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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	law_n	punishment_n	sin_n	9,072	5	5.3449	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26947	A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part sheweth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholick Church is not united in any meerly humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a church ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1659 (1659)	Wing B1295; ESTC R19360	404,289	516

Albaspinaeus before cited saith he knows not whether ever any one was kept away in his age 5. The Protestants hold that men are not to be let alone in scandalous sin but admonished privately and then openly before the Church and if yet they Repent not and Reform not to be cast out and not to be absolved or re-admitted without a Publick Confession and Penitence answerable to the sin And this wicked people hate at the very heart and will not endure But the Papists have got a device to please them by Auricular secret Confession to a Priest where if he will but confess and sin and sin and confess again he may have a pardon of course without any open shame or true Reformation If we durst but imitate the Papists in this one particular we should do much to please the people that are now exasperated for I find that almost any of them will confess in secret that they have sinned that will not endure the open shame 6. The Protestants hold that every sin deserveth death and that every breach of the Law is such a sin though God will not inflict the Punishment on them that have a pardon But the Papists tell us of a multitude of sins that are but venial that is sins that deserve pardon and yet deserve not Hell and are indeed no sins but analogically so called And they make those to be such venial sins which Protestants account abominably gross as some lying some swearing in common talk some drunkenness some fornication and the like are with them but venial sins which are properly no sins And yet here also they are by the ears among themselves some saying that venial sins are properly sins and most denying it Yea all sins that are not deliberated on are with them but venial sins So that if they will but sufficiently brutifie themselves by suspending the exercise of reason and will swear curse murder without deliberation they are then free from sin and danger And how easie and pleasing is this to the ungodly Those are but Evangelical Counsails with the Papists that are the Precepts or Laws of Christ to the Protestants 7. The Protestants teach men that it is their duty to seek the understanding of the holy Scripture and to meditate in it day and night but the Papists do forbid the Common people to read it in a language which they understand and save them all that labour that Protestants put them on Nothing can win the people more then cherishing them thus in sloth and ignorance 8. The Protestants say that a man cannot be justified or saved without an actual faith in Christ or being the Infant of a believer Dedicated to Christ and that this faith must extend to all things that are Essential to Christianity But what the Papists say of the Justification and Salvation of Infidels if they believe in the Pope you heard in their own words in the last Detection A comfortable doctrine to the unbelieving world to whom God hath spoken no such Comfort We confess that those that never had the Gospel are under the Law of nature or works and that the penalty of this is such as God can in some cases dispense with or else we could not be saved by Christ and so that all Pagans are not under the Peremptory undispensable threatning of the Gospel against final Privative unbelievers But yet though God may pardon some of these he hath made them no promise that he will and therefore they can have no positive hope grounded on a promise nor can any man say that God will save any of them or that he will not it being certain that they are under the condemnation of the Law which God can dispense with in wayes of security to his Justice and Ends but uncertain whether he will or not and therefore is to be left among his unrevealed things The true believer is under a certain promise of salvation The unbeliever that hath had the Gospel or might have had it and would not is under the Gospel sentence of damnation which is certain and irreversible if he die in that Condition The negative unbeliever that never had or could have the Gospel is under the Condemning sentence of the Law of works or nature that is his sin Deserveth eternal death but this sentence is not peremptory and indispensable but yet it is such as God will not dispense with rashly but on terms that may secure his Ends and Justice This is the true mean between extreams in this weighty point 9. The Protestants say that all our best works are imperfect and the sin that adhereth to them deserves Gods wrath according to the Law of works though he pardon it by the Law of Grace and that when we have done all we are unprofitable servants and properly Merit nothing of God for the worth of our works or in Commutative Justice But the Papists take those very works to Merit heaven ex Condigno and for here they are by the ears again say some of them by the Proportion