[BBC List] the mind

[Mike Abendroth]

Satan Corrupts thew Mind with Doctrinal Error 
by William Gurnall

First. Satan Labours to corrupt the mind with erroneous principles.  He was
at work at the very first plantation of the gospel, sowing his darnel as
soon almost as Christ his wheat.  This sprung up in perni-cious errors even
in the apostles' times, which made them take the weeding-hook into their
hands, and, in all their epistles, labour to countermine Satan in his
design.  Now in this his endeavour to corrupt the minds of men, especially
professors, with error, Satan hath a threefold design,

           First Design. He doth this in despite to God, against whom he
cannot vent his malice at a higher rate, than by corrupting his truth, which
God hath so highly honoured, 'For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy
name.' Ps. 138:2.  Every creature bears the name of God, but in his word and
truth therein contained it is writ at length, and therefore he is more
choice of this than of all his other works; he cares not much what becomes
of the world and all in it, so he keeps his word and saves his truth.  Ere
long we shall see the world on a light flame; 'The heavens and earth shall
pass away, but the word of the Lord en-dureth for ever.'  When God will, ha
can make more such worlds as this is, but he cannot make another truth, and
therefore he will not lose one iota thereof. Satan, knowing this, sets all
his wits on work to de-face this truth, and disfigure it by unsound
doctrine. The word is the glass in which we see God, and seeing him, are
changed into his likeness by his Spirit.  If this glass be cracked, then our
conceptions we have of God will misrepresent him unto us, whereas the word
in its native clearness sets him out in all his glory unto our eye.

           Second Design. He endeavours to draw into this spiritual sin of
error, as the most subtle and effectual means to weaken, if not destroy, the
power of god-liness in them.  The apostle joins the spirit of power and a
sound mind together, II Tim. 1:7.  Indeed the power of holiness in practice
depends much on the soundness of judgment.  Godliness is the child of truth,
and it must be nursed, if we will have it thrive, with no other milk than of
its own mother. Therefore we are exhorted to 'desire the sincere milk of the
word, that ye may grow,' I Peter 2:; if this milk be but a little dashed
with error, it is not so nutritive. All error, how innocent soever it may
seem, like the ivy, draws away the strength of the soul's love from
holiness.  Hosea tells us whoredom and wine take away the heart, now error
is spiritual adultery.  Paul speaks of his espousing them to Christ.  When a
per-son receives an error, he takes a stranger into Christ's bed, and it is
the nature of adulterous love to take away the wife's heart from her true
husband, that she delights not in his company so much as [in that] of her
adulterous lover.  And do we not see it at this day fulfilled?  Do not many
show more zeal in contending for one error, than for many truths?  How
strangely are the hearts of many taken off from the ways of God, their love
cooled to the ordinances and messen-gers of Christ!-and all this occasioned
by some cor-rupt principle got into their bosoms, which controls Christ and
his truth, as Hagar and her son did Sarah and her child.  Indeed Christ will
never enjoy true conjugal love from the soul, till, like Abraham, he turns
these out of doors.  Error is not so innocent a thing as many think it; it
is as unwholesome food to the body-that poisons the spirits, and surfeits
the whole body-which seldom passeth away without breaking out into sores.
As the knowledge of Christ carries a soul above the pollutions of the world,
so error entangles and betrays it to those lusts, whose hands it had
escaped.

           Third Design. Satan in drawing a soul into this spiritual sin
hath a design to disturb the peace of the church, which is rent and
shattered when this fire-ship comes among them.  'I hear,' saith Paul, 'that
there be divisions among you, and I partly believe it, for there must also
be heresies,' I Cor. 11:18,19 -implying that divisions are the natural issue
of heresy.  Error cannot well agree with error, except it be against the
truth; then indeed, like Pilate and Herod, they are easily made friends; but
when truth seems to be overcome, and the battle is over with that, then they
fall out among themselves, and there-fore it is no wonder if it be so
troublesome a neigh-bour to truth.  O sirs, what a sweet silence and peace
was there among Christians a dozen years ago.  Me-thinks the looking back to
those blessed days in this respect-though they had also another way their
troubles, yet not so uncomfortable, because that storm united, this scatters
the saints' spirits-is joyous, to remember in what unity and love
Chris-tians walked.  The persecutors of those times might have said, as
their predecessors did of the saints in primitive times, 'See how they love
one another,' but now, alas, they may jeer and say, See how they that loved
so dearly, are ready to pluck one another's throats out.

[Use or Application.]

           [A word of exhortation to all.] The application of this shall be
only in a word of exhortation to all; especially you who bear the name of
Christ by a more eminent profession of him.  O beware of this
soul-infection, this leprosy of the head.  I hope you do not think it
needless, for it is the disease of the times. This plague is begun, yea,
spreads apace.  [There is] not a flock, [not] a congregation hardly, that
hath not this scab among them.  Paul was a preacher the best of us all may
write after, and he presseth this home upon the saints, yea, in the constant
course of his preaching  it made a piece of his sermon.  He sets us preacher
also upon this work; 'Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the
flock;-for I know this, that after my departure shall grievous wolves
enter;-also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things,'
Acts 20:28-30; therefore watch.  And then he presents his own example, that
he hardly made a sermon for several years, but this was part of it, to warn
every one night and day with tears.  We need not prophesy what impostors may
come upon the stage when we go off.  There are too many at present
above-board of this gang drawing disciples after them.  And if it be our
duty to warn you of them, surely it is yours to watch, lest you by any of
them be led into temptation in this hour thereof, wherein Satan is let loose
in so great a measure to deceive the nation.  May you not as easily be
soured with this leaven, as the disciples whom Christ bids beware?  Are you
privileged above those famous churches of Galatia and Corinth, many of which
were bewitched with false teachers, and in a manner turned to another
gospel?  Is Satan grown orthodox, or have his instruments lost their
cunning, who hunt for souls?  In a word, is there not a sym-pathy between
thy corrupt heart and error?  Hast thou not a disposition, which, like the
fomes of the earth, makes it natural for these weeds to grow in thy soil?
Seest thou not many prostrated by this enemy, who sat upon the mountain of
their faith, and thought it should never have been removed?  Surely they
would have taken it ill to have been told, 'you are the men and women that
will decry Sabbaths, which now ye count holy; you will turn Pelagians, who
now defy the name; you will despise prophecy itself, who now seem so much to
honour the proph-ets; you will throw family duties out of doors, who dare
not now go out of doors till you have prayed there.'  Yet these, and more
than these, are come to pass; and doth it not behove thee, Christian, to
take heed lest thou fallest also?  And that thou mayest not,

