The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

The unreasonableness and power of a deluding Spirit, that nothing can convince, when once people come to like that way they go on, deceiving and being deceived, and, as Peter saith, 2 Pet. 3. 16. pervert the Scripture to their own destruction; And as may be gathered, they do so by corrupting, first, that which doth appear to be more obscure, and then they mould other Scriptures so as may consist with their fancies, that they have conceived to have ground in the former, and so they, first, form notions out of obscure places, and thereafter conform the more plain Scriptures to these, whereas the just contrary is most safe; and when the ignorant and unstable shall account themselves the only learned in the mysteries of God, what wonder is it that they be thus given up? and when they think the plain truths, and duties wherein there is no shadow of a ground of stumbling, are below them? and thus they may attain so much dexterity to wrest the Scriptures, even the plainest (as is implied there) as may be judicially subservient to their own destruction, and to prevent their being convinced, which might put them to shame; and occasion their abandoning of that. 2. We may see, that it is no easy thing to recover a misled people into error; that peradventure, 2 Tim. 2. 25. is not accidentally put in, but to show that it is a hundred to one if such get repentance, whereby the Lord would scare all from that evil, and ⟨p. 160⟩the more gross their error is, often men are the more unreasonable in the defence thereof, and obstinate in adhering thereunto, because there is most of a judicial stroke seen there, in giving up men to such fooleries, it is not credible that otherwise they could fall in them, and so being smitten of God, is it possible that any reason can prevail with them, while that plague lieth on? Was there any error like to that of worshipping stocks and stones? it being even against sense and reason, that men should burn a part thereof, and make some common work of another portion, and of a third make a deity and fall down and worship it, as the Prophet doth expostulate, Isa. 44. 19. which upon consideration might be found to be absurd: this is premitted as the reason of such blockishness, ver. 18. For he hath shut their eyes that they cannot see, and their hearts that they cannot understand. 3.