There is such a propensity in the hearts of men to be staggered by the multitude and boldness of errors, that the apostle Paul expresseth a sense of it, and seems tenderly careful to avoid that blow, which he knew Satan would readily give through that consideration, by the apology that he makes for God in his holy, wise, providential permission of them, 1 Cor. xi. 19, ‘There must be heresies among you.’ His intent is not barely to put them off with this, that heresies are unavoidable, but to satisfy them that there is a necessity of them, and that they are useful, as God’s furnace and fan, to purify and to cleanse, that ‘they which are approved may be made manifest.’ The like care he hath in 2 Tim. ii. 19, 20, upon the mention of the error of Hymeneus and Philetus, where he obviateth the offence that might arise by reason of their apostasy, partly by removing the fears of the upright, in affirming their safety whatever became of other men, seeing ‘the foundation of God standeth sure,’ and partly by declaring it no more suitable or dishonourable for God to permit the rise of errors in his church, than for great men to have in their houses not only ‘vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth; some to honour, and some to dishonour.’ By these very apologies it appears that Satan by this device of error designs to shake men’s faith and to drive them from their religion.
7. Seventhly, Neither can this, that corrupt doctrines bring forth corrupt practices, be of any less weight with Satan, or less engaging for the pursuit of this design, than any of the forementioned reasons.
Corrupt doctrines are embraced as the very truth of God by the deluded; and one way or other, directly or consequentially, they lead on practice, and that with the highest security and confidence, as if they were very truths indeed.
The devil then hath this great advantage by error, that if he can but corrupt the minds of men, especially in the more weighty and fundamental points of religion, then by a great ease and without any more labour he hath gained them to the practice of whatsoever these corrupted principles will lead unto. No course can be taken that with greater expedition and prevalency can introduce profane debaucheries than this. Thus he conquers parties and multitudes, as a victorious general takes cities and whole countries, by surrender; whereas his particular temptations to sin are but inconsiderable, less successful picqueerings[218] in comparison; and when he hath once corrupted the understandings of men, he hath by that means a command over their consciences, and doth not now urge to evil in the notion of a devil or tempter, but as an angel of light, or rather as a usurper of divine authority. He requires, he commands these wicked practices as necessary duties, or at least gives a liberty therein, as being harmless allowances. This difference was of old observed in Satan’s management of persecution and error, that in the former he did compel men to deny Christ, but by the latter he did teach them. In persecutione cogit homines negare Christum, nunc docet.
That the lives and practices of men are so concerned by corrupt doctrines, may appear to any that are but indifferently acquainted with Scripture or history. We are told by the apostle Paul that faith and conscience stand so related to each other that they live and die together, and that when the one is shipwrecked the other is drowned for company, 1 Tim. i. 19. In Phil. iii. 2, he seems severely harsh against those of the concision; he calls them dogs, ‘Beware of dogs; beware of evil workers.’ The reason of which expression I apprehend lies not so much in these resemblances, that dogs spoil the flock by devouring, or that they are fawning creatures, or that they are industrious in prosecution of their prey,—though in all these particulars false teachers may be compared to dogs, for they spare not the flock, they compass sea and land to gain disciples, and they entice them with fair speeches,—but rather he intends the similitude to express the profane life and carriage of these seducers, for dogs are filthy creatures, to a proverb, ‘The dog to his vomit.’ And common prostitutes, for their uncleanness, were called dogs in the Old Testament. So some expound Deut. xxiii. 18, ‘The hire of a whore, or the price of a dog.’ And we have full and clear descriptions of seducers from their wicked and abominable practices: 2 Peter ii. 10, ‘They that walk after the flesh, in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government; presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities: ver. 14, ‘Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; an heart exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:’ ver. 18, ‘They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness.’ Jude 4, ‘There are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation; ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness:’ ver. 16, ‘These are murderers, complainers, walking after their own lusts,’ &c. 2 Tim. iii. 2-5, ‘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; of this sort are they which creep into houses.’ All which do set forth heretical persons as the most scandalous wicked wretches that we shall meet with; grossly filthy in themselves, corrupted in all the duties of their relations, natural and civil; defiled in all the ways of their converse with men.
