Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	church_n	faith_n	tradition_n	5,594	5	9.1222	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92855	The nature and danger of heresies, opened in a sermon before the Honourable House of Commons, Ianuary 27. 1646. at Margarets Westminster, being the day of their solemn monthly fast. / By Obadiah Sedgvvick, B.D. Minister of Gods Word at Covent-Garden.	Sedgwick, Obadiah, 1600?-1658.	1647 (1647)	Wing S2377; Thomason E372_13; ESTC R201317	27,115	48

accrew unto the Church of Christ by every one of them you may abundantly read in Eusebius Socrates Euagrius Sozomen Theodoret and others So that now we are come in some good measure to perceive what this floud cast out of the mouth of the Serpent is namely erroneous false wicked hereticall doctrines cast out of the mouths of corrupt and corrupting seducers opposing the truth and endangering the very esse or beeing of the Church of Christ Concerning which favour me with your patience whiles I shew unto you First the nature of heresies and erroneous doctrines which the Serpent doth cast out of his mouth Secondly the danger of them to the Church of Christ that they are perillous and hazardous Thirdly the greatnesse of that danger it is the chiefest and worst Fourthly some pertinent usefull applications of all this to our selves for our present humbling and reforming 1. Of the Nature of heresie To find this out you may be pleased to know that the word heresie admits of a threefold signification and use 1. Sometimes it is taken for any new and select opinion contrary to the common and usually received opinions of other men in which respect the word heresie may sometimes bear a good construction For after that way Acts 24. 14. which the Iews called heresie did Paul worship the God of his Fathers 2. Sometimes for any false opinion whatsoever wherein a person recedes from any divine truth and thereby foments divisions sects contentions in which respect dihaereticon with Isidore is all one with divisivum 3. But strictly amongst Divines it is taken for some notorious false and perverse opinion opposing and subverting the faith once delivered to the Saints as Iude speaks or overthrowing the forme of wholesome words as Paul speaks and it may be thus described Heresie is an erroneous or false opinion repugnant unto Heresie what and subverting of the doctrine of faith revealed in the Word as necessary unto salvation And obstinately maintained and pertinaciously adhered unto by a professed Christian 1. Heresie is an erroneous opinion falsasententia or falsum dogma there is a difference 'twixt malum opus and haresim an evill work is one thing heresie is another thing In the work which a man doth there may be sin very much sin but properly there is not heresie Erratum it may be but error it is not unlesse it resides in the understanding The works of hypocrisie and of prophanenesse as murder injustice adultery theft c. have much wickednesse in them but unlesse these become the objects of opinion as well as of practise they are not heresies Indeed if beside the morall practise of them any one riseth to an intellectuall opinion that the practise of them is lawfull and not repugnant to the Word of God now such an opinion erroneous opinion of them may come to an heresie yea let me add a little more though many practicall works be acted conscientia repugnante as Alfonsus à Castro in this case speaks yet the works simply considered as works are not to be reputed heresies For then every sin against knowledge should be heresie no it is not light shining and working against an action or work which raiseth it to be an heresie but it must be light in the Word shining against an opinion which must denominate it to be heresie 2. Heresie is an erroneous opinion concerning matters of faith There are quaestiones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and quaestiones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as one well distinguisheth every erroneous Greg. Nazianz. Oral 14. opinion is not heresie If the error be of matters praeter fidem it is not heresie let the error be what it will to make the erroneous opinion amount to heresie two things must concurre One that the errour be circa fidem although a man doth erre in his own opinion within the proportion of objectum scibile as against the rules and principles of severall Sciences as Geometry Astronomy Naturall Philosophy yet this errour is not heresie For heresie is an erroneous opinion not circa scibile but circa credibile not about matters of humane Science but about matters of divine faith But if the errour be about the matters of faith revealed in the Word as that Christ is not God or is not Man here now the errour will rise to heresie for here is dogma fidei Another is that the errour be contra fidem against the faith as well as about the faith If it be an opinion contrary to sound doctrine overthrowing the foundation this will make the errour to be heresie An opinion may be contrary not onely to the Church of Rome and many particular Traditions but also to the judgement of some godly men yet is it not therefore an heresie but then is it heresie when the opinion is contra fidem Traditam contrary to the faith to the doctrine of faith in the Scriptures Neverthelesse here we must carefully consider that an opinion may be said to be contrary to the Faith in a double respect 1. One is when it is not concordant to every