Means to quicken us to pray with more fervour for the leading of the Holy Spirit 3/3

           Now, in comparing scripture with scripture, be careful thou interpretest obscure places by the more plain and clear, and not the clear by the dark.  Error creeps into the most shady obscure places, and there takes sanctuary.  ‘Some things hard to be understood, which they that are unstable wrest.’  No wonder they should stumble in those dark and difficult places, when they turn their back on that light which plainer scriptures afford to lead them safely through.  ‘He that is born of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not,’ I John 5:18.  This is a dark place, which some run away with, and from it con­clude there is a perfect state free from all sin attain­able in this life; whereas a multitude of plain scrip­tures testify against such a conclusion, I Kings 8:38; Prov. 20:9; Ecc. 7:20; Job 9:20; Php. 3:12; I John 1:8-10, with many more.  So that it must be in a limited and qualified sense that he ‘that is born of God sinneth not.’  He sins not finally or comparatively, not as the carnal wretch doth.  ‘And the wicked one toucheth him not,’ i.e. non tactá qualitativo, as Cajetan saith—not so as to transfuse his own nature and disposition into him; as the fire toucheth the iron or wood it comes near, assimilating them to its own nature.  This rule of using plain scriptures to be a key for to unlock obscure, will hold in all other instances.  And blessed be God, though to tame our pride he hath inserted some knotty passages, yet the necessary saving truths are of easy access even to the weakest understanding.  Salubritèr Spiritus Sanctus ita, modificavit, ut locis apertioribus fami oc­curreret, obscurioribus fastidia detergeret (Aug. de Doc. Ch. lib. ii. c. 6)—there is enough in the plain places of Scripture to keep the weak from starving, and in the obscure to lift them above con­tempt of the strongest.

           Direction Sixth.  Consult with thy faithful guides which God hath set over thee in his church. Though people are not to pin their faith on the min­ister’s sleeve, yet they are to ‘seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts,’ Mal. 2:7.  Christ directs his kids for their safe­ty, that they turn not aside into by‑paths of error, and fall not into the hands of false teachers—those cheating companions—that they go ‘go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed...beside the shepherds’ tents,’ Song 1:8.  The devil knows too well—‘send away the shepherd and he may soon catch the sheep.’  And these times prove sadly that he is not mistaken. When were people’s affections more withdrawn from their ministers?  And when were their judgments more poisoned with error?  Of what sort, I pray, are those that have been trapanned^[5] into dangerous er­rors in our late unhappy times?  Have they not most this brand upon them?  Are they not such who would sooner hearken to a stranger—may be a Jesuit in a buff‑coat or with a blue apron before him?—seek to any mountebank that comes they know not whence, is here to‑day and gone tomorrow, than to their own ministers, who from God have the rule over them, and watch for their souls as they that must give account to God for them; yea, who from many years’ experience in life and doctrine they have found able and faithful?  In the fear of God consider this.  They are not your ministers—I speak as to the most—in their pulpits and public ministry, but these hucksters and quack-salvers in corners practicing upon you, that privily have brought in damnable doctrines, and leav­ened so great a lump of people in the nation with sour and unsound doctrine.  If thou wouldst therefore be preserved from error, make use, as of the sword of the word in thy own hand, so of the holy skill that God hath given thy faithful minister for thy defence. Wait on his public ministry, praying for divine assis­tance to be poured down on him, and a divine bless­ing from his labours to fall on thyself.  If at any time thou art in the dark concerning his message, resort to him, and I dare promise thee—if he answers his name, and be a faithful minister of the gospel—an easy access and hearty welcome to him.  Only come to learn, not cavil; to have thy conscience satisfied, not any itch of vain curiosity rubbed.  Our Saviour, who was so willing to satisfy his disciples concerning the doctrine he publicly preached, that in private he opened it to them more fully, yet when they came with nice and curious questions, did rather choose to repel that humour by a reproof than cherish it by a satisfying answer.  ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons;’ and at another time, ‘If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.’  He takes Peter off from a profitable question to ind a necessary duty.

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           Second Means.  When thou hast thus possessed thy heart with the dread of being led into any corrupt opinion, then strengthen then thy faith from those comfortable scriptures which assure thee that no sin­cere saint shall be left to fall finally into any soul-damning error.  Christ is as able for, and faithful in, his prophetic and kingly offices, as his priestly. Surely he will not have the least care of his people’s under­standing, which is guide to their whole man, and is that faculty which he first practiseth upon in the work of conversion. Thou hast therefore as strong ground to believe he will preserve thee from damnable princi­ples as damnable practices.  It would be little advan­tage to be kept from one enemy, and left open to the will and power of another.  Christ’s hedge comes round about his people.  Solomon tells us, ‘The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein,’ Prov. 22:14. And so is the mouth of the seducer, who comes with strange doctrines—whorish opinions.  Now who is this pit digged for?  Indeed, if we look at Satan’s design, it is a trap chiefly laid to catch the saint; he would, if possible, ‘deceive the very elect.’  His great­est ambition is to spread his banners in this temple of God, and defile them whom God hath washed.  But if we eye God’s intention, it is a pit he suffers to be made for hypocrites and false gospellers—such who would never heartly close with Christ and his truth. These are they whom God abhors, and therefore they are left by him to become a prey to those that go a birding for souls with their corrupt doctrines. ‘Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved; and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness,’ II Thes. 2:10-12.  These, like the outsetting deer, are shot, while they within the pale are safe; or, like the sub­urbs, taken by the enemy, but those within the city escape their fury.  It is the outward court that is left to be trampled underfoot, Rev. 11:2.  And in the fore-quoted place in the epistle to the Thessalonians —though he gives up hypocrites to be deceived by false teachers, as once Ahab by those knights of the post his false prophets—yet, ver. 13 he speaks com­fortably to the elect, and shows that the same decree which appointed them to salvation provided also for their embracing the truth, as the necessary means leading thereunto. ‘But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and be­lief of the truth.’  And if God had got possession of the head by his truth, and of the heart by his sancti­fying grace, he will keep them out of Satan’s clutches.

           Go, therefore, and plead the promise for thy preservation.  The promise improved by faith at the throne of grace will be thy best antidote in these times of general infection. Never fear speeding when the promise bids thee ‘go and prosper.’  The mercy is granted before thou askest it; only God will have thee by prayer lay claim to it, before thou beest possessed of it.  And for thy help I have set down some sweet promises of this nature, with which, if thou acquaint­est thyself, thou mayest be furnished both with grounds for thy faith, and arguments for thy prayer in this case, Matt. 24:24; John 7:12; 10:5, 29; I Cor. 11:19; Php. 3:15; I John 2:19, 20.

           Direction Fifth.  Compare scripture with scripture.  False doctrines, like false witnesses, agree not among them­selves.  Their name may be called ‘Legion, for they are many.’  But truth is one; it is homogeneal.  One scripture sweetly harmonizeth with another.  Hence it is, though there were many pen­men of sacred writ, and those of several ages, one after another, yet they all are said to have but one mouth; ‘As he spake by the mouth of his holy proph­ets, which have been since the world began,’ Luke 1:70. All had one mouth, because they accord so perfectly together.  The best way, therefore, to know the mind of God in one text is to lay it to another.  The lapi­dary useth one diamond to cut another.  So should we one place of Scripture to interpret another.  Scrip­tures compared, like glasses set one against another, cast a light each to the other.  ‘They (i.e. the Levites) read in the book in the  law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading,’ Neh. 8:8.  Et exponendo sensum dabant intelligentiam per Scripturam ipsam—so Tremelius reads the words—they gave them the meaning of what they read, by the Scripture itself.

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           First Means.  Let the dread of those scriptures which set forth the danger of errors and false doc­trines fall upon thee, that thou mayest not think thou goest upon a slighty errand, when praying to be pre­served from them, as if the odds were not great, whether thou hast thy request or hast it not.  It is one of the devil’s master-policies, by sinking the price of errors in the thoughts of men, to make them thereby the more vendible.  Many think they shall not pay so dear for an error in judgment as for a sin in practice. Yea, some have such a latitude, that they fancy a man may be saved in any religion—a principle that must needs tend to make them that hold it careless and incurious in their choice.  That sin shall not want cus­tomers which men think they shall pay little or noth­ing for.  Some can be content to be drunk on free cost, that would not, were they assured their own purse should pay soundly for the reckoning.  How comes fornication to abound so much among the Romish clergy, but because it is counted so petty a sin by them?  And I wish that error and heresy—which are the fornication of the mind—were not by many among ourselves sized as low.  But woe to those clerks of the devil’s market, that tempt and toll men on to sin by setting cheaper rates on their head than the word of God hath done.  If once the dread of a sin be word off the conscience, no wonder then if we see men as boldly leap upon it, as the frogs in the fable on the log, that lay so still and tame at the bottom of the river.  Fear makes the body more apt to take in­fection, but it preserveth the soul from the infection of sin.

           Now that thou mayest the more stand in fear of drinking in the poison of any corrupt and unsound doctrine, let thy mind ponder on a few scriptures, which show both their detestable, and also damning nature of them.  Gal. 5:19, there heresy is called ‘a work of the flesh,’ and reckoned among those sins which shut the doors of them out of heaven; ‘they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God,’ ver. 21.  They are called ‘doctrines of devils,’ I Tim. 4:1.  And if they come from the devil, whither must they lead but to hell? Such as are against the fundamental principles of the gospel are inconsistent with the love and favour of God.  He that ‘abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God,’ II John 9.  And who, think you, shall have him that hath not God? Were there no other scripture against this kind of sin, but that one, II Peter 2:1, it were enough to strike the heretic through his loins, and make the knees of every seducer, like Belshazzar’s at the sight of the ‘handwriting on the wall,’ to knock one against the other.  ‘But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heres­ies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.’  So that if a man hath a mind to get the start of other sinners, and desires to be in hell before them, he need do no more than open his sails to the wind of heretical doctrine, and he is like to make a short voyage to hell of it; for these bring upon their maintainers ‘swift destruction.’ Nay, the Spirit of God, the more to aggravate their deplored state brings in three most dreadful instances of divine vengeance that ever was executed upon any sinners, viz. the detrusion of the apostate angels from heaven to hell, the drowning of the old world, and the conflagration of Sodom and Gomorrah by raining hell, as it were, out of heaven upon them.  I say, he brings these as patterns and pledges of that vengeance which shall certainly befall this kind of sinners.  And by this time I hope thou wilt be warm in thy prayer against this dangerous enemy.  But,