3. It is also plainly intimated that such a season of the prevalency of a defection from the truth shall be a time of great security among the generality of professed Christians. Churches shall be asleep, persons shall cry, “ Peace, peace,” when that day cometh as a snare.
We are not, therefore, left without sufficient warning in this case, both of the certainty of our trial, the greatness of our concernment, and the danger of security; and yet, notwithstanding all these means
_ of excitation unto a vigorous’attendance unto our condition, danger,
and duty, it is evident unto every discerning eye how desperately secure are the generality of professors of the gospel with respect unto this evil and the consequents of it. Nothing can awake them unto the consideration of their own state, although their neighbours’ houses are set on fire from hell. Love of the world, with prosperity and ease, on the one hand, or the cares and businesses of it on the other, do so take up the minds of men that they are not sensible of any con- cernment in these things. And we may briefly consider the various
136 _ THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
ways whereby this security puts forth its efficacy in disposing men unto apostasy when they fall into the occasions of it :—
(1.) It doth so by possessing and overpowering them with a proud, careless, supine negligence. Men hear of this evil and the danger of it, but, like Gallio, they “care for none of these things.” They know not of any concernment they have in them, nor of any need they have to provide against them. Unto some others, perhaps, these things may belong, but unto them not at all. Those who would press them on their minds and consciences they look on as persons causelessly importunate, or troubled with groundless suspicions and fears. If there be any danger about religion, they doubt not but sooner or later provision will be made against it by law; but as unto any special duty incumbent on themselves with respect unto their own souls, they know nothing of it, nor will consider it. Had not the world been asleep in this security, had not men been utterly regardless of their interest in the truth, it had not been possible that religion should have been so totally corrupted as it was in the Papacy, and yet so few take any notice thereof. At some seasons God raised up among them witnesses for the truth, who not only declared and professed it, but also sealed their confession with their blood; but the generality of Christians were so far from being excited thereby to the consideration of their own concern and duty as that they opposed and persecuted them unto destruction, as the disturbers-of the public tranquillity. And it is no otherwise at this day. Many complain of, more fear, a defection from the gospel. It is also evident in how many things the doétrine of it is already by some corrupted by whom it was formerly professed. Instances of as great apostasies as the name of Christianity is capable of are multiplied among us; and yet how few are there that do at all regard these things, or once consider what is either their duty or their danger in such a season!
(2.) It worketh and is effectual by a wicked indifferency as unto all things in religion. Men under the power of this security neither see, nor will understand, nor can be made sensible of, the difference that is between truth and error, piety and superstition, so as to value one more than another. “It is all religion, and it is no more but so. If persons change from one way to another, so as they do not utterly renounce Jesus Christ, they may be saved in the way they betake themselves unto.” The profession of such persons attends on all occa- sions, and an apostasy from the mysteries of the gospel will be but a useful compliance with opportunity.
We judge no men, no party of men, as to their eternal state and condition, upon the account of their outward profession in religion, unless they are open idolaters or flagitious in their lives. God only knows how it is between him and their souls. The framing of
oa ikl es fio
— Keres
CARELESS SECURITY A CAUSE OF APOSTASY. 137
_ churches (as the church of Rome) according unto men’s minds,
fancies, opinions, or interests, and then confining salvation unto them, is an effect of pride and folly, as contradictory to the gospel as any thing that can be imagined. But yet there is a wide differ- ence to be made between apostates and others. “Better men had never known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment.” Those who have been instructed in the truth of the gospel, and have made profession of it, are for the most part acted by such depraved principles, moved by such corrupt lusts, and do show so much ingratitude against the Lord Jesus Christ in their defection, “ denying the Lord that bought them,” that they put a peculiar character and mark upon themselves; and although we will not judge any, yet is it our duty to put men in remembrance of the danger that attends such apostasies. So the apostle expressly tells the Galatians, that upon their admittance of legal ceremonies, and falling from the grace of the gospel in the one point of justification, “ Christ should profit them nothing,” or they should have no benefit by what they yet retained of the profession of the gospel, chap. v. 2-6. And as to those who are carried away by the “strong delusion” of the grand apostasy, foretold 2 Thess. 11. 3-12, he says plainly that “they shall be damned,” verse 12; and Peter also affirms that those who introduce “damnable he- resies” do bring on themselves, and those that follow their pernicious ways, “swift destruction,’ 2 Pet. ii.1, 2. So little countenance doth the Scripture give unto this effect of cursed security.