The church of Corinth was planted by the apostle Paul, and watered by Apollos, that great evangelist; and none can question but that they were fully instructed by them in all the principles of the gospel; which is evident also from that abundance of spiritual gifts which, above any other church, they had received. But yet, within a few years, before the writing of his first epistle unto them, which was not above five or six years at the most, many of them fell into that fundamental error of denying the resurrection of the dead; whereby they wholly annihilated, as the apostle declares, the whole
APOSTASY FROM THE TRUTH OF THE GOSPEL. 63
_ death and resurrection of Christ, rendering what seemed to remain _ of their faith altogether vain, 1 Cor. xv. 12-18. ___ The churches of the Galatians are yet a more pregnant instance. _ Converted they were unto the faith of Christ and planted in their _ church-state by the ministry of the same apostle; and although he instructed them in the whole counsel of God, yet it may be justly supposed that he laboured in nothing more than to establish them in the knowledge and faith of the grace of God in Christ, and the _ free justification of believers by faith in him or his blood alone: for this he everywhere declareth to have been his principal aim and de- sign, in the whole course of his ministry. The doctrine hereof they re- ceived with so much joy and satisfaction thatthey valued the apostle as an angel of God, received him as Jesus Christ, and esteemed him above the sight of their own eyes, chap. iv. 14, 15. But yet after all this, upon a sudden, so as that he was surprised with it and amazed at it, they fell from the doctrine of grace and justification by faith alone, to seek after righteousness as it were by the works of | _ the law: Chap. ii. 1, “O foolish Galatians,” saith he, “who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” Notwithstanding the evident demonstration of the truth _ which they had received, and experience of the power of the word, which he mentions, verse 2, yet all on a sudden they apostatized from it. And as the foundation hereof lay in the uncured folly and vanity of their minds (as-we shall see afterward that it doth in all _ alike cases), yet the strangeness of the manner of it, that it should _ be so sudden, and, it may be, universal, makes him ask if there were not some strange fascination or spiritual witchcraft in it. So _ have we seen persons among ourselves, who in a day or two have renounced all those principles of truth wherein they have been in- structed, and embraced a system of notions diametrically opposite unto them, insomuch as some have supposed that there hath been areal diabolical fascination in the matter. Now, this apostasy of the Galatians was such as the apostle peremptorily declares that _ Christ and all the benefits of his death were renounced therein. Wherefore, although we may be troubled at it and bewail it, that sundry persons are so ready to fall off from the same truth in the _ same manner, yet ought we not to think strange of it or be moved by it, seeing that whole churches called and instructed therein, and that particularly, by the apostle himself, did so fall in a short time after their first plantation. It is more than probable that those who endeavoured to make a ~ spoil of the Colossians “by philosophy and vain deceit, after the tra- - dition of men,” chap. ii. 8, had no small success among them, And
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64 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
such things they were wherewith they were attempted and be- guiled as took them off from “holding the Head,” turning them aside unto the curious speculations of men “vainly puffed up by their own fleshly minds,” verses 18,19. Things of the lke nature may be observed in most of the other churches unto whom the epistles are directed.
And in those unto particular persons, as unto Timothy and Titus, he warns them of this readiness of all sorts of persons to apostatize — from the truth, giving express instances in some by name who had done so themselves, and sedulously endeavoured the overthrow of the faith of others. The holy apostle John lived to see more of these woful turnings aside from the truth and relinquishments of evangelical mysteries. Hence in his epistles he gives an account ex- pressly of the apostasies that were among professors of the gospel, of the seducers, and their pretences whereby they were promoted, warn- ing believers of the danger thereof, and of sundry duties incumbent on them necessary to their preservation. And the Epistle of Jude is written to the same purpose. It is known, also, how most of the churches unto whom the Lord Jesus Christ granted the favour of his visitation, wherein he tried and judged their state and condition, their stability in and declensions from the truth, were found guilty by him as to some degrees of backsliding and apostasy, for which they were severely reproved.
Certainly we can never enough admire the profound negligence and security of most churches and professors in the world with re- spect unto a due adherence unto the mysteries and truths of the gospel. Some think that they have such a privilege as that they can never decline from them or mistake about them, nor have done so in the long tract of sixteen hundred years, although they have been plunged into all manner of wickedness and carnal security. Others are wanton and careless under their profession, making little difference between truth and error; or, however, suppose that it is no great achievement to abide in the truth wherein they have been in- structed. And these things have brought most churches and places under the power of that apostasy which shall afterwards be dis- covered. But if the churches thus planted by the apostles them- selves were liable unto such defections, and many of them did actually, at least for a season, fall away from most important doctrines of the gospel (from whence, it may be, they had never been recovered if healing had not been timely applied by apostolical authority and wisdom), can we, who have not their advantages, nor some of the evidences of the truth which they enjoyed, having all the same causes of apostasy, inward and outward, which they had to be tried withal, expect that we shall be preserved, unless we watchfully and