death and to air that Bed for our Repose His God head held his soul and body asunder from each other yet still inseparably united to himself Thus may you see a man drawing out his sword holding in his hands still both sword and scabret till it be put up again Thus it was needfull that Christ should suffer and so make entrance into his Kingdom Secondly Christs Exaltation is further worthy the best observation Therein his glorious person unvailed himself of all humane weakness though he still retained the nature of man and its properties He laid down his sable weeds to put on the roabes of Immortality His God-head did then raise up his Man-hood in his Resurrection and the Son of man declared himself by his divine Power to be the Son of God The Price paid for his people in his humiliation he applies by power through his exaltation to them orderly and effectually He is God-Man still and therefore tearmed the Man Christ Jesus Thus his office was to be compleated by the compleating of his saving Progress He conversed then among his Disciples the space of forty days to confirm their faith and to instruct them in the affairs of his Kingdom Thence his Ascention was solemnly performed followed with his Session at the Fathers right hand and Intercession for his people These are the four main steps of his exaltation to be singularly improved He rose that we might rise from death to Life he ascended that we might ascend he sits at Gods right hand that we may sit with him on his Throne and he still intercedes to make all our Intercessions effectual Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It s Christ that died yea rather that rose and ascended siting now at the right hand of the Majesty on high and ever lives to make Intercession Thus is Christs progress of chief worth and consideration 4. Christ is most considerable in his purchase also made for all his People which hath both value and vertue in it 1. THE value of his whole Obedience was of infinite worth being the merits of God-man giving full satisfaction to Gods Justice for all the sins of all his elect and making a full acquisition of all the good they were should be capable of This price of Christs perfect Righteousness active and passive was put into Gods Coffers to be seasonably and effectually applied to all his people orderly and actually from their conversion to their utmost salvation by his Spirit according to his eternal Purpose By the same value were all Gods elect from Adam to Christs death delivered from the guilt wages of sin upon Christs engagement of seasonable performance For he is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world intentionally in the divine purpose and promise 2. The Vertue of Christs perfect Obedience extends to the effectual application thereof to all Gods people So the Fathers purpose in electing and the Sons Intention in redeeming do run parallel That value which Christs merits presented to God cannot but be attended with answerable vertue for the making good thereof to the utmost The Son of man came to seek save that which was lost and that to the utmost seeing he ever lives to perform all Whilst therefore he was gone into Heaven to act his part there he was carefull to send his Proxie even his own Spirit that should make a through application of all his Purchase by the conveyance of his saving Grace to all his Chosen His Oblation is living and lively still even as Christ himself who abides for ever The ceremonial Oblations had him shadow'd out to represent the efficaciousness of Christs Oblation A wise man paying a Ransom or Debt as surety for another will be sure to know for whom and to see his purpose fulfilled to his power The agreement or Covenant made between God and Christ distinct from the gracious Covenant made conditionally with the visible Church in Christ imports as much As the Father required that he should offer his soul a Sacrifice for sin which the Son willingly undertook so was it engaged to him that he should see of his seed and the good pleasure of the Lord should prosper in his hand So that the vertue of his blood is still included in the value of it both being directed by divine intention which terminates in the proper subjects thereof Therein concurs his threefold office he being still a Prophet and prince as far as he is a Priest unto any The vertue of Christs Merits is indeed intrinsecally infinite like himself and only limited with the value thereof by the divine pleasure This purchase of his may be said occasionally and secundarily to comprehend the whole Creation in subserviency to divine Intentions but directly and primarily the Scripture limits it to Gods Elect for whom he came and lived prayed and died rose and intercedes still It extends to the removal of all evil both of sin and sorrow inchoatively progressively and consummatively It reaches also the Import of all sutable good spiritual temporal and eternal All things are ours and for our sake that are truly his and so far as we are his Is not this a choice Jewel to be duly viewed Doth not such a purchase challenge our best knowledge The possessive Our gives rellish to all It doth us little good to hear of Indian Treasures that are not our own Fifthly Christ is most precious in his Relation multipliciously expressed to his people by Allusion to all choice relations in things natural civil and artificial The perfection