REV. 12:15 "And the Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a Floud after the woman, that he might cause her to bee carried away of the Floud."
Heresies are the greatest and highest of dangers to the Church of Christ: you will imagine that the sword, and prison, and exile, and dispersion, and spoiling, and torments, and tortures, and the most cruell deaths which befell the Church in the Primitive times, were extreamly dangerous, and so they were; but yet not half so dangerous as the flouds of heresies and corrupt opinions are. The Church ever gained by the former, grew more in purity, in unity, in prayer, in zeal and courage: But did it ever get so by heresies and erroneous doctrines? Unlesse by accident, and after much striving, and physicking for recovery.
I will goe no farther then the Text it self, to set out unto you the exceeding mischief & danger which comes by heresies and erroneous doctrines. They are in the Text styled a floud cast out of the mouth of the Serpent: Now seriously consider,
1. They are a corrupting and defiling floud; Any floud is so, it presently defiles the pure waters, spoils the grounds, leaves filth and slime and mud behind it: But surely a floud that comes out of the mouth of a poisonous Serpent is so: And there are 4 precious things, which wicked errors or heresies doe poison, corrupt, and defile.
The first is, the souls of men: And is there a more noble and choice thing in man, or belonging to man then his soul? Our soul is of more value then all the world: But heresies and wicked doctrines corrupt the soul, nay many souls: It was the heavy Indictment against Babylon, that in her were found slaves and souls of men, Rev. 18:13. Heretiques in one place are called Merchants, (making merchandise of you with fained words, 2 Pet. 2:3.) In merchandizing there is something bought for a certain price: In this merchandise, the souls of people are bought for fained words, for base metall, onely for a corrupt errour: Every hereticall opinion buyes a soul, or stabs a soul. It stabs the soul of him that maintains it, and still it trades on to murder more souls: It lifts off the soul from the foundation upon which the salvation of souls is built. What will become of an house whose foundation is removed? And what will become of a soul whose bottome for salvation is denyed and rejected? Damnable heresies make us to deny the Lord that bought us, 2 Pet. 2:1. Oh what is this! what will follow upon this, when a poor sinner comes to deny the Lord Iesus who bought him!
Obadiah Sedgwick, The Nature and Danger of Heresies, (London: M. F. for Samuel Gellibrand, 1647), 17–18.
REV. 12:15 "And the Serpent cast out of his mouth water as a Floud after the woman, that he might cause her to bee carried away of the Floud."
Heresies are the greatest and highest of dangers to the Church of Christ: you will imagine that the sword, and prison, and exile, and dispersion, and spoiling, and torments, and tortures, and the most cruell deaths which befell the Church in the Primitive times, were extreamly dangerous, and so they were; but yet not half so dangerous as the flouds of heresies and corrupt opinions are. The Church ever gained by the former, grew more in purity, in unity, in prayer, in zeal and courage: But did it ever get so by heresies and erroneous doctrines? Unlesse by accident, and after much striving, and physicking for recovery.
I will goe no farther then the Text it self, to set out unto you the exceeding mischief & danger which comes by heresies and erroneous doctrines. They are in the Text styled a floud cast out of the mouth of the Serpent: Now seriously consider,
1. They are a corrupting and defiling floud; Any floud is so, it presently defiles the pure waters, spoils the grounds, leaves filth and slime and mud behind it: But surely a floud that comes out of the mouth of a poisonous Serpent is so: And there are 4 precious things, which wicked errors or heresies doe poison, corrupt, and defile.
The first is, the souls of men: And is there a more noble and choice thing in man, or belonging to man then his soul? Our soul is of more value then all the world: But heresies and wicked doctrines corrupt the soul, nay many souls: It was the heavy Indictment against Babylon, that in her were found slaves and souls of men, Rev. 18:13. Heretiques in one place are called Merchants, (making merchandise of you with fained words, 2 Pet. 2:3.) In merchandizing there is something bought for a certain price: In this merchandise, the souls of people are bought for fained words, for base metall, onely for a corrupt errour: Every hereticall opinion buyes a soul, or stabs a soul. It stabs the soul of him that maintains it, and still it trades on to murder more souls: It lifts off the soul from the foundation upon which the salvation of souls is built. What will become of an house whose foundation is removed? And what will become of a soul whose bottome for salvation is denyed and rejected? Damnable heresies make us to deny the Lord that bought us, 2 Pet. 2:1. Oh what is this! what will follow upon this, when a poor sinner comes to deny the Lord Iesus who bought him!
Obadiah Sedgwick, The Nature and Danger of Heresies, (London: M. F. for Samuel Gellibrand, 1647), 17–18.