truth whatsoever which is revealed in the Scriptures I dare not say that every error in this respect is heresie there may be many mistakes many incauti errores as one speaks perhaps dissonant to the true Chronology to the exact and full history of some places yet these presently are not heresies 2. The other is when it is repugnant to that truth or any truth which is necessary to salvation and here questionlesse the errour contra fidem will prove to be heresie Heresie is opinio perversa adversa there may be opinions diverse yet none of them bee heresies In the Interpretation of the Scriptures there is frequently a variety of opinions but as long as like the lines of a circumference they doe meet in the Center as long as every one of them unites and harbours within the analogy of faith here is no heresie though some variety But then it is heresie when the opinion is adverse is contrary to is subversive of the faith revealed as necessary unto salvation which the opinion may be either Explicitely As when the errour is manifestly fundamentall it doth expresly pluck up the foundation It is not a problematicall canvasing of a truth but a plain Gunpowder-plot an error which blows up a fundamentall truth It doth not blow off the tiles of the house but blows up the bottomes and supports of the house As when a person denies the Godhead of Christ redemption by Christ salvation by Christ Or Reductively As when the errour overthrows that which being denied and overthrown the foundation thereupon and thereby is by an inevitable necessity also denyed and overthrown or maintains that which being maintained a fundamentall truth must necessarily and unavoidably be subverted As if any person should maintain humane satisfactions to be sufficient to merit and procure salvation this error would necessarily subvert mans salvation founded upon the merits of Jesus

first question which contains the Nature of Heresies I now come to handle the second particular which respects the Danger of Heresies 2. Of the Danger of Heresies That heresies or erroneous doctrines and opinions are dangerous cannot be so much as a scruple to any Christian upon the earth unlesse he be turned into an Heretique or into an Atheist For First the Scriptures doe in terminis charge sin and perniciousnesse and damnation upon them S. Paul reckons up heresies amongst those workes of the flesh which shut persons out from inheriting the Kingdom of God Gal. 5. 20 21. And Saint Peter cals them pernicious and damnable and such as bring swift destruction and speaking of the Authors of them he saith that their damnation slumbers not 2 Pet. 2. 1 2 3. A mans opinion makes him sinfull as well as his practise and a man may be damned for a corrupt opinion as well as for a corrupt conversation I will not put it to a dispute whether a sin against the rule of faith may not caeteris paribus be far more sinfull and damnable then the sin which is against the rule of life But let it for the present suffice that if heresies and heterodoxies be such sins be such locks as can shut up the gates of heaven against a soul If they be such bars as can break up the doors of hell and bring damnation surely that man is not himself who doubts whether they be dangerous or no. Secondly let us consider unto what dangerous things heresies and corrupt doctrines are compared in Scripture and by what dangerous creatures hereticks and false teachers are expressed by them you may judge whether heresies are dangerous yea or no. 1. For heresies they are compared in Scriptures sometimes to a Gangrene or canker 2 Tim. 2. 17. Their word will eat as doth a canker The canker is an invading ulcer creeping from joynt to joynt corrupting one part after another till at length it eats out the very heart and life Sometimes to a shipwrack 1 Tim. 1. 19 20. Hold faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack In what a condition are the miserable passengers when their ship is split asunder by the Rock All their goods are lost and all their lives too Christ cals them leaven Paul cals them a bewitching Learned writers call them a leprosie poison fire a tempest our text a floud 2. And as for Heretiques they are expressed by creatures very dangerous and hurtfull sometimes they are styled foxes Cant. 2. 15. The foxes which spoil the grapes sometimes they are called dogs rending dogs Phil. 3. 2. Beware of dogs beware of the concision sometimes they are styled wolves grievous wolves which devour the flocks Acts 20. 29. Sometimes they are in effect called very mountebanks and cheaters such as beguile unstable souls c. Thirdly Jesus Christ and his Apostles doe give speciall charges and caveats against them to take heed and beware of them which they never vvould have done had they not been dangerous Mark 8. 15. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees Matth. 7. 15. Beware of false Prophets Matth. 24. 4 5. Take heed that no man deceive you for many shall come in my name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many Phil. 3. 2. Beware of dogs beware of evill workers beware of the concision 2 Pet. 3. 