We may therefore well fix this as another cause, or occasion at
least, of apostasy. When men are ignorant of the religion which
themselves profess, as to its doctrines, and the principal grounds of them; when they are like the Samaritans, who understood not their own religious worship, which they had received by tradition, but “worshipped they knew not what,” John iv. 22,—they are no way able
118 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
to defend themselves against the least impressions of seducers. They may plod on in the old track of some formal outward duties, but if any one meet them in their way, it is easy for him to turn them out of it. So the apostle, showing the danger that professors were in because of apostatical seducers, assigns the means of their pre- servation to be “ the unction which they had received, whereby they knew all things,” 1 John ii. 19, 20, 27. Had they not been taught and instructed in the truth, they could not, at such a season, have persevered in the profession of the faith. Yea, such persons are very ready to think that there is something worthy their consideration in what is proposed unto them by the most corrupt seducers, whereas they have really found nothing in what themselves have so long pro- fessed; for no man can find any real benefit, profit, or advantage, in that whereof he is ignorant. So it is said that some by “good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple,’ Rom. xvi. 18. Every thing they say hath a plausible pretence and appear- ance unto persons under that character, so as that they are apt to be taken and pleased with it. Hence is that advice of the apostle unto them who design establishment in faith and order: “ Brethren, be not children in understanding; howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men,” 1 Cor. xiv. 20. Tédrcsor yivecde reais gpeo!,—“ Be ye complete, perfect,” well instructed in your minds, fully initiated into the doctrines of the gospel. Such the apostle calls reAsious, “ perfect men,” 1 Cor. ii 6; Heb. v. 14. Those who, in op- position hereunto, are “ children,”—that is, weak and ignorant,—will also be uncertain and unstable. They will be as children, “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive,” Eph. iv. 14.
For let some crafty papal emissaries come among this sort of people, and let them confidently tell them that they neither have, nor ever will have, any benefit by the religion they profess, and that they have no evidence or assurance of the truth of it ;—they tell them no more but what they will know to be true if once they take it into consideration ; for whereas they have seemed to be “ always learning,” by resorting to church, and the like outward means whereby religion i is expressed, yet they “never came to the knowledge of the truth.” Wherefore, when by any means they are put unto a stand, and are forced to consider themselves, they are amazed to find how little it is that they believe of the religion which they profess, or know of the ground of what they would be thought to believe.
Let such persons add (as they will not fail to do) that with them of Rome is full assurance, that none ever mistook the way who ac- companied them that are of the old religion, which their forefathers
IGNORANCE A CAUSE OF APOSTASY. 119
__ professed so many ages before this new-fangledness came up, which
, hath. filled all things with confusion, disorder, sects, and divisions,
___ whereas before all were of one mind (which was the most plausible argument of Paganism against Christianity), every troublesome per- sonal circumstance of their present condition makes them inclinable to believe that it may be as they say. Let them tell them, more- over, of the power granted unto the priesthood of their church to pardon all sorts of sins; of the effectual intercession of saints and angels, among whom they may choose out particular patrons and guardians for themselves; of the mercy, grace, goodness, power, and interest in heaven of the blessed Virgin, all continually exercised in the behalf of Catholics; of the miracles that are daily wrought among them; of the wondrous sanctity and devotion which some among them have attained ;—they begin to think that there is some- what in these things which they can feel or see, whereas in their own religion they can understand little or nothing at all. The “great things” of the gospel are “strange things” unto them; they neither do nor can understand them by all the diligence they think meet to use in this case. But the things now proposed unto them have the nature of tales, which the mind of man is accustomed unto, and apt both to receive and retain. And it is not imaginable how easy a transition will prove from a religion whereof men know little or no- thing at all, unto that which at one view presents unto their fancies and senses all that they need believe or do that they may be eter- nally happy.
Suppose one of another sort to come among such persons, and at once call them off from the profession of that religion which they pretend unto, confidently requiring them to attend wholly unto a light within them, which will be their guide and direct them unto God ;—they find by natural experience that there is some such light within them as that which he seems to propose unto them; for there ig so in all men, as the apostle declares, even the light of conscience,