Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	day_n	indulgence_n	remission_n	3,323	5	11.2930	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79784	Fiat lux or, a general conduct to a right understanding in the great combustions and broils about religion here in England. Betwixt Papist and Protestant, Presbyterian & independent to the end that moderation and quietnes may at length hapily ensue after so various tumults in the kingdom. / By Mr. JVC. a friend to men of all religions.	J. V. C. (John Vincent Canes), d. 1672.	1661 (1661)	Wing C429; Thomason E2266_1; ESTC R210152	178,951	376

themselves have thought it an addition of honour to sit in that solemn and thrice venerable assembly though in a separated place Shall we I say mock and revile this sacred person Let not such a thing be said of us any more let it not be told in Gath or the streets of Askalon that we use any such rude behaviour lest the very uncircumcised Philistins condemn our vast inexcusable incivility Nor yet let us either envy or malign the respect which Pappists give to Him from whom they received their Christianity and by whose vigilance and care it hath been kept inviolate amongst them from its first ingres into the land even to this very day Shall our eye be therefor evil becaus theirs is good §. 30. Popery IN the more flourishing doctrins of the Catholick Church I could be largely copious but I have said as much as may suffice my intended purpos which was so far to excuse even that religion also that if all do not embrace yet none may persecute and hate it Wherefor I do purposly omit to speak of other more plausible parts of Popery viz. 1. The obligation which all who beleev in Christ have to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing 2. The possibility of keeping Gods commandements with the assistance of divine grace 3. The liberty and freedom of human will either to comply with grace or resist it 4. The sacred councel and excellency of divine vowes 5. The right and obligation to restitution when any one shall have wronged his neighbour either in his soul or body fame goods or estate 6. The power and autority of of the Church in her tradition and decisions 7. The fasts and abstinence at certain times from som kind of meats which is all the religion we read Adam was injoined to observ in Paradise that we may therby be more apt to acknowledg Gods gifts and goodnes at those times we enjoy other good things of his bounty and at other times them and to sanctify our spirit for divine retirements 8. The divine ordination and unspeakable comfort and benefit of Confession 9. The caelibate and single life of the clergy who thereby freed from much solicitude of this world though not without som troublesom struggling against unseemly lusts of youth may approach the altar like angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage 10. The doctrin of indulgencies which be nothing els but a releas from som temporal penalties due to sin after repentance and remission which the Church does generally bestow by commutation as when for example an indulgence of such penalties for so many daies or years is granted unto such as upon the time appointed shall repent and confess fast pray give almes and communicate for the Churches preservation and concord of Christian princes which is a doctrin as rational and well grounded as any in Christianity though we in England will not understand it 11. Finally the ecclesiastick hierarchy and supremacy whereby catholick religion like a flourishing fair tree spreads his boughs in several kingdoms of the earth even from sea to sea so united all of it in all its parts and connexed together that ther is no catholick upon earth but is under som priest all priests subordinated to their byshops these to their metropolitan all metropolitans to the Patriarchs and Patriarchs united in the Papal cone every leaf cleavs to som twig every twig to som branch every branch to som bough every bough to the bole and the bole to the root And several other such like points of the Roman religion which coming all together from once hand have stood unchangeable in all ages the same and depending all upon the verity of the first revealer have an equality of truth though not of weight These and several others with the other half dozen more offensive doctrins I have cleared and explicated our reformers cut off at one blow when they taught us that it would suffice to salvation only to beleev in Christ without any more ado and that other things were popish superstitions whereby we became a strang kind of servants that beleev their maister but heed not either to fulfil his orders or do his commands For they told us and we have hitherto beleeved it That ther be no such things as good works pleasing to God but all be as menstruous rags filthy odious and damnable in the sight of heaven That if it were otherwis yet are they not in our power That with the assistance of any grace to be had Gods commandements are impossible to be kept and it would be therefor vain to attempt it especially sith we have in us no strength of free will to act any thing but evil That it must needs be foolishnes to vow unto God sith we can do nothing we ought to do and no less foolish if we have vowed to pay it That what wrong soever we do to another God is merciful and restitution fruitles both becaus one sin cannot make satisfaction for another nor any thing clear us but the blood of Christ alone unto which if we should concurr our selves by doing good works or satisfying for ill we should be half our own redeemers That the Church which presumes to teach other things than we allow is a fals mistres distracted and knows not what she sayes That to fast from sin is fast enough without depriving our stomachs of good flesh when we have a mind to it and yet becaus we sin in every thing we do neither is that fast possible to be kept That confession is needless How can man forgive sins That our clergy find themselvs men and not angells and love women as well as others and first revolted from popery principally for their sakes preferring a good wife before the whore of Babylon and the altars that kept them asunder are thrown down the honest pulpit standing now solitary speaks for them and brings them happily together That of indulgencies there is no need since obligation to penalties is shaken off long ago by our own autority without any indulgence from another That papal supremacy is the only obstacle to our liberty and therefor it must be abolished And let popery hang together as close as it can it shall go hard but we will find a battery to shake it So much indeed hath sophistry and continual clamour against popery and state punishments lying ever most heavily upon the professours of it prevailed over our judgments that now ther is no goodnes no worth no truth in it no none at all it is all naught all and every part of it naught nothing but naughtines superstition and vanity All that I will say for the present is this If popery be a bad religion more is the pitty for the professors of it suffer as much for it as might well serv for a good one Millions of people for the beleef they have in it and the love they bear its holy counsels and

