A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many useful questions and cases of conscience are…A treatise of miscellany questions wherein many usefull questions and cases of conscience are…

Now the preservatives against Wavering, and helps to steadfastness in the Faith, are these: 1. Grow in knowledge and circumspection; be not simple as Children in understanding. There is a slight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive: So speaks the Apostle of these that spread diverse and strange Doctrines, Eph: 4. 14. and Rom▪ 16. 18. he wars us that they do by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Thou hast therefore need of the wisdom of the serpent that thou be not deceived, as well as of the simplicity of the Dove, that thou be not a deceiver, Phil: 1. 9: 10. Do not rashly engage into any new opinion, much less into the spreading of it. With the well-advised is wisdom: Pythagoras would have us Scholars only to hear, and not to speak for five years. Be swift to hear but not to speak or engage: Prove all things, and when thou hast proved, then be sure to hold fast that which is good, 1 Thess. 5. 21. Mat: 7. 15. 17. There was never an Heresy yet broached, but under some fair plausible pretence; beguiling unstable souls, as Peter speaks, 2 Pet. 2. 14. Pro: 14. 15. The simple believeth every word. Be not like the two hundred ⟨p. 139⟩that went in the simplicity of their hearts after Absalom in his rebellion, not knowing any thing, but that he was to pay his vow in Hebron, 2 Sam: 15. 11. 2. Grow in grace and holiness, and the love of the truth, for the stability of the mind in the truth, and the stability of the heart in grace, go hand in hand together, Heb: 13. 9. Davids rule is good, Ps. 24. 12. What man is he that feareth the Lord, him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose. Which is also Christs rule, Joh. 7. 17. If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of my self. See also Deut: 11. 13, 16. Elisha healed the unwholesome waters of Jericho by casting salt into the fountain, 2, Kings 2. 21, so must the bitter streams of pernicious errors be healed by getting the salt of mortification, and true sanctifying grace in the fountain.

Now the preservatives against Wavering, and helps to stedfastnesse in the Faith, are these: 1. Grow in knowledge and circumspection; be not simple as Children in understanding. There is a slight of men and cunning craftinesse whereby they lye in wait to deceive: So speaks the Apostle of these that spread diverse and strange Doctrines, Eph: 4. 14. and Rom 16. 18. he warres us that they do by good words and fair speaches deceive the hearts of the simple. Thou hast therefore need of the wisedom of the serpent that thou be not deceived, as well as of the fimplicity of the Dove, that thou be not a deceiver, Phil: 1. 9: 10. Do not rashly ingage into any new opinion, much lesse into the spreading of it. With the welladvised is wisedome: Pythagoras would have us Schollers only to hear, and not to speak for five years. Be swift to hear but not to speak or ingage: Prove all things, and when thou hast proved, then be sure to hold fast that which is good,