CAUSES OF APOSTASY FROM THE TRUTH. 79
_ its separate state and condition, the eternity of hell torments, the nature of Christ's sacerdotal office as distinguished from his regal,
_ begin to be either questioned or very faintly defended amongst many.
_ And many other noisome opinions there are, about the Scriptures,
the nature of God, his attributes and decrees, the two covenants, our
union with Christ, the gifts and operations of the Spirit, which some
_ vent as pure mysteries and discoveries of truth, and value themselves for being the authors or maintainers of them, that came all from the same forge, or are emanations from the same corrupt fountain of Socinianism.
We have, as I suppose, sufficiently demonstrated the truth of what we before observed concerning the proneness and readiness of man- kind to relinquish and fall off from the mystery and doctrine of the gospel, after it hath been declared unto them and received by them. Withal we have stated the matter of fact,—namely, that such a de- fection there hath been, and is in the world at this day; the reasons and causes whereof we are now to inquire into. Only I must pre-
- mise, that the principal instance designed, and which is among our- selves, I have referred to an especial consideration by itself, wherein we shall inquire into the especial reasons of it, which are superadded
unto those more general, which equally respect apostasies of this kind.
NS
CHAPTER IV.
The reasons and causes of apostasy from the truth or doctrine of the gospel, and the inclination of all sorts of persons thereunto in all ages, inquired into and declared—Uncured enmity in the minds of many against spiritual things, and the effects of it in a wicked conversation, the first cause of apostasy.
For an entrance into the ensuing discourse, I shall lay down that principle which, I presume, all men will give their assent unto, _—namely, that a defection from the truth of the gospel once pro- fessed is a sin of the highest guilt, and that which will issue in the most pernicious events. God himself did frequently complain, by his prophets of old, that his people “had forsaken him,” and were gone away from him,—that is, from the doctrine and institutions of his law, the only means of conjunction and communion between him and them, Deut. xxviii. 20; 1 Sam. viii. 8; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 25; Jer.
y. 7, 19, xvi. 11. To convince them of their horrible folly and ini- quity herein, he demands of them what iniquity they had seen in him, what inequality in his ways, what disappointments they had met withal, that they should grow weary of his laws and worship,
~ so as to relinquish them for such things and ways as would end in
80 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
their temporal and eternal ruin, Jer. ii. 5, Ezek. xviii. 25: for if there were nothing in them whereof they had cause to complain; if they were all holy, just, and good; if in the observance of them there was great reward; if by them God did them good and not evil all their days,—there was no apology or excuse to be made for their folly and ingratitude. That so it was with them, that their defec- tion from the law and institutions of God was the highest folly and greatest wickedness imaginable, is by all acknowledged: yea, it will be so by them who at the same time are under a greater guilt of the same kind; for the judgments of men are ofttimes so bribed by their present interests, or corrupted by the power of depraved affections, as to justify themselves in worse evils than those which they con- demn in others.
But as it was with the people of old, so it is at present with them who decline from the mysteries or renounce the doctrines of the gospel, after they have been received and professed by them, or have done so at any time: yea, their guilt hath greater aggravations than accompanied the idolatrous revolts of the Jews of old; for the gospel is a clearer revelation of God, and much more glorious, than that which was made by the law. There is therefore no reason to be taken from itself why men should desert it, either in its doctrines and precepts or the worship which it doth require. Nothing can be charged on the gospel, nothing on any thing contained in it or pro- duced by it, which should countenance any in a defection from it. It is in itself a blessed emanation from the eternal Fountain of wis- — dom and truth, and hath more impressions and characters upon it of divine excellencies than the whole creation besides. Neither hath it any proper operations or effects on the souls of men but what are means and causes of deliverance from their original apostasy from God, with all the evil that ensued thereon, which is all that is — evil; for the recovery of lost mankind from a state of darkness, bondage, and misery, into that of liberty, light, and peace, the pre- sent favour and future enjoyment of God, with order and mutual usefulness in this world whilst they continue therein, is the great and immediate design of the truths of the gospel. Neither is there any thing that is truly good, holy, just, benign, or useful among men, but what is influenced by them and derived from them. Some there have been, indeed, perhaps in all ages, who, pretending unto the liberty of it, have really been servants of corruption, and have turned the grace of God into lasciviousness; and some have charged the principal doctrines of it as those which give men a discharge from a necessity of holy obedience and the utmost use of their own endea- vours therein. And there are those who, being given up to sensuality of life, living under the power of darkness, in the pursuit of secular