Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	distinction_n	mortal_a	venial_a	4,934	5	12.1153	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40073	The design of Christianity, or, A plain demonstration and improvement of this proposition viz. that the enduing men with inward real righteousness or true holiness was the ultimate end of our Saviour's coming into the world and is the great intendment of his blessed Gospel / by Edward Fowler ...	Fowler, Edward, 1632-1714.	1671 (1671)	Wing F1698; ESTC R35681	136,795	332

revenge our selves upon you for we are so great a part of the Empire that by but departing from you we should utterly destroy it and affright you with your own Solitude and leave you more enemies than loyal Subjects And so far were they from making use of the advantages they had to deliver themselves by the way of violence That as not long after he saith to them they prayed for the Emperours and those in Authority under them for peace and a quiet state of affairs among them and as some where he adds very ready also to give them assistance against their enemies The story of the Thebaean Legion is wonderful to astonishment it consisted of just six thousand six hundred sixty and six men and all Christian. These when Maximianus Caesar went about to compel them to offer Sacrifice to the heathenish Gods at a place called Octodurum they fled to another called Agaunum when he sent after them to require them to obey that his command they drew up together into a Body and with one voice professed that they could not do it Maximianus thereupon commanded that every tenth man of them should be slain upon the place which accordingly was immediately done without the least resistance Mauritius the General of this Legion thus addressed himself to the Souldiers Quàm timui ne quisquam quod Armatis facile est c. How fearful was I lest any of you being in Arms and therefore no hard matter to do it should attempt the defending of your selves and by that means prevent a happy and most glorious death And so goes on most excellently to encourage them rather to submit to death than resist their Emperour When every tenth man was slain the Emperour repeated his command to the survivers and they all thus answered Milites quidem Caesar tui sumus c. We are it is confessed thy Souldiers O Caesar for the defence of the Roman Republique nor have we ever proved either traytors or cowards but this command of thine we cannot obey For know we are all Christians yet all our bodies shall be subject to thee c. At last Exuperius their Ensign concludes thus Non nos adversum Te Imperator armavit ipsa quae fortissima est in periculis desperatio c. Despair it self hath not armed us against thee O Emperour behold we have all our weapons in our hands and yet resist not because we had rather die innocent than live nocent And thereupon they were all put to the slaughter not a man of them once offering to defend himself You may find the Relation of this more at large taken out of Fucherius by Grotius and set down in his Book De jure Belli Pacis Origen also tells Celsus that he or any of his party were able to shew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing of Sedition that the Christians were ever guilty of And yet what Tertullian said of the Roman Empire in General this Father elsewhere in the same book speaketh of Greece and Barbary viz. That the Gospel had subdued all that Country and the greater part of this and had brought over to Godliness souls innumerable Thus you see how far the Primitive Christians were from the tumultuous fiery and boisterous Spirit that Christendom above all other parts of the world hath been since infested with And thus we have shewn that there was once a time God grant that the like may be again when the success of the Christian Religion in conquering mens lusts and rectifying their Natures was greatly answerable to the efficacy that it hath for this purpose And so we pass to the second Inference CHAP. XVII The Second Inference That we understand from what hath been said of the Design of Christianity how fearfully it is abused by those that call themselves the Roman Catholiques That the Church of Rome hath by several of her Doctrines enervated all the Precepts and the Motives to Holiness contained in the Gospel That she hath rendered the Means therein prescribed for the attainment thereof extremely ineffectual That she hath also as greatