PARTIAL APOSTASY FROM THE GOSPEL. _ 55
minations?” Jer. vii. 8-10, A plea of innocency and hope of im- _punity, under an evident guilt of the highest immoralities and the _ vilest of superstitions, do equally participate of folly and impudence. It is fallen out with this church of Rome somewhat in like man- ner as it did with him from whom she falsely pretends to derive her wonderful privilege of indefectibility; for when our Lord Christ foretold that all men should forsake him, he alone, with the highest confidence and in a singular manner, undertook the contrary for himself. But all the prerogative which he pretended unto issued only in this, that when all the other disciples forsook their Master and fled, according to his prediction, he alone forsook him and denied him. And that impossibility of failing which this church appro- priates unto itself as its singular and incommunicable privilege hath possibly been a means of, but assuredly is accompanied with, a pecu- __ liar apostasy, above all other churches in the world. Nothing, cer- _ tainly, can be more vain in itself, nor more pernicious unto the souls of them who are under the power of such an apprehension, than this _ pretence, when all evidences in matter of fact do openly testify to the contrary. The principal nations of its communion are at this day engaged in fierce, bloody, and causeless wars, and these so - Managed as to be accompanied with a confluence of all those evils and flagitious wickednesses which have a tendency to make mankind sinful and miserable. Is this that love and peace which, according to the rule of the gospel, ought to be among the disciples of Christ, and without which it is impossible they should have any evidences in themselves, or give any testimony unto the world, that so they are? Doth this answer the promises to be accomplished in the days of the _ Messiah, Isa. 11. 2-4, or the innumerable precepts given by Jesus Christ himself as to unity, love, and peace? “But wars,” they say, “are lawful, and so no argument that those engaged. in them are revolters from the rule of the gospel.” I say, It may be so; but it is far safer to judge all war unlawful than to justify all the wars that rage in Chris- _ tendom, or to suppose them consistent with the rule or doctrine of _ the gospel. The truth is, many things must concur to reconcile any of them unto that obedience which we owe to the Prince of Peace; nor ig any of them of that nature or necessity, but that, ifthe gospel had its proper efficacy on the minds of all that are called Christians, and its due authority over their consciences, they would be all pre- _ vented. However, in a church pretending to be no way fallen off ér apostatized from the evangelical rule, it is justly expected that another representation be made of the religion taught by Jesus Christ - than that which appears in the desolations that are wrought in the earth through the lusts and rage of the members of it. The state of things amongst them seems not to constitute that kingdom of
56 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
righteousness, love, and peace, which Christ came to set up in the world, and which indeed at present, by reason of the general apos- tasy of the nations, is little elsewhere to be found but in the souls of his sanctified ones; and those particular churches are blessed in a peculiar manner who endeavour, in their profession and obedience, in any measure to rise up unto an expression thereof.
Besides, the lives of the generality of them who adhere unto the communion of that church, [and] of the most who preside therein, are openly contradictory unto the evangelical rule of obedience. It may for the most part be said concerning them with respect unto the whole, as one of them said of a part of the New Testament, “ Hither this is not gospel, or we are not Christians.” In brief, if the king- dom of Christ,—which was once a kingdom of light, and truth, and holiness; of separation, in principles, affections, and conversation, from the world; of communion with God and loving-kindness among men ; of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,—may become, and is become, a kingdom of darkness, pride, ignorance, ambition, persecution, blood, superstition, and idolatry, then and not else doth it visibly remain among them, and they have nothing apostatized from the laws and government of it.
But they can easily discharge themselves of the guilt of this im- putation: for notwithstanding that the things mentioned be in part acknowledged to be so, (as to what purpose is it to deny the sun to shine at noonday?) yet the peace, love, and unity, the holiness and righteousness, that ought, according to the gospel, to be and reside in the church, are found amongst them on other accounts ;—for the whole body of the church and all the members of it agree and are united in one head, even the pope of Rome, which is the only evan- gelical unity required of thedisciples of Christ! and the holiness of the worship, with that of the saints that have been among them, as also of their present retired devotionists, and the charity of many, testified by magnificent works of piety and bounty, do sufficiently answer that sanctification, holiness, and love, that conformity unto Christ in heavenly-mindedness and obedience, which the gospel re- quireth. But this is no other but an account of the true nature of that apostasy of the latter times which is foretold by the apostle, 2 Tim, iti. 1-5, “In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Under the power of the most filthy and outrageous lusts, men frame to themselves an outward shape,