Heavenly merchandiseHeavenly merchandize

4. Thus to be deceived will prove a very pernicious thing. If you buy up error in stead of the Truth, the best of it is You lay out money for that which is not bread; you lose all the labour and cost which you have been at in seeking after it: and if this were all (though it is a great deal to much) it were not so bad; but there is a worse thing in it than so; for he who buys falsehood for Truth, buys a mischief instead of a blessing: and though all errors are not alike poison, yet they are all of them infectious. All lies are of a kin, they are directly opposite to the Truth, and therefore have a natural tendency to subvert and destroy it: To be mistaken in circumstantials, is not so deadly as for a man to be so in substantials; to err in the superstructure, is not so dangerous as to do it in the foundation: but still, every lie believed, carries a man so far away from God, who is ⟨p. 97⟩Truth it self; and not only so, but it also exposeth men woefully unto more; as a man that is out of his way, is more like to get further from it, than to return again, so long as he persuades himself that he is right. A man cannot love an error, but he must consequently hate the contrary truth, and that is of it self a most woeful thing; but that which is far worse is, it is the ready way to be left to fall further, yea, till there be no recovery: awful is that saying of the Apostle, 2 Thess. 2. 19, 20, 21. Because they received not the love of the Truth, that they might be saved: and for that cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the Truth. There are some errors (though all are bad) which if they were stood at, and men made no farther progress, we might have much charity for many that hold them, but the great unhappiness is, that they have proved to be the postern, at which, such as have made an eminent profession for a while, have gone back to the most damnable Apostasy; and to have at length altogether lost so much as any footsteps or marks of their former Religion: and this also saith that there cannot be too great caution used by men against ⟨p. 98⟩their being seduced, since it hazards their utter ruin.

4. Thus to be deceived will prove a very pernitious thing. If you buy up error in stead of the Truth, the best of it is You lay out money for that which is not bread; you lose all the labour and cost which you have been at in seeking after it: and if this were all (though it is a great deal to much) it were not so bad; but there is a worse thing in it than so; for he who buyes falshood for Truth, buys a mischief instead of a blessing: and though all errors are not alike poyson, yet they are all of them infectious. All lies are of a kin, they are directly opposite to the Truth, and therefore have a natural tendency to subvert and destroy it: To be mistaken in circumstantials, is not so deadly as for a man to be so in substantials; to erre in the superstructure, is not so dangerous as to do it in the foundation: but still, every ly believed, carries a man so far away from God, who is