17. Beware lest ye also being led away with the errour of the wicked fall from your own stedfastnesse Certainly all these things doe clearly prove that there is a danger in them But that is not all danger is not all there is yet more then meer danger in them which will appear in the resolving of the third particular 3. The greatnesse of danger by Heresies Heresies are the greatest and highest of dangers to the Church of Christ you will imagine that the sword and prison and exile and dispersion and spoiling and torments and tortures and the most cruell deaths which befell the Church in the Primitive times were extreamly dangerous and so they were but yet not half so dangerous as the flouds of heresies and corrupt opinions are The Church ever gained by the former grew more in purity in unity in prayer in zeal and courage But did it ever get so by heresies and erroneous doctrines Unlesse by accident and after much striving and physicking for recovery I will goe no farther then the Text it self to set out unto you the exceeding mischief danger which comes by heresies and erroneous doctrines They are in the Text styled a floud cast out of the mouth of the Serpent Now seriously consider 1. They are a corrupting and defiling floud Any floud is so it presently defiles the pure waters spoils the grounds leaves filth and slime and mud behind it But surely a floud that comes out of the mouth of a poisonous Serpent is so And there are 4 precious things which wicked errors or heresies doe poison corrupt and defile The first is the souls of men And is there a more noble and choice thing in man or belonging to man then his soul Our soul is of more value then all the world But heresies and wicked doctrines corrupt the soul nay many souls It was the heavy Indictment against Babylon that in her were found slaves and souls of men Rev. 18. 13. Heretiques in one place are called Merchants making merchandise of you with fained words 2 Pet. 2. 3. In merchandizing there is something bought for a certain price In this merchandise the souls of people are bought for fained words for base metall onely for a corrupt errour Every hereticall opinion buyes a soul or stabs a soul It stabs the soul of him that maintains it and still it trades on to murder more souls It lifts off the soul from the foundation upon which the salvation of souls is built What will become of an house whose foundation is removed And what will become of a soul whose bottome for salvation is denyed and rejected Damnable heresies make us to deny the Lord that bought us 2 Pet. 2. 1. Oh what is this what will follow upon this when a poor sinner comes to deny the Lord Iesus who bought him The second is the leading faculty of the soul There is more danger to corrupt a Captain then to corrupt many private Soldiers and most danger to corrupt a Generall who leads the whole Army It is capitall in some places and at some times to cast poison into the spring this will poison all the streams Heresies corrupt the great leader of the whole soul The Iudgement of man is the Generall the Admirall the Shepherd the Overseer the Guide the Eye the Primum movens for the rest of the spheres in man If the light in man be darknesse how great is that darknesse If the Iudgment be infected how dangerous is that infection Beloved If there be the darknesse of ignorance from inapprehension in the minde the soul hereby is in an ill

case If there be the darknesse of misapprehension by errour it is in a worse case But when that misguiding errour befals the leading faculty of all the soul and this errour fals point-blank against a truth necessary unto the mans salvation and moreover this errour is stifly adhered unto by that leading judgement it doth mislead and it will mislead Oh now in what a desperate condition is the whole soule hereby If it doth not recover of this error it dies for it and it can never be recovered til the judgment be altered And when will that judgement be altered which perversly affronts and rejects the light of truth which onely can carry it off The third is the most active faculty of the soul they doe defile and corrupt the conscience Now this is amazedly dangerous A wicked errrour is blinding whiles in the judgement onely but it is binding when it slips to the conscience also It is a wrangling Sophister in that but it is a working Iesuite in this Diseases falling amongst the vitall spirits are most quick and most dangerous Errours are never more pernicious then when they drop into the conscience for whatsoever engageth conscience the same engageth all and the utmost of our all If the conscience of man be made a party against the truth now all that a man hath and all that a man can doe will be made out against the truth too Now the person will with Paul grow mad and desperate against Christ for Paul being engaged by an erroneous conscience consents to the death of Stephen yea could he in that condition have met with Jesus Christ himself he would have done the like against him The fourth is The conversations of men Heresie is seldom or never divided from Impiety Hymeneus who 1 Tim. 1. 19. made shipwrack of faith made shipwrack also of a good conscience Those whom Paul called dogs he also cals evill workers And in another place speaking of Phil. 3. 2. Tit. 1. 