Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	power_n	sin_n	soul_n	8,033	5	5.1401	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30394	The mystery of iniquity unvailed in a discourse wherein is held forth the opposition of the doctrine, worship, and practices of the Roman Church to the nature, designs and characters of the Christian faith / by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1673 (1673)	Wing B5838; ESTC R35459	60,599	169

THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY UNVAILED IN A DISCOURSE Wherein is held forth The Opposition of the Doctrine Worship and Practices of the Roman Church TO The Nature Designs and Characters of the Christian Faith By GILBERT BURNET Chaplain in Ordinary to His MAJESTY LONDON Printed by W. Godbid and are to be sold by M. Pitt at the Angel over against the Little North Door of St. Pauls 1673. THE Mystery of Iniquity UNVAILED HE that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow is an observation which holdeth true of no part of knowledge so much as of the knowledge of Mankind It is some relief to him who knows nothing of foreign wickedness to hope there are other Nations wherein Virtue is honoured and Religion is in esteem which allays his regrates when he sees Vice and Impiety abound in his Country but if by travelling or reading he enlarge his Horizon and know Mankind better his regrates will grow when he finds the whole World lyes in wickedness It argues a cruel and in humane temper to delight in beholding scenes of horrour and misery and certainly none who either honours his Maker and Redeemer or is a lover of Mankind can without sorrow look on and see the indignities done to God and his Son Christ and see the Enemy of the humane race triumphing over the World with such absolute authority and so much enraged cruelty and that not only in the dark Regions of it which the Sun of Righteousness hath not yet visited with his Gospel but that where Christ should have a Throne Satans Seat should also be is justly surprising and astonishing That almost all Christendom hath fallen from their first love is what none whose eyes are open can deny and it is little less evident that the greater part of it hath made shipwrack and erred from the Faith and that the Church whose Faith was once spoken of throughout the World is now become the Mother of the Fornications of the Earth It is true the Scriptures warned us of a falling away of a mystery of iniquity of an Antichrist to be revealed in due time and of a Babylonish Rome which should bewitch the Earth with her Sorceries but should be varnished over with fair colours and specious pretences so that mystery should be on her forehead Being then warned of so much danger to the Christian Religion it is a necessary though painful enquiry to see if this Antichrist be yet come or if we must look for another But because some have stretched the Notion of Antichristianism so far that things harmless and innocent come within its compass and others have so much contracted it that they might scape free we are to take a view of the Nature and Designs of the Christian Religion and to conclude from that what must be Antichristianism It being not only a bare contradiction to some branches or parts of the Gospel for then every errour or heresie were Antichristianism but a design and entire complex of such opinions and practices as are contradictory to and subversive of the power and life of Christianity And if we find any such thing to be broached and received in the World we may with the least hazard of uncharitableness pronounce it to be Antichristianism and if it be acted or animated by any Head he may be concluded Antichrist The Designs of the Christian Religion run betwixt these four heads The first is to give us right apprehensions of the Nature and Attributes of God that we may conceive aright of him and adore him sutably to his Nature and according to his Will and thereby be admitted to a free converse with him and become partakers of the Divine Nature How little of God was known by the twinklings of Natures Light even to the better and wiser part of the World Tullies Books of the Nature of the Gods do sufficiently inform us But if the Philosophers were so much to seek in it what shall we expect from the Vulgar And indeed Homers Iliads and Ovids Metamorphosis were wretched Systems of Divinity and yet such and such like were the sentiments of the Nations about the Godhead It is true the seed of Abraham were delivered from that darkness and knew God by his Name Iehovah and had Laws and Ordinances given them by God yet their Worship was so carnal and did so strike upon and affect the senses that we will be soon satisfied it was not so sublime and free as became the Spirituality of the Divine Nature and so was only fitted for the Infancy of the People of God but by Christ the mystery that lay hid from ages and generations was revealed for he declared the Father and revealed him and taught us to renounce Idols and vanities and to serve the living God commanding all men every where to repent the times of ignorance wherein God winked at Idolatry being then over That so Mankind being Gods Off-spring might feel after him and not worship him any more in the blinding grossness of Idolatry but in a pure spiritual manner and whereas the Law came by Moses by Christ came Grace and Truth Grace in opposition to the severity of the Law and Truth as opposed not to Falshood but to the Figures and Shadows of Moses his Law and therefore God is to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth in opposition to the Carnal Ordinances and Typical Rites which shadowed out the Truth in the Law The second branch of the Christian Religion is to hold forth the method of mans reconciliation with his Maker For the sense of all mankind agrees in this that sin is an indignity done to God which deserveth punishment and cannot be expiated by any service man can do It was therefore necessary there should be a mean found for incouraging sinners to imbrace a Religious life of which all had reason to despair without pardon were offered to penitents upon the change of their lives Now this was that the Heathen could not dream how to procure It is true the Iews had sacrifices for expiating of sin but these could never quiet their consciences since the common sense of mankind tells that the blood of beasts cannot appease God The mystery therefore of the reconciliation of sinners to God is the proper character of the Christian-Religion which holds forth to us how the eternal Word was made man and endured unspeakable sufferings for the sins of men even to the death of the Cross and was raised up by God and carried to Heaven where he is vested with all power and authority and by the merits of his death hath a right to grant pardon give grace and confer eternal life on all that believe on him by whom God conveys all things to us and through whom we are to offer up all our worship to God he being the Mediator betwixt God and man The third head of the Christian-Religion is to teach the perfectest clearest and most divine rules for advancing of the souls of men to the highest perfection of their natures

