Knowing that he that is such is subverted
Or overturned and demolished; he is like an edifice, that is not
only decaying, and falling, but is entirely everted, and pulled
down; so that there is no hopes of a restoration or recovery; he
is in a desperate condition, having opposed the person, or
office, or sacrifice of Christ; having either trodden the Son of
God underfoot, or counted his blood common, or done despite unto
the spirit of grace; in either of which cases there is no more
sacrifice for sin:
and sinneth;
not practically, but doctrinally, and wilfully after he has
received the knowledge of the truth; by denying the truth he
received, in which he continues, notwithstanding the evidence of
the word of God is against him; and; notwithstanding the
arguments taken from it by the ministers of the Gospel, to
convince him; and notwithstanding the admonitions of the church
to recover him out of the snare of the devil:
being condemned of himself;
not that an heretic is one that is convinced in his own
conscience that he is in an error, and that that is a truth which
he opposes; and yet he obstinately persists in the one, and
continues to set himself against the other; for then, none but an
hypocrite, that conceals his true sentiment, can be an heretic;
nor can any man be known to be one unless he accuses himself;
since no man can know the heart of another; and it would be
impracticable in a church to deal with heretics, or reject and
excommunicate them: but either the meaning is, that he is such an
one, who by his own practice has condemned himself; for whereas
he has separated himself not only from the faith of the church,
but from the church itself; by so doing he practically condemns
himself, or judges himself unworthy of the communion of the
church, and so justifies the church in their rejection and
exclusion of him: or rather, an heretic is one who having
professed Christianity, and received the Scriptures as the only
rule of faith and practice, and still professes to abide by the
same, and that all doctrine is to be tried by them, and to be
approved or condemned as that agrees or disagrees with them,
stands condemned by those Scriptures, which he himself allows to
be the rule of decision and determination; and so may be said to
be self-condemned.