Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	conscience_n	good_a	shipwreck_n	6,895	5	12.1671	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

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