these Practices Another Art not very remote fro●… this for detracting from the value 〈◊〉 Christs death and the confidence w●… should have in it is the Priestly Absolution wherein after the Sinner hath gone over his sins without any sign of remorse ●…nd told them to the Priest he enjoins a ●…enance the doing whereof is called a satisfaction and the Vulgar do really ●…magine that the undergoing the penance doth fully serve for appeasing Gods wrath against sin but as soon as the Priest hath enjoined his penance without waiting that they obey it he lays his hand on their head and says I absolve thee and after this they judge themselves fully cleansed of sin and that they may receive the Sacrament had their former life been never so bad It is true the practice of the Priests in their slight penances and hasted absolutions and promiscuous allowing of all the holy Sacrament is condemned by many in that Church who complain of these Abuses with much honest zeal but these complaints are so little regarded that their Writings are condemned and the Corruption continues unreformed Now what can take off more from the value of the Death of Christ than to believe it i●… the power of a Priest to absolve from sin All the power of the Church being either Ministerially to declare the absolution offered in the Gospel upon the conditions in it or to absolve from the scandal which any publick trespass hath given It was counted blasphemy in Christ when h●… said Thy sins are forgiven thee Mar. 2. 5 10. of which he cleared himself from the power was committed to the Son of Man on earth to forgive sins which shews it to be blasphemy in all others to pretend to absolve from sin it being an invasion of his Prerogative To this I might add the scorn put on Religion by many of the penances enjoyned for sin such as the abstaining from flesh for so many days the pattering over so many Prayers the repeating the penitential Psalms the going to such Churches and such Altars with other ridiculous Observances like these which cannot but kill the Vitals of true Religion and lead away Souls from these earnest Applications to Jesus Christ for pardon and renovation And who can have any sad apprehensions of sin who is taught such an easie way of escaping punishment I confess in this as in all other parts of Religion the Masters of that Church have so contrived things that their Doctrines might according to the fable of the Manna taste pleasant in every mans relish for if any be grave and melancholy then silence solitude and retirement are enjoyned them if their tempers be more fiery and sullen severe corporal mortifications and disciplines are tasked on them such as cruel and perhaps publick whipping or other unspeakable austerities with which the Lives of the modern Saints are full but if one be of a more jolly temper who desires Heaven at an easie rate then some trifling penance shall serve turn These are a few of their Arts for diverting Souls from flying unto Jesus as to the sure and safe refuge from the Fathers wrath in whom only we can find sanctuary and whom the Father hath sent into the World to seek and save lost Sinners Now whether the Priest in the injunction of easie penances and giving absolution do not violate th●… Prerogative of Jesus and insensibly de●… bauch Souls from that affectionate an●… grateful Duty they owe their Redeemer into their trifling methods and appointments I refer it to all who know them Another opposition made to the Priestly Office of Christ is their conceit o●… the sacrifice of the Mass which they believe is a formal expiation of sins both for the living and dead who are in Purgatory Christ once offered himself up for taking away sin which he did b●… that one Sacrifice and this is by the Apostle stated amongst the differences whic●… are betwixt the Sacrifices of Moses whic●… were to be daily and yearly renewed and r●… peated whereas Christ offered one Sacrifi●… in the end of the World so that there w●… no need of more Heb. 10. 1 2 3 12 14 Now to imagine that the Priests goin●… through the Office of the Mass and h●… receiving the consecrated Elements 〈◊〉 have a virtue to expiate the sins 〈◊〉 others especially of the dead is a thing so contrary to the most common impressions that it will puzzle a mans belief to think any can credit it And yet this is one of the Master-pieces of the Religion of that Church It is true in a right sense that Sacrament may be called a Sacrifice as it was by the Ancients either in general as Prayers Praises and Alms-deeds are called so in Scripture or as it is a Commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ but to imagine the Action hath an expiatory force in it is a visible derogation from the value of Christs Death and all the value is in any outward Sacramental Action can only be derived into the Soul of the Receiver but it is absurd to think one mans action can be derived to another and it clearly appears from the institution of the Lords Supper that its end was the joint communicating of Believers which is perverted manifestly by the practice of these Priests who communicate in name of the Spectatours Finally what a derogation is it from the Priestly Office of Christ one branch whereof is his Intercession to join Saint●… or Angels with him in that work nay and prefer them to him Which will be found too true if the Office of the Virgin and the Prayers offered to her be compared with those offered to her Son Did Christ by the Merits of his Passion acquire this honour at so dear a rate and shall we for whom he suffered rob him so injuriously and sacrilegiously of his honour and bestow it on these who are our fellow-servants But having touched this in the former part of my Discourse I advance my Enquiry to the opposition given the Regal Office of Christ And first how contrary is it to the glory wherewith even his humane Nature and Body is refulgent in Heaven to believe that five words muttered out by the Priest shall have the virtue to produce his real and glorified Body instead of the annihilated Elements of Bread and Wine and yet under their accidents and appearances This is a new and strange kind of humiliation if true by which he who is now cloathed with Glory must be every day exposed under so thick so dark and so contemptible a covering as are the resemblances of Bread and Wine What low thoughts of his Person must it breed in such minds as are capable of believing this contrivance Again he as King of his Church hath given her Laws and Precepts to whose obedience she is obliged to which none can add without they acknowledge another Head and whose obligation none can untye or dispense with for Christs dominion consists in this authority he hath over