three things I could not tell what to think of First that both in the Churches of the city and university and countrey whatever the text might be still pope and popery was brought in Secondly that never any good thing was said of it but all evil Thirdly that contradictory opinions and practises were generally put upon that way and yet our ministers who could not but see it did not so much as regard it at all but equally flourished all of them in whatever they said against it without the dislike or check of any or so much as the exception of him who had spoke of it aforetime even contrary things in the same place If Popery thought I be so bad let it passe what a Gods name should we talk so much of a thing that is past and gone and buried with my grandfather and no man sees or is like to be troubled with it any more How coms this nois so frequent in all places about a poor busines as if it were don by design of defamation Are our ministers afraid we should turn Papists who know not but by their report what Papist means nor can no more understand what they be than we can tell what complexion Julius Caesar was of We know this way is every where spoken against and much evil is said of it but that has been don afore now to the best things and a general decrying defamation seems rather a conspiracy of interest than any deserved reproach And to what purpos since it is dead and gon should we speak of it at all much less evil and so much evil too We ought to speak well of the dead at least not ill for dead men do not bite and ghosts afright none but babes and to speak ill of another as it argues a fear we have they may be able to hurt us and a desire by our defamation to disable them from so doing so doth it fill our hearts with rancour which if the party be dead is wholy useles But it is a strang thing that popery or any religion upon earth should be such a fardell of trumpery sin and villany without any good at all in it Such a thing one would think were impossible to be found And it is yet more strang that noble persons should voluntarily lose their estates honours dignities in court and esteem among their neighbours who were it not for that obstacle would dearly love them and somtimes their lives too for a thing hath no goodnes at all in it The old Pagan religion contained in it many good things but this Popery is a hous of Judas all stench and rottennes for our ministers and the word of God must be beleeved And yet again let Popery be what it will if it signifie any one religion it is the strangest thing in the world it should be evil in both extreams that be contradictory and exclude one another Ministers speak ill of it that may easily pass and the highest ill I cannot gainsay it yea and nothing but ill they may have a reason for it But contradictory ills and so many of them and so tangible apparent ones 't is a wonder of wonders that one and the same faith and profession should be able to exhibite And yet I have never heard let a minister say what he will against popery that the byshop ever calls him to an account for it as it is don in other things even of less importance insomuch that Prynnes book against stage-plaies is now questioned Against Popery and only Popery all goes currant No man if he speak but ill enough can speak amiss of it and only here two evil extreams are not opposite One preacher saies that the Papists worship stocks and stones to which they are superstitiously addicted night and day another that all their religion is to worship a piece of bread One that their consciences are so daily tortured and afrighted with the fire of purgatory and doomsday and pennances for their sins that they never have quiet life another that they carry their top and top gallant so high that they will go to heaven without Christ and get eternall glory of themselves without any god-a mercy to him One that murders adulteries lies blasphemies and all sin make up the bulk of popery another that papists are so wholly given to good works that they place in them excessive confidence One that the Pope himself and all his papists fall down to pictures and commit idolatry with them another that the Pope is so far from falling down to any thing that he exalts himself above all that is called God and is very Antichrist himself He that hates and would destroy my person will not surely worship my picture One that they wallow without any conscience or fear of God in their excesses another that they nothing but torture their carcasses with disciplines and fastings as if men could not go to heaven in a whole skin One that in respect of chastity they villifie matrimony which the apostle calls honourable another that by a superesteem of their own they make matrimony a sacrament thereby equalling it with baptisme One that the ignorance of papist priests is so gross and palpable that generally they can hardly read latine another that the little ones which profess the gospel had by their simplicity prevailed over all the vast learning of the subtil popish clergy One that popery began in the twelfth age of the Church another in the ninth another in the sixt another in the fourth another in the very primitive times of the aposstles I cannot now call to minde the numberles contradictories I observed put upon the papists Nor could I ever determine of my grand Sires religion by such reports Wherefor after a year or two I put my self to travel all alone and solitary to make my long intended discovery Humansy speaking it was rashly done of me and I several times thought so when I met afterwards with troubles I did not then foresee that were even ready to sink me For in all my sufferings which were many and frequent I could not but think of my many dear friends whose weeping tears in that my humour I had neglected I beleev to this honour that somthing went before me to provide my entertainment and provoke people againstime for coming to spy the land for as loon as I set my foot on the other shore and ever since afflictions have still accompanied me Nor yet was I ever so much offended with any mans abuse as therefor to think ill of the religion which I knew him to transgress It is not to be expected that all the men of a kingdom should equally imbibe the religion of the place It may well be pardoned if only one in four follow pure sensual nature as they received it from the womb even amongst the best professions Religion is superadded to nature as salt and is several wayes imbibed by men Som drink it in as water and with a little