of all creatures is radically in him originally from him and reductively leads to him again None of them can sufficiently set out his wonderfull Relation wherein he stands towards his chosen Ones he therefore borrows the cream and quintessence of them all to shadow out to our shallow capacity the marvels of his glorious Grace Thus he speaks to his Babes in their known Dialect that he may gradually and familiarly be understood of them He calls himself their root giving sap and life to every branch of his He is the Head that conveyes all motion and sense to all his members He is the Fountain-Spring from whom all living waters flow into the streams by his proper conduits He is that Sun who carries Light and Life by his access unto all Creatures He is the Father that tenders his Children He is the husband that cherishes his Spouse the elder brother that looks to his adopted Brethren the Master that hath the best care of Servants That Foundation is he on whom the Fabrick stands that garment that must cover us that food that must sustain us that Portion that must maintain us to saving purpose Look into the whole compass of creatures what ever good you can find therein is
Latitude according to the variation of its aggravations As diseases do vary in their gradual recess from health being either simple or compound either more or less malignant hurtfull Thus Errors admit of many adjuncts which render them more or less sinful and injurious In every Error there is a sinfulness an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a defect of Truth privative a disposition to falshood positive As in every disease there is an evil deflection from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sound disposition of the body so in Error from that of the mind But this deflection is not alike in all but is cloathed with numerical differences and personal aggravations Some Errors are more and others less rooted Some are more single and others complicate Some are more submissively held and others more pertinaciously some are kept close others published some have more of the Will and Affections attending them others less some are more and others less pernicious some are more quiet others more turbulent As the malignity of infectious diseases admits of a great Latitude as the variety of venomous Creatures whether Plants Minerals or Sensitives is multipliciously diversified by the variations of their clime intentions of degrees c. some being cold as Hemlock others hot as Euphorbium some in the first or second others in the third or fourth degree some working more slowly others more quickly some by their Tail as the Scorpion some by their Teeth as the Viper and Rattle-snake some by their Tongue others by their Excrements some more sensibly as a mad Dog some more insensibly as the Asp So do Errors appear under variety of offensive qualities and adjuncts 5. The Cause of Error also as of every disease is multipliciously observable especially in a three-fold Division of Evident Antecedent and Continent 1. An Evident Cause among Physicians is much from Externals if not altogether whereby a Distemper is occasioned in the body So in mans soul this sickness of Error may be occasioned by external Causes as by infection ill company bad books various Temptations c. 2. An Antecedent Cause of sickness bodily is from some thing within whether vapor humor or Spirit distempering any part disabling it from its proper Action Thus the foregoing Cause of this spiritual disease lies in some flatuous humorous or spiritual evil that disorders the mind from its right discerning of the Truth causing it to deviate into the way of falshood Habitual Corruption within flowing from Adams first sin which is ours by Imputation attended with the want of original Righteousness and often called original sin because the womb of all sin in us is the chief cause from which all other evils flow that breed and increase these sad distempers This Corruption acts variously in the way of Pride and Self-seeking Security and Worldliness c. 3. The Continent Cause of a corporal distemper is that immediate thing which cherishes it being cherished from the remote cause whether corrupt blood wind water gravel c. So the continent Cause of Error is that peculiar Corruption whether Ignorance or Pride self-conceitedness or worldliness c. which sticks close to the mind to breed and cherish its several dyscrasies and distempers Thence such clouding of mens Iudgements and disorders in their Reasonings hence perverse Disputings of men that are reprobate concerning the Faith as Ambition and Pride carried Simon and Menander Nestorius and Macedonius away Discontent and Envy prevailed with Arrius Covetousness carried on Demetrius and his Comrads There is a Complication of such causes in most 6. The Effects of Error as of every corporal disease are likewise variously numerous according to the variations of its numerical Idea of its specifical nature of its descent gradations causes This spiritual sickness is a Tendency to further sin eternal Death as every bodily sickness is the beginning of corporal death The wages of sin is death sin deserves it it binds ever it leads to it it fits for it it begins it As much as there is of sinfulness so much is there of death attending it Corporal civil spiritual and Eternal Grace indeed doth restrain and limit it pardons and subdues it purges