15 16. some whose mindes were defiled he adds and reprobate to every good work Our Saviour speaking of false Prophets saith you may know them by their fruits The lives of men are consonant to the judgements of men Truth and goodnesse are reciprocal and so are falshood and wickednesse The doctrine of faith is a doctrine of holinesse too And the doctrine of lies is the doctrine of prophanenesse too He who fals from truth to falshood will quickly fall from piety to wickednesse Truth is of a reforming vertue as well as of an informing nature It salts and seasons heart and life both but that errour which putrifies the heart will putrifie the life also the plague will at length rise and break out into bla●es and botches They who write the story of the Anabaptists begin Sleid. c. it with errour in their judgements but end it vvith wickednesse in their practises And Cyprian writing long since of Novatus that pestilent Heretique saith Epist 49. ad Cornelium thus of him That he was rerum novarum cupidus one who itched after new notions avaritiae inexplebili rapacitate furibundus and beyond measure covetous arrogantia stupore superbi tumoris inflatus intolerably proud curiosus semper ut prodat no man so prying no man so treacherous ad hoc adulator ut fallat he would commend you before your face but cut your throat behind your back nunquam fidelis ut diligat as false a person as lived Fax ignis ad conflanda seditionis incendia turbo tempestas ad fidei facienda naufragia hostis quietis tranquillitatis adversarius pacis inimicus a very fire-brand cared not what became of truth or peace turned the world upside down so that he might carry on his opinion The Apostle speaking of Antichrist who is the Antesignanus of all Heretiques cals him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that man of sin no such sinner as he Lyranus expounds it one totally given up to sin and Theophylact the ringleader of sin And truly it is most just with God to give them up to corrupt lives who rejecting his truth have given up themselves to corrupt errors and lies 2. Heresies are a drowning and overwhelming floud a floud you know is such a collection such an heightning confluence of waters as swels the rivers above their bounds and lays all under water Now there are three things which heresies doe overwhelm See 2 Pet. 2. 2. One is the glory of all glories the glorious Name of God the glorious Name of Christ the glorious Name of the holy Spirit the glorious name of divine truths Heresie turns the glory into a lye It gives God the lye and Christ the lye and the holy Ghost the lye For it gives truth the lye the Scriptures the lye which are the glory of God and Christ and the holy Spirit He who makes the Word of God a lyer makes God himself a lyer O sirs what is God without truth and what is all the goodnesse of the Gospel without truth and what is all the fabrick of mans salvation without truth Truth is as it were the pin the clasp the knot that ties all pull out that untie and break that the excellencies of God the glories of Christ the sweetnesse of promises the souls of men the salvation of mens souls all are dashed are broken are gone And such work doth heresie make it doth dissolve the bond of all glory yea it doth resolve God into worse then nothing No God is better then a false god there is an open or secret blasphemy in all heresies No man can contemn the truth of God but in that he must likewise condemn the God of truth The second is the glory of Religion Religion is clipt and darkned It grows low and beggerly when it is patched with errour It is a debasing of the gold to marry it with any metall of a courser birth All Religion is by so much the more excellent by how much the more of truth it hath but when once it is adulterated when once it is tainted and leavened with damnable errours now the silver is become drosse the glory is departed from it when a Religion is like the feet of Nebuchadnezzars image which were part of clay and part of iron now it becomes low and contemptible If the mixture of humane inventions abates of its glory what an impairing is the mixture of corrupt and poisonous faith-subverting doctrines The third is not onely the dignity but also the very vitall entity of a Church Truth is the soul of that body and falshood is death unto it Schismes do it much hurt but nothing like vile doctrines Schismes doe only rent the coat but Heterodoxies do rent the heart those pluck up the fence but these pull down the building those doe tear away the childrens lace but these doe bereave the children of their bread those are a turbulent sea these are a dead sea those doe scratch but these doe kill Men talk

much of un-churching and of Antichrist and limbes of Antichrist but a Church is never more near to give up the ghost then when it is most near to give up the truth It is never nearer to be un-churched and to be essentially Antichristed then when the truth fails and when abominable heresies and corrupt doctrines swarm in it Mark seriously that place in 1 Iohn 4. 3. Every spirit that confesseth not that Christ is come in the flesh is not of God and this is that spirit of Antichrist I this is that spirit of Antichrist The spirit of errour and false doctrine this is that spirit of Antichrist 3. Heresies are a suddenly rising floud A floud is no sober or quiescent puddle no grave or slow-paced river but it is a quick and extemporary collection and inundation And truly herein lies the greatnesse of the danger unto a people and Church by heresies that they are quickly conceived and quickly brought forth quickly born and quickly thriving though truth gets on very slowly by reason of that incapacity of the judgement for supernaturals and by reason of that naturall opposition in man to the things of God and by reason of the subtill interposition of the Prince of darknesse who blinds the minds of men lest the light of the glorious Gospel should shine unto them yet erroneous and false opinions do break out with ease and spread swiftly they are like the plague which is a flying arrow there needs no preparation of the ground for nettles if the seeds doe but drop down you may soon have a full crop yet the ground must be prepared again and again to receive good seed the hearts of men are naturally disposed to suck in errours as they are to send out wickednesses the tinder is so prepared to catch the fire that it is but the striking of the flint and the work is done The Scriptures doe compare false doctrines to leaven O how fast doth a little leaven sowre the lump Paul wondred that the Galatians were so soon removed to another Gospel Gal. 1. 