ordinance of God as baptism is, to pass upon such a subject as an infant of a week old, which is not capable to understand the ends and uses of it. Hence it is, some over-heated zealots have not stuck to say, That we have as good warrant, and reason to * baptize cats, dogs.
* Mr. Samuel Clark's Golden Apples, p. 1 49,