of the work and in Commutative Justice which the Protestants say deserve damnation for their sinful imperfections and therefore need a pardon through the blood of Christ Yea they take these works to be perfect and the man to be perfect and say that by such works as these they may Merit for others as well as for themselves And how easie and pleasing is this to proud corrupted Nature 10. The Protestants think that no Faith Justifieth but that which is accompanyed with unfeigned Love and Resolution for Obedience But the Papists make Faith that 's separated from Charity and joyned with Attrition to be sufficient for admission to the Sacrament which shall be instead of Love or Contrition and so shall put away all sin 11. The Protestants knowing that God is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and truth do teach people a spiritual way of worship which Carnal men are undisposed to and unacquainted with But the Papists do accommodate them by a multitude of Ceremonies Images and a Pompous histrionical kind of worship which is easie and pleasant to flesh and blood To have an Image before them and Copes and Ornaments and abundance of formalities and to drop so many Beads and be saved for saying over so many Ave Maries or such like words what an easie kind of Religion is this and how agreeable to flesh and blood How much easier is it to say over their offices then to Love God above all and desire after Communion with him in the spirit and to delight in him and to pray in Faith and heavenly fervour 12. Protestants tell men of Hell-fire as the remediless punishment of those sins which Papists say deserve but a Purgatory and they have hopes of coming out of Purgatory but there 's none of coming out of Hell 13. Protestants tell them of no hope of ease or pardon of sin after this life if it be not pardoned here But Papists tell

that know them to be of Divine Revelation we easily grant you that But that is not because the Things themselves are simply necessary to Salvation but because a Belief of Gods veracity and the Truth of all that he Revealeth in general is of necessity and he that Believeth that God is True verax cannot chuse but believe all to be True which he knows God revealeth He that thinketh God to be a Lyar in one word doth not believe his veracity and so hath no Divine faith at all And therefore you need not fear lest any one should be guilty of not believing that which they know is the word of God but those that take God to be a Lyar and that is those that take him not to be God and so are Atheists But still the thing of Absolute necessity is but first to believe in General that God is true in all his word secondly and to believe the truth of the essential points of Christianity in particular embracing the Good propounded in them Now its true that secondarily all known Truths are of necessity to be believed because else our General belief of Gods veracity is not sincere But yet we must say that antecedently even to that person these superadded truths were not of Necessity to his Salvation to be believed because they were not of such Necessity to be Known and if they had not been known you would say your selves there had not been such Necessity of Believing them But if you go further and say that all that were obliged to know them or that had opportunity or the Revelation if the truth and yet did not and thereupon deny them culpably are in a state of death I deny that and shall prove it false It s true that a wilfull refusing the Light because men love darkness rather then light is a certain sign of a graceless wretch But every culpable ignorance and unbelief is not Damning ignorance or unbelief 1. Otherwise no man should be saved For no man is void of culpable ignorance and consequently of culpable unbelief Had we never been wanting in the use of means there 's no man but might have known more then he doth Is there any one of you that dare refuse to ask God forgiveness of your ignorance unbelief or the negligence that is the culpable cause of them or that dare say you need no pardon of them 2. If you plead for venial sin how can you deny a venial unbelief upon venial ignorance But then I pray you learn more wit and piety 1. then to say that your venial unbelief or sin is no sin save as Analogically so called or 2. then to say it deserves a pardon or deserves not everlasting punishment But if you will call it venial because being consistent with the true Love of God and habitual Holiness and saving faith the Law of Grace doth pardon it and not condemn men for it thus we would agree with you that there is veniall sin but then you must yield us that there is venial unbelief 3. And we easily prove all this from the Law of God It is the nature of the preceptive part to constitute Duty only and the violation of that is sin But it is the sanction the promise and threatning that Determines of the Reward and Penalty Now it is only the old Law of works that makes the Threatening as large as the prohibition condemning man for every sin but so doth not the Law of Grace The precept still commandeth Perfect obedience and so makes it a duty but the promise maketh not perfect obedience the condition of Salvation but Faith Repentance and sincere Obedience though imperfect The Law of Nature