out gradually and at last exterminates all sin in Gods Elect yet it changes not the Nature or desert of sin though it chances the sinners nature and relation Providence limits and over-rules this sinfulness also in the Reprobate As the wise Physitian corrects his Opium in a Confection so doth God correct sin remaining in his Children As the same Physitian appoints fit means against infection to all indefinitely so doth our Soveraign Physician by shewing the dangerous effects of Error As the effects of Poisons are very various yet always sad so are sin and sorrrw inseparable Twins Error was set forth to the Life by that Leprosiy of the head which had a peculiar mark of Ignominy Infection and danger It s like to those poisonous Minerals and Vegetables which strike first ai the head and thence at all other parts It s a spiritual Plague which cannot but be mischievous still though not in all alike All sorts of men in all relations are made to feel the sad Consequents thereof It s a fruitfull womb a breeding dung hill a poisoned spring Lerna malorum It engages and leads insensibly to more evil notional and practical It disgraces God opposes his Truth distempers mens souls endangers their families blasts their Profession stains their Repute scandalizes many ensnares divers troubles Church and State and complies with Satan in his various designes by nursing of his brood This Age gives sad demonstations thereof As Cephalical diseases are on many accounts the most dangerous of all in the Body so are these heady distempers in the soul which are easily communicated to all the vital inferior parts The poison of some works in a stupifying way as Opium Henbane Hemlock c. others venom acts by an enraging quality as Elaterium Euphorbium Scammony The effect of some is more speedily mortal as in the Touches of a Basilisk and Asp of the Viper and rattle Snake if not very timely look'd to others are more slow and less dangerous as in the operations of various simples appears The Parallel of spiritual Poisons therewith is easily drawn by an observing Christian 7. The Symptoms or Signs of Error as of Corporal deseases are of divers sorts some more Common others more Proper 1. The common signs are such as attend divers distempers in a general way as enfeebling of the parts change of complexion Indiposition to action c. Thus Errors have their Common signs wherein many of them agree appearing much in their sad effects against Gods Honor and mans good though often under far Colors like that Indian Apple in the Western Islands which seems beautifull and yet is rank poison 2. There are proper Tokens and characteristical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and notes of each
will still cherish it self-conceit and folly will still be its Nurses Meddle not with pitch to avoid its filth Trie all things aright that you may suck no evil Advice from sure hands will preserve you much from the common Wo of this erring Age. Improve your own and others Experience confirmed to you by Scripture-Records 5. Forget not Temperance the Nurse of Vertue and the Ruin of vice Let your moderation appear to all men the Lord is an hand Sobriety in all things lawfull must attend abstinence from things unlawfull The supream Physician directs often to this both by his own mouth and his Servants Pen. Intemperance is the womb and breast of all sinfull evil that would weaken you You may soon surfeit with worldly Creatures if you be not singularly carefull that you may grow apace in the things of Christ be very moderate in all other things Nature is content with little and Grace with less where Inordinancy hath not burst the bounds Know well what becomes your Complexion and Condition that you may still cut your garment to your cloth and to your wearing He is rich indeed that hath learn't Contentment the choice Jewel which Christ alone gives Paul studied long and hard for the same being instructed in the School of Heaven Follow his steps to attain his End so shall you know how to want and abound Godliness with Content will be your great gain the Blessing of the Lord will make you so rich as to add no sorrow thereto Sixthly Be very watchfull this is Christs own Rule often inculcated to spur on our dulness We naturally are very drowzy much inclining to sloth and slumber In this sleepy age the wisest Virgins contract infection among the foolish They all slumber and sleep through their own default the Bridgroom tarrying for some longer space then some expected Watch and pray watch and be sober lest ye be surprized ere you be ware You are surrounded with mortal enemies very numerous cruel and cunning Look well to your Guards inward and outward your danger within is often greatest Redeem the time well walking circumspectly not as fools but as wise in these evil days Watch unto all good against every sin so shall you be ready for your Masters comming The lazy Servant shall see him with horror whom the diligent shall welcome with Joy The night of Ignorance Error and all sin is the season that requires this most Troubles of all sorts will attend the same if all due care be not rightly used Christ comes as a Thief unexpectedly both on the former and this latter world whilst robbing Spirits are catching abroad Blessed is he that watcheth and keeps his Garments If any of us be stripped by their Wiles we shall be found naked to our open shame Seducing