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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

them lay overthrown and cashiered every person in the Trinity All the Scriptures Law and Gospel every distinct morall commandement every particular article of faith every Ordinance of Jesus Christ Preaching of the Word Baptisme Lords Supper c. There are 4. generall heads unto which usually we reduce Christian Religion 1. To the Decalogue of the Law 2. To the symbole of faith 3. To the Lords Prayer 4. To the Sacraments And that learned * See him in ●pusc indice tertio p. 142. c. printed at Geneva M. D. LXXXIII in folio Author doth by name instance the severall hereticall and erreonous teachers who have invaded every one of these and in every particular comprehended in them By all which it doth most clearly appear how dangerously mischievous hereticall opinions are to the Church of God 5. There is one thing more which I would add in the last place by which it shall be manifested that these hereticall opinions are more dangerous then any other flouds and that is a diverse quality in them other flouds are quickly up and quickly down although they grow high and perillous yet there is a suddain transiency in the height and perill their principles are unconstant though violent and being spent these ordinary flouds sink and famish for want of supply and feeding But the flouds of false and erroneous doctrines are such as quickly rise but do very slowly abate They are in this respect worse then the great deluge in the days of Noah which continued many months but then did slack and sink and fell quite away It is not so with hereticall errours but they are like diseases which come upon us flying but goe away from us creeping some erroneous opinions have been kept up for forty years together nay above 100. years together some of them 300. years nay some of the Antichristian heterodoxies have been kept up above a 1000. years together O Brethren men doe extreamly dote upon their own fancies they are exceedingly pleased with their own brats especially with the new conceptions of their own minds they dearly like them and love them and foster them For one Heretique who hath been poysoned in his judicials you may finde a thousand of others converted and reduced who have onely been stained in their morals Heresie or the hereticall opinion is stilted up by all the parts arguments shifts learning of carnall reason and it is born up by an haughty and disdainfull and proud spirit and it is so fallacious and fraudulent when you come to handle it which is not the least it is so rammed in with obstinacy and peremptorinesse that it is almost a miracle to work effectually upon an Heretique Every Heretique is odiously proud All other men who dissent from him are far below him and one saith very truly That no proud man can endure to bee accounted a fool or a knave So simple as to be deceived or so base as to deceive one of which the heretique thinks he must take to his share if at any time he recants his hereticall and seducing doctrine I should now come to shew unto you the reasons why Satan makes use of this dangerous floud against the Church and why especially at some times more then other He well knows that there remains in professing Christians many advantages for him as to erroneous opinions much ignorance much pride and self-conceitednesse much itching vanity much vain glory much fraternall envy much carelesnesse and inadvertency c. but I must wave this and conclude all with some seasonable applications unto our selves Are heresies erroneous and false doctrines such a dangerous Vse 1 and pernicious floud to the Church of God Is there so much sinfulnesse in them so much dishonour to Christ so much injury to the truth of God so much hazard to the immortall souls of men O then what just what sad what singular cause have all of us this day to enlarge our tears and humiliations There are many flouds which doe call for our tears 1. The floud of innocent bloud in Ireland 2. The floud of cries from poore widows and orphans 3. The floud of needy and wounded soldiers and there is yet another floud a worse floud the floud of heresies and blasphemies one deep cals for another the floud of wicked and ungodly opinions doth call earnestly for a floud of sorrow and lamentation We are by Gods mercy and goodnesse indifferently rescued from the cruelty of Dragons O but now we are as much endangered with the floud of the Serpent the bodies of people are in some good measure secured from the edge of the sword but what of this whiles the souls of people are hazarded with the poyson of errours If the danger flies from the body to the soul if the corporall danger be exchanged into a spirituall danger where is our happinesse what is our safety by this Beloved there are 4. notable reasons of our most Note solemn humiliation for the spirituall wickednesses for the false and abominable doctrines which like a floud are now overflowing this Nation 1. The account or height of some of them They amount to no lesse then execrable blasphemies to ignominious contemptuous disgracefull reproaches of God and Christ and the holy Scriptures Beleeve me blasphemy is a daring sin It presseth very close and too sore upon God He that blasphemeth the Name of the Lord he shall surely be put to death Lev. 24 16. The words according to the originall are Hee that strikes through the Name of Jehovah Blasphemy is that bold sword which is hacking of God himself which is as it were cleaving of him asunder The School-men tell us that blasphemy breaks out 3. ways 1. Cùm attribuitur Deo quod ei non convenit when we affirm that of God which is unbeseeming of God which is incompatible with his holy and divine Nature As to make him a creature or a lyer or cruell unjust unmercifull sinfull or the cause of sin 2. Cum à Deo removetur quod ei convenit when we deny that to God which indeed belongs to God It is called blasphemy in the King of Assyria when he said that the Lord was not able to deliver Hierusalem out of his hand 2 Chron. 32. 17. 3. Cum attribuitur creaturae quod Deo appropriatur when we put that upon a creature which is proper to God Thus when the Israelites had made a molten Calf and said This is thy God that brought thee up out of Aegypt it is added and they wrought great provocations Nehem 9. 18. In the Hebrew it is and they committed great blasphemies Now compare this short discourse of the kindes of blasphemies with the many expressions let fall in the speeches of some and set down in the writings of others and then judge whether some of our moderne errours rise not as high as blasphemy Viz. 1. That God is the Author of sin Not onely of the actions unto which sinne doth cleave but of the very

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