still makes everlasting Death due to every sin But it is such a Due as hath a Remedy at hand provided and offered in the Gospel and is actually remedyed to all true believers So that as it is not every sin that will damn us though damnation be due to it because we have a present Remedy so it is not every culpable ignorance or unbelief that will damn us though it deserve damnation because the Gospel doth not only not damn us for it but pardons it by acquitting us from the condemnation of the Law All this may teach you not only to mend your abominable doctrine about Mortal and veniall sin but also to discern the reason why a man may deny some points of faith that are not of the essence of Christianity and yet not be damned for it because the Law of Grace doth not condemn him for it though he be culpable because the Law of Grace may command further then it peremptorily condemneth in case of disobedience It is the Promise that makes faith the Condition of Life though it be the Precept that makes it a duty Now it saveth not as a performed Duty directly because the precept gives not the Reward but as a performed Condition And therefore unbelief condemneth not effectually as a meer sin directly but as such a sin as is the violation or non-performance of that condition But it is not a belief of every thing that is preceptively de fide which is made the condition of life CHAP. XVII Detect 8. ANother of their Juglings is to extoll the judgement of the Catholick Church as that which must be the ground of faith and the decider of all Controversies And to this end they plead against the sufficiency of Scripture and bend all the force of their arguings and designs as if all their hope lay in this point and as if it were a granted thing that the day is theirs and we are lost if the Catholick Church be admitted to be the Judge Hence it is that they cry out against private faith and opinions and call men to the faith of the Church and perswade the poor people that the Church is for them and we are but branches broken off Well we are content to deal with them at their own weapon and at that one in which they put their trust For our parts we know that the true Catholick Church nor any member of it in sensu Composito cannot err in any of the Essentials of Christianity for then it would cease to be the Church But we have too much reason to Judge that it is not free from error in lesser things But yet for all that in the main cause between the Papists and us we refuse not their judgement Nay we turn this Canon against the Canoneers and easily prove that the Papists cause is utterly lost if the Catholick Church be Judge But is it the Ancient Church or the present Church that must decide the cause Well! It shall be which you will For the most Ancient Church in the Apostles dayes we are altogether of its belief and stand to its decision in all things and if you prove we mistake them in any thing we shall gladly receive instruction and be reclaimed To them we appeal for our Essentials and Integrals And for some

Columbanus the Abbot coming into France that the Scots do nothing differ from the Brittains in their Conversation For Bishop Daganus coming to us refused not only to eat with us but even to eat in the same House where we did eat Usher Epist Hibern 7. p. 18. Our most peaceable Bishop Hall was forct to write a Roma irreconciliabilis While we are thinking of Reconciliation they are about our ears with Plots and violence and with swarms of Rome-bred Sects and are day and night industriously undermining us so that by their continual Alarms I am called off to these defensive wars which here I have undertaken yet still resolving that the Desperateness of the Cure shall not make me run from them into a contrary extream nor be out of the way of Peace nor neglect any necessary means how hopeless soever of success The Work that here I have undertaken is 1. To give you briefly those Grounds on which you must go if you will keep your ground against a Papist 2. To give a few invincible Arguments which the weakest may be able to use to overthrow the principal grounds of the Papists 3. To detect their Frauds and give to the younger sort of Ministers sufficient Directions for the Confutation of all the Papists in the world 4. To propound though in vain such terms of Peace as we can yield to CHAP. II. BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain I must premise this Advice to the Common People 1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues if you be ignorant or of weak capacities your selves Though I shall here shew you that Scripture Church Tradition Reason and Sense are on your side yet experience tels us how the words of Juglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes their taste and other senses An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtile wit and many think that when they cannot answer they must yield though they deny both Sense and Reason by it If any of them secretly entice you desire them to debate the case with some able learned experienced Minister in your hearing It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work you may take that you get by it if you be undone You need the help of Pastors for your souls as well as of Physicians for your Bodies and Lawyers