A39674:357
Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and…
Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made public, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.Planelogia, a succinct and seasonable discourse of the occasions, causes, nature, rise, growth, and remedies of mental errors written some months since, and now made publick, both for the healing and prevention of the sins and calamities which have broken in this way upon the churches of Christ, to the great scandal of religion, hardening of the wicked, and obstruction of Reformation : whereunto are subjoined by way of appendix : I. Vindiciarum vindex, being a succinct, but full answer to Mr. Philip Cary's weak and impertinent exceptions to my Vindiciæ legis & fæderis, II. a synopsis of ancient and modern Antinomian errors, with scriptural arguments and reasons against them, III. a sermon composed for the preventing and healing of rents and divisions in the churches of Christ / by John Flavell ... ; with an epistle by several divines, relating to Dr. Crisp's works.
London: printed by R. Roberts for Tho. Cockerill, 1691
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Reason indeed is the highest natural excellency of man: it exalts him above all Earthly Creatures, and in its primitive perfection almost equalized him with Angels, Heb. 2. 7. The Pleasures which result from its exercises and experiments, ⟨p. 96⟩transcend all the delights and pleasures of sense. How common is it for men to dote upon their own intellectual beauty, and glory in their victories over weaker Understandings? And tho the reason of fallen Man is greatly wounded and weakened by Sin; yet it conceits it self to be as strong and clear as ever; and with Sampson, when his Locks were shorn, goes forth as before time, being neither sensible of its own weakness, or of the mysterious and unsearchable depths of Scripture.
Reason is our Arbiter and Guide by the institution and Law of Nature, in civil and natural Affairs: 'tis the beam and standard at which we weigh them. It is an home-born Judge and King in the Soul: Faith comes in as a stranger to Nature, and so it is dealt with, even as an Intruder into Reason's Province, just as the Sodomites dealt with Lot. It refuseth to be an Underling to Faith. Out of this Arrogancy of carnal Reason, as from Pandor••'s Box, swarms of Errors are flown abroad into the World.
By this means Socinianism first started, and hath since propagated it self. They look upon it as a ridiculous and unaccountable thing to reason, that the Son ⟨p. 97⟩should be co-equal and co-eternal with the Father: that God should forgive sins freely, and yet forgive none but upon full satisfaction. That Christ should make that satisfaction by his Sufferings, and yet be pars laesa, the Party offended, and so make satisfaction to himself: with many more of the like stamp.