SPIRITUAL PEACE AND COMFORT. 389 he could get by his sword in three hundred years ? And yet the Holy Ghost gave them full warning of this beforehand ; " For I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.- But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent. beguiled Eve, throughhis subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ ; " 2 Cor.. xi. 2, 3. "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations;" Rom. xiv. 1. "The law of the Lord is perfect ; " Psal. xix. "All Scripture is given by inspiration from God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- ness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished untoall good works;" 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. "To the law and to the testimony : if theyspeak not according to these, it is because there is no truth in them ;" Isa. viii. 20. With many the like. This plot the serpent bath found so successful, that he bath fol- lowed it on to this day. He hath made it the great engine to get Rome on his side, and to make them the great dividers of Christ's church. He made the pope and. the council of Trent believe, that when they had owned the ancient creed of the church, they must put in as many and more additional articles oftheir own, and anath- ematize all gainsayers ; and these additions must be the peculiar mark oftheir church as Romish ; and then all that are not of that church, that is, that own not these superadded points, are not of the true church of Christ, if they must be judges. Yea, among ourselves bath the devil used successfully this plot! What con- fession ofthe purest church bath not some more than is in Scrip- ture ! Themost modest must mend the phrase and speak plainer, and somewhat of their own in it, not excepting our own most re- formed confession. Yea, and where modesty restrains men from putting all such in- ventions and explications in their creed, the devil persuades men, that, they beingthe judgmentsof godly, reverend divines, (no doubt to be reverenced, valued, and heard,) it is almost as much as if it were in the creed, and therefore whoever dissenteth must be noted with a black coal, andyou must disgrace him, and avoid commu- nion with him as an heretic. Hence lately is your union, commu- nion, and the church's peace, laid upon certain unsearchable myste- ries about predestination, the order and 'objects,of God's decrees, the manner ofthe Spirit's most secret operations on the soul, the nature of the will's .essential' liberty, and its power of self-deter- mining, the divine concourse, determination or predestination of man's and all other, creatures' actions, &c. That he is scarcely to be accounted a fit member for our fraternal communion that differs
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