for your Estates or else God would never have set them over you in his Church Let them but come on equal terms and you shall see what Truth can do In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them But alas with ignorant unlearned people what may not such Deceivers do that can perswade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes or taste or feeling but to believe a Priest that Bread is not Bread and Wine is not Wine 2. Yet I would have the weakest to endeavour to understand the reasons of their Profession and to be able to repell Deceivers And to that end I shall here give you first some Directions concerning the cause which you must defend And concerning this Observe these things following 1. Understand what the Religion is that you must hold and maintain It is the antient Christian Religion Do not put every Truth among the Essentials of your Religion Our Religion doth not stand or fall with every Controversie that is raised about it That which was the true Religion in the Apostles days is ours now that which all were baptized into the Profession of and the Churches openly held forth as their Belief Reformation brings us not a new Religion but cleanseth the old from the dross of Popery which by innovation they had brought in A man that cannot confute a Papist may yet be a Christian and so hold fast the true Religion It followeth not that our Religion is questionable or unsafe if some point in Controversie between them and us be questionable or hard The Papists would fain bring you to believe that our Religion must lie upon some of these Controversies but it s no such matter Perhaps you will say That then it is not about Religion that we differ from them I answer yes it is about the Essentials of their Religion but it is but for the preserving the Integrity of ours against the Consequences and additions of theirs They have made them a New Religion which we call Popery and joined this to the Old Religion which we call Christianity Now we stick to the old Religion alone and therefore there is more essential to their Religion then is to ours so that our own Religion even the ancient Christianity is out of Controversie between us The Papists do confess that the Creed the Lords Prayer the ten Commandments are true yea that all the Scripture is the word of God and certainly true so that our Religion is granted us as past dispute And therefore it is only the Papists Religion that is in question between us and not ours If you will make those lower Truths to be of the Essence of your Religion which are not you will give the Papists the advantage which they desire 2. If the Papists call for a Rule or Test of your Religion and ask you where they may find it assign them to the Holy Scriptures and not to any Confessions of Churches further then as they agree with that We know of no Divine Rules and Laws of Faith and Life but the holy Scripture and the hearts of Believers have an imperfect Transcript of them The Confessions of Churches are but part of the Holy Scripture or Collections out of them containing the points of greatest weight And if in phrase or order much more in matter there be any thing humane we make it not our Rule nor are we bound to make it good no more then the Writings of godly men A point is not therefore with us an Article of Faith because our Churches or a Synod put it into a Confession but because it is in the Word of God For a Councils determinations do with us differ but gradually from the Judgement of a single man in this respect And therefore we give them the Scripture only as the full Doctrine of our Faith and the perfect Law of God And those points in it which Life or Death is laid upon and God hath told us we cannot be saved without we take as the Essentials of our Religion and the rest as the Integrals only If they ask Why then we do draw up Confessions of Faith I answer 1. To teach and help the people by gathering to their hands the most necessary points and giving them sometimes an explication of them 2. To let our Accusers see that we misunderstand not the

asserting that Protestants cannot be saved do easily learn to practice this Lesson of the Pope and Council I come now to prove that your Pope and Councill and Faith are false and that others besides you may be in a state of Charity and Salvation For you confess your selves that he that is in a state of Charity is in a state of Salvation 1. If a man may know his own heart then there are others besides Papists that are in Charity and are godly men and so in a state of Salvation But a man may know his own heart therefore c. The Consequence of the Major is plain by inward experience to every godly honest man that knoweth himself If I can know my own heart I must needs say I love God and am not void of sincere Godliness and Honesty And that I may know my own heart I can tell also by experience For to know my own Knowledge and Will is an ordinary certain thing if not by intuition it self And if a man cannot know whether he believe and love God or not then no man can give thanks for it nor make Profession of it nay men cannot converse together if they cannot know their own minds And Bellarmine confesseth that we may have a moral Conjectural certainty that we have true Love and are justified And then