6. The good man slept but one night and the field was sowen all over with tares by the wicked and envious man How quickly did the world turn Arian How suddenly did the Anabaptists endanger Germany The Vines which have been some months in growing are in very few howres torn down and destroyed by Foxes and wilde Boars Now if erroneous doctrines be in themselves so highly pernicious and in their operation so speedily diffusive then certainly they are of all other things the most dangerous to the Church of Christ A plague which suddenly infects many families is therefore the more dangerous and heresies vvhich can suddenly infect many souls are therefore the more dangerous evils 4. Heresies are an increasing and swelling floud A floud at first makes the river onely to look big and to run a little thicker and faster but after a while it causeth the river to be unruly to break in pieces to superabound the waters contribute on every side and at every corner to raise and mount it so that there is no passing False doctrines at first seem to be modest they will be but scruples and quaere's and then they come to be probabilities and then they come to be Like the spreading Leprosie tolerable conclusions and then they rise to be unquestionable tenets and then fit to be made publique articles and then necessary to be held and then the contrary not to be maintained or spoken for nay to be disdained and reproached But this is not all neither For as false opinions rise thus and encrease in their direct line of particular magnitudes by way of intention so doe they likewise enlarge themselves in divers breadths by way of extension They are like circles in a pond one circle begets another so doth one heresie beget another a lesser begets a greater As one morall sin is but a staire to step down lower so this intellectuall sinne of heresie it is but a staire to help up to higher and worse errors If you will consult Historicall Antiquity it is wonderfull to behold the great flames bred out of small sparks what monstrous opinions have been built upon errours which seemed but little at the first how one errour hath hatched a greater they who write of them can distinctly tell us where the man was first planet-struck what his first errour was but after a while they are non-plussed in the account the number of errours have doubled trebled such a maze and labyrinth is errour It is like a whirle-pool which first Dato uno absurdo mille sequuntur sucks in one part and then another and never defists untill it draws in and plungeth the whole body Besides ancient examples wee may see this swelling growth of erroneous opinions in the Church of Rome where one errour still advanced to more errours and those again to higher errours and these still running on until a general corruption ensued from all the particulars compare the first defections and corruptions with their last and present how little then how totall now how particular then how universall now and you will easily acknowledge what encreasing flouds erroneous opinions are The points at first were rather about private interests of precedency but they have been so encreased unto all doctrinals that they are scarce sound in any Their errours about the Scriptures and Traditions and the offices of Christ and humane satisfactions and merits and invocation and adoration of Saints and of justification and faith and good works and free-will and Sacraments c. are evident to all the world I could give unto you an instance also in the Anabaptists in Germany whose first Author there saith David Chytraeus in his Dedicatory Epistle to Ericus King of the Swedes was Nicolaus Pelargus Cygneus about the year 1523. his erroneous doctrines though bad enough for they were laid in the contempt of the Ministery of the Word and Sacraments and rejection of the Civill Magistrate and in nova ac coelesti luce immediate accensain corde as my Author expresly relates yet were not formerly so numerous but when these opinions descended unto Thomas Munzerus and Andreas Carolostadius now they began to swell both in the quantity of the opinions and in the vast number of disciples too Lambertus Danaeus in his Annotations and Explications of Saint Augustines Book De haeresibus quod vult deum addes to that account the many derivations and enlarging propagations of heresies from age to age shewing exactly the severall heresies flowing from some one capitall and originall heresie as from Simon See his Arborem Haerescón as himself styles it Magus's heresie and from that of Valentinus and that of Cardo and that of Artemon and that of Novatus and that of Arius c. In which elaborate work of his you may read of such a strange growth of heresies that they never left multiplying and breeding untill they had as much as in