Spirits do haunt every place with their cheating drugs and Mountebanck Tricks Look well to your selves and to all under you that ye be not poisoned by their Artifice They can cog the dice and shuffle their Cards with all nimbleness and secret methods The Prince of this world is still teaching them to abuse Scripture and corrupt its sense by wresting its words Watch therefore to improve the knowledge of Christ with more vigor zeal and diligence Be moved thereto by further viewing the following point as the Remedy against such Maladies Doctrine VI. Spiritual Growth is a Soveraign Antidote against Error and Apostacy This clearly appears from the respective Aspect of this Text upon the Context as is implyed in the particle But. ERror is a subtile and a strong Poison as doth appear from the former hints It blinds the Judgement and misleads the soul into Satans road of falshood and deceit Spiritual Errors are most dangerous in the great matters of our Salvation Scruples and doubts are more unsettled Error grows fixed and radicates it self In Circumstantials of Religion there is less danger among sober and humble Christians If this disease grow to greater height near the foundation and the noble parts t' will be worse still If once it strike at Fundamentals its intolerable not to be born with The venom thereof is set out in Scripture by the most poisonous Creatures that can be Minerals and Plants Vermin and Serpents do all come short in setting it forth The vilest Excrements and the worst disease cannot sufficiently express its deadliness It s the sad abstract of all kind of evil wherein sin and Sorrow do fully center All sorts even the best being subject thereto in different ways should be made carefull to provide against it As Countryes vary so do their poisons as bodies vary so do their diseases This poisonous disease doth likewise vary on divers accouts to be distinctly known towards a cure Apostacy and Revolt from God is a pernicious evil and the common Attendant of Error which still endangers a Christians stedfastness The word signifies a turning aside and setting mans back against the living God Every sin is Gods enemy and turning to sin is running from God In the first Adam we revolted all and corrupt nature is still bent to sin through the sinfull venom received from him Christ the second Adam came into the world to save his people from their sinfull death by a gracious Covenant published in the Gospel Some do embrace it but externally others cordially Satan is still attempting to turn every man from it by various Errors and Methods of his He prevails with-most to their undoing and gains too much credit with the best This Apostacy and turning from God is total or partial Total Apostacy raigns still in all the unregenerate that do shake off the good ways of Christ Partial Apostacy often distempers the Regenerate to a high degree though it never proves total nor final They turn as far from God as they turn aside into crooked ways being disturbed with the fumes of corruption and temptation They turn from one Truth and then from another by following Satan and his counterfeit Lights from one disease they contract another by the putrifying of their ill humors to more malignity These dreadfull evils need a Soveraign Antidote and a sutable Counterpoison that they may not turn all into confusion All Societies civil and spiritual are very much endangered thereby as well as mens souls Spiritual Growth is a choise Remedy fitted by the Lord for such a disease In every Country Providence affords some Preservative against all diseases and poisons that infest the same Wise Physitians know this very well though they make use of forraign drugs also ex abundanti God hath shewed no less care of the souls of men then of their bodies having sent his own Son to be the Saviour and Lord of his people He is held forth indefinitely to all that will hear and is peculiarly given to such whose heart is by special Grace renewed efficacioussy to the embracing of him
worse Retention of evil wasting of good do both testifie the method of help Indications thus being so various it s no wonder if the cure be slow both in Church and State Purgations total and particular must attend diet rest and all due help Both the Patients care and all Assistants will be as needful as the Physitians skil Politick Physitians and Ecclesiastical had need look to Christ for skil strength success Choice and cordial Preservatives Alexipharmacks are often needed where malignity doth infest mens souls Industrious Care and painful attendance will be found herein of exceeding need The Ladies hand and the Eagles eye with the Lions heart will help very much in all such dressings Seek therefore and wait for that Soveraign Aid without which no means can find a Blessing Observe his Precepts taking what he gives carefully forbearing what he doth forbid Fear to displease Christ our Gospel Phoebus that must teach and prosper Aesculaps labours That Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing wings to all such as love and fear him above All. Neglect then no means appointed by him abuse not the means by resting thereon His All-sufficient Grace believe and expect for his own Glory in each of his Wayes If he make you smart it s for your good that you may be healed on the best account Here is an Antidote fitted to our Case the good Lord bless it to you and to me Be helpful to me that I may help you at the Throne of Grace so shall we find him our present help still His Grace will sure be sufficient for us and his strength shall be perfected in weakness I shall as heartily rejoyce in your good as if it were mine and shall design to be through the Renewed supplies of Christs Holy Spirit Your Affectionate Servant for his sake in all Gospel-work CLAUDIUS GILBERT From my study in Limrick 11. 