Neither are these wicked practices issuing from gross errors to be looked upon as rare, accidental, or extraordinary effects thereof, but as the natural and common fruits of them; for Christ makes this to be the very special property and note whereby false prophets may be discovered, Mat. vii. 16, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes off thorns, or figs off thistles?’ &c. These fruits were not their doctrines, but their lives; for to know false prophets by false doctrines is no more than to know false doctrine by false doctrine. If any object that many false teachers appeared in the shape of seeming holiness and strictness of life, they may be answered from Christ’s own words; for there he tells us, to avoid mistakes, that their first appearance, and it may be the whole lives of some of the first seedsmen of any error, is under the form of sanctity: ‘They come to you in sheep’s clothing,’ in an outward appearance of innocency and plausible pretences; but then he adds, that their fruits afterward will discover them. A tree at its first planting is not discovered what it is, but give it time to grow to its proper fruitfulness, and then you may know of what kind it is; so that we need not affirm that damnable doctrines produce wicked lives in all that entertain them at the very first. It is enough for discovery if there be a natural consequential tendency in such doctrines to practical impieties, or that at last they produce them, though not in all, yet in many.
And that this matter hath been always found to be so, all history doth confirm. Such there were in the apostles’ days, as is evident by their complaints. Such there were in the church of Pergamos: Rev. ii. 14, ‘Thou hast them that hold the doctrine of Balaam; who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel; to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.’ There were also the Nicolaitans, of whom Christ declares his abhorrency, ver. 15. In the church of Thyatira there was the ‘woman Jezebel, who taught and seduced many’ of that church to the like abominable doctrines and practices, ver. 20. Besides these, the apostle John was troubled with the abominable Gnostics, [and] the filthy Carpocratians, who taught that men must sin and do the will of all the devils, or else they could not evade principalities and powers, who would no otherwise be pleased to suffer them to escape to the superior heavens. Of these men and their licentious doctrine doth he speak, 1 John iii. 6, &c., that they that are born of God indeed, must not, dare not, cannot give themselves up to a liberty in such abominations.
The same fruits of corrupt doctrine appeared after the apostles’ days. What was Montanus, but an impure wretch? What were his two companion prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla, but infamous adulteresses? The Priscillianists, the Manichees, and abundance more, left the stink of their profaneness behind them, by reason of whom, according to Peter’s prophecy, 2 Peter ii. 2, ‘The way of truth was evil spoken of.’
Later times have also given in full evidence of this truth. How shameful and abominable were the lives of John of Leyden and the rest of those German enthusiasts! Who reads the story of Hacket and Coppinger without detestation of their wicked practices! What better have the Familists and libertines of New and Old England been! Some were turned off to highest ranting, in all profaneness of swearing, drinking, adultery, and the defying of a godly life; and this, under the unreasonable boast of spirit and perfection.[219] The heavens may blush and the earth be astonished at these things! But in the meantime Satan hugs himself in his success, and encourageth himself to further attempts in propagating error, seeing it brings in so great a harvest of sin.
8. Eighthly, In this design of false doctrine Satan is never altogether out; if he cannot thus defile their lives, yet it is a thousand to one but he obstructs their graces by it. What greater hindrance can there be to conversion than error! The word of truth is the means by which God, through his Spirit, doth beget us; it is part of that image of God that is implanted in us: it is God’s voice to the soul to awaken it. It cannot then be imagined that God will give the honour of that work to any error; neither can truth take place or have its effect upon a soul forestalled with a contrary falsehood. Falsehood in possession will keep truth at the door. Neither is conversion only hindered by such errors as directly contradict converting truths, but also by collateral non-fundamental errors; as they fill the minds of men with prejudice against those that profess another persuasion, so that for their own beloved error’s sake men will not entertain a warning or conviction from those that dissent from their opinions: they first account them enemies, and then they despise their message. It is no small matter in Satan’s way to have such an obstruction at hand in the grand concern of conversion. Yet this is further serviceable to him, to hinder or weaken the graces of the converted already. If he can set God’s children a-madding upon error, or make them fond of novelties, he will by this means exhaust the vigour and strength of their hearts, so that the substantials of religion will be neglected. For as hurtful plants engross all the moisture and fatness of the earth where they stand, and impoverish it into an inability for the nourishment of those that are of greater worth, so doth error possess itself of the strength of the spirit, and in the meantime neglected graces dwindle into emptiness, and ‘fade as a leaf.’ The most curious questions and opinions that are, contribute nothing to the establishment of the heart; it is only grace that doth that: Heb. xiii. 9, ‘The heart is established with grace,’ and not with disputes about meats; nay, they do grace a prejudice, in that they make it sick and languishing—for to that sense is the original, in 1 Tim. vi. 4, ‘Doting about questions,’ or growing diseased, because of the earnest prosecution of opinions, Νοσῶν περὶ ζητήσεις.