I have a moral conjectural certainty at least that Popery is false because I have at least such a certainty that I am not ungodly or unjustified So that look what measure of knowledge or perswasion any Protestant hath that he is truly honest and justified that measure of knowledge must he needs have if he understand himself that Popery is a deceit So that from hence you may gather these four conclusions 1. That all that have any knowledge or perswasion that they are not ungodly unjustified persons themselves and void of the true Love of God are quite out of danger from turning Papists if they understand but what Popery is and if they do not they cannot turn to it but in part 2. That never any honest godly man did turn Papist in the world and this the Papists themselves will justifie For they say by a Pope and general Council that no man can be saved but a Papist and they generally hold that all that have Charity and are justified shall be saved if they so die So that if Popery be true then no man had Charity or true Godliness before he was a Papist and therefore never did one godly man or woman turn Papist And therefore let them take the honour of their wicked seduced Ones What glory is it to them that none ever turned to them but ungodly people 3. And it followeth that the Papists do not so much as desire or invite any godly man to turn to them If you understand their meaning they call you not to turn to them if you are not ungodly persons 4. And hence it follows that every one that turneth Papist doth thereby confess that he was a wicked man before and that he had not the least true love to God that he was not justified but a graceless wretch In a word all you that do but know or hope that you have any saving Grace have an Argument here against Popery which all the Jesuites in the world cannot confute For you know your own hearts better then they And they have no way to turn you to them but by perswading you that you are not what you are and that you know not what you know So that plainly this is your Argument I know or I have good perswasions that I am not utterly void of Charity or saving Grace therefore I know or have the same perswasions that Popery is false which determineth that none have Charity or saving Grace but Papists 2. But I proceed to a further proof of the Minor A man may have a very strong Conjecture that many others that are no Papists have saving Grace though he had no perswasion that he hath such Grace himself And consequently he must have as strong a conjecture that Popery is false What abundance of holy heavenly persons have we known of all ranks among us Such as have lived in dayly breathings after God spending no small part of their lives upon their knees and in the serious and reverent attendance upon God in holy worship meditating day and night upon his Law hating all known sin and delighting in holiness and longing for perfection and living in constant Temperance and Chastity abhorring the very appearance of evill and making conscience of an idle word or thought devoting their lives and labors and all they have to God giving all their Estates some of them to pious and charitable uses except what is necessary for their dayly bread even mean cloathing and food taming their bodies and bringing them into subjection and denying themselves and mortifying the flesh and contemning all the Honors or Riches of the world resolving to suffer death it self as many of their Brethren have done from the Papists rather then sin wilfully against God and their consciences in a word living to God and longing to be with him and manifesting these longings to the very death grieving more at any time if they have but lost the sense and perswasions of the love of God then if they had lost all the world and would give a thousand worlds if they had them for more of the Love of God in their souls and fuller assurance of his Love and Communion with him As far as words and groans and tears and the very drift of a mans life and the expending of all that he hath can help us to know another mans heart so far do we know all this by others that have lived among us And may we not conjecture and be strongly perswaded that these or some of these or some one of these was a holy justified person And now Reader if ever thou be tempted to be a Papist I will tell thee what a task thou hast Look on one side on the Lives of holy men among us such as was Mr. Dodd Mr. Paul Bayn Mr. William Fenner Mr. Arthur Hildersham Mr. Robert Bolton Mr. Greenham Mr. Hooker Dr. Sibbs Dr. Preston Dr. Stoughton Mr. Perkins with many hundreds more Besides blessed Bradford Glover Sanders Hooper and the rest that laid down their lives in the flames in testimony against Popery besides all the thousands that in other Nations have dyed by the Papists hands because they durst not sin against God and besides all the Learned holy Divines of other Nations and the millions of Godly Protestants there as also look upon all the godly that are now living men or women that live in most earnest seeking after God and serving him look on those about you enquire of others read the writings of holy Divines and then remember you cannot turn Papist till you have concluded that all these are damned and are utterly void of saving Grace and the Love