11. Januar. 23. 1656. PREFACE Christian READER ERROR is the Epidemical disease of this Age exactly considerable in its Nature and Descent in its Species and Degrees in its Cause and Effects in its Symptoms and Cure We shall but touch those things which others have elaborately handled to usher in the Scope and Substance of the following discourse 1. The Nature and Idea thereof consists much in a sinfull straying of mans Judgement from the Truth of God into falshood 1. Mans Judgement is the proper Subject and Seat thereof we meddle not now the Angels Failures from whence it casts a malign Influence upon all other Powers and Parts 2. It s Genus is straying or wandring So the Greek properly imports a slipping and sliding from Truth into falshood and by-ways 3. It s difference lies in both the terms First From which it swerves i. e. The Terminus à quo from the Truth of God Secondly To which it leads the Terminus ad quem into falshood So it s distinguished from bare Ignorance both negative and privative Error being a soul-sickness an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a disorderly Distemper disposing to evil positively both habitual and actual as it deprives of and indisposes to that good râ—specting the Souls health It differs also from Scruples and doubts which are but uncertain motives from Truth and weaker Inclinations to falshood as the grudgings and Rudiments of spiritual diseases It s likewise differenced thereby from Heart-Hypocrisie and verbal lies Secondly Errors Descent fetches its Extract from the Prince and Father of Lies who abode not in the Truth but drew thousands of glorious Angels who kept not their first state into Error and Apostacy His Serpentine spawn by dubâ—ous Queries was soon cast into our first Parents where it quickly bred Error and all sin That unhappy Breath so strongly infected them that this sinfull disease is become hereditary to all their natural Posterity This wofull Leprosie hath been thus propagated from our Head Adam to all his Issue through the loins of sinfull parents It cleavs to mans Nature and hath been in all ages successively communicated by a wofull Series in all sorts more or less As the Leprosie cleaving to the Wall could never be totally removed till the Wall it self was quite pulled down So doth this Plague cleave to mans soul till mans dissolution Adam received at once the seed of corporal and spiritual Diseases and death in the same moment that he began to sin he began to die according to Gods Word from whence the progress of a dying life in him and all his till Grace begin that spiritual Life below that Glory compleats above Israel had contracted their wofull Leprosie from that Aegypt that enslaved them so is our spiritual Leprosie contracted from that mystical Aegyt which hath poisoned us so desperately and infests still the Canaan-State of Christs militant Church As Truth is a most diffusive Good so is Error a most diffusive Evil. Error like a stone thrown into the water rises in Circles each Circle begetting another and growing still wider till they all quite lose themselves in the end Like Cadmus Brood they start up suddenly and as soon fall foul each on other 3. The Species and Sorts of Error are multiplicious like the diseases that trouble the body As there are various sorts and denominations of divine Truths so are there as many distinctions of Errors The specifical difference of each Error is measurable still by the dimension of that Truth it opposes and strayes from and of that falshood into which it slides The Truth of God is the conforty of his Thoughts Words and Works to his own glorious Essence The Truth of man is the due conformity of man to that Truth of God whether mental verbal or practical Error is accordingly diversified in its general acceptation but properly to our purpose it is restrained to the Iudgement and distingushed from other sins which are verbal or practical Errors flowing from mans Will and affections more directly That Truth of God is especially considerable in matters of Religion either fundamental or juxta-fundamental or more superficial and circumstantial Error is accordingly discernable in its several wandrings from that Truth The Scripture of Truth declares the same in all their specifical variations Tue Fundamentals of Religion are summed up in the Articles of our Faith called the Apostles Creed because extracted out of their writtings which Symbol hath been successively explained by the several Confessions of the primitive Churches as the Nicene and Athanasian Creed as also of the Reformed in Germany and France Belgium and England c. As there are varieties of Weeds and poisons about the earth which peculiarly offend the several parts of the Body some being more hurtfull to the head some to the Stomach c. So do various Errors offend the several parts of Truth whence various designations are given to them 4. The Gradations and Degrees of Error admit also of a variable