           1. Exhortation.  Make it thy chief care to get a thorough change
of thy heart.  If once the root of the matter be in thee, and thou beest
bottomed by a lively faith on Christ, thou art then safe, I do not say
wholly free from all error; but this I am sure, free from engulfing thy soul
in damning error.  'They went out from us,' saith St. John, 'but they were
not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued
with us,' I John 2:19.  As if he had said, They had some outward
profes-sion, and common work of the Spirit with us, which they have either
lost or carried over to the devil's quarters, but they never had the unction
of the sanctifying Spirit.  By this, ver. 20, he distinguisheth them, and
comforts the sincere ones, who possibly might fear their own fall by their
departure: 'But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all
things.'  It is one thing to know a truth, and another thing to know it by
unction.  An hypocrite may do the former, the saint only the latter. It is
this unction which gives the soul the savour of the knowledge of Christ;
those are the fit prey for impostors, who are enlightened, but not
enlivened. O, it is good to have the heart established with grace! This, as
an anchor, will keep us from being set adrift, and carried about with divers
and strange doctrines, as the apostle teacheth us, Heb. 13:9.

           2. Exhortation.  Ply the work of mortification.  Crucify the
flesh daily.  Heresy, though a spiritual sin, [is] yet by the apostle
reckoned among the deeds of the flesh, Gal. 5:20, because it is occasioned
by fleshly motives, and nourished by carnal food and fleshly fuel.  Never
[have] any turned heretic, but flesh was at the bottom; either they served
their belly or a lust of pride-it was the way to court, or secured their
estates and saved their lives, as sometimes the reward of truth is fire and
fagot.  Some pad or other is in the straw when least seen; and therefore it
is no wonder that heresies should end in the flesh, which in a manner sprang
from it.  The rheum in the head as-cends in fumes from the stomach, and
returns thither, or unto the lungs, which at last fret and ulcerate. Carnal
affections first send up their fumes to the un-derstanding, clouding that,
yea, bribing it to receive such and such principles for truths; which [when]
embraced, fall down into the life, corrupting that with the ulcer of
profaneness.  So that, Christian, if once thou canst take off thy
engagements to the flesh, and become a free man, so as not to give thy vote
to gratify thy carnal fears or hopes, thou wilt then be a sure friend to
truth.

           3. Exhortation.  Wait conscionably on the minis-try of the word.
Satan commonly stops the ear from hearing sound doctrine, before he opens it
to embrace corrupt.  This is the method of souls [in] apostatizing from
truth: 'They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned
unto fables,' II Tim. 4:3,4. Satan, like a cunning thief, draws the soul out
of the road into some lane or corner, and there robs him of the truth.  By
rejecting of one ordinance, we deprive ourselves of the blessing of all
others.  Say not that thou prayest to be led into truth; God will not hear
thy prayer if thou turnest thine ear from hearing the law.  He that loves
his child, when he sees him play the truant, will whip him to school.  If
God loves a soul, he will bring him back to the word with shame and sorrow.

           4. Exhortation.  When thou hearest any unusual doctrine, though
never so pleasing, make not up the match hastily with it.  Have some better
testimony of it, before you open your heart to it.  The apostle indeed bids
us entertain strangers, for some have entertained angels unawares Heb. 13:2;
but he would not have us carried about with strange doctrine, ver. 9,
[though] by this I am sure some have entertained devils.  I confess, it is
not enough to reject a doctrine, because strange to us, but ground we have,
to wait and inquire.  Paul marvelled that the Galatians were so soon removed
from him, who had called them unto the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.
They might sure have stayed till they had acquainted Paul with it, and asked
his judgement.  What, no sooner an impostor come into the country, and open
his pack, but buy all his ware at first sight!  O friends, were it not more
wisdom to pray such new notions over and over again, to search the Word, and
our hearts by it, yea, not to trust our own hearts, but [to] call in counsel
from others?  If your minister have not such credit with you, get the most
holy, humble, and established Christians you can find.  Error is like fish,
which must be eaten new or it will stink.  When those dangerous errors
sprung up first in New Eng-land, O how unsettled were the churches! what an
outcry was made, as if some mine of gold had been discovered!  But in a
while, when those error came to their complexion, and it was perceived
whither they were bound-to destroy churches, ordinances, and power of
godliness-then such as feared God, who had stepped aside, returned back with
shame and sorrow.

Excerpt from  <http://www.monergismbooks.com/completearmour1961.htm> The
Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall

 

 

http://www.monergism.com/corrupt.html

 

Thanks.

 

For the King's honor,

 

Charis,

 

Mike Abendroth

 

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

 

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

 

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.bbcchurch.org/pipermail/bbc_list/attachments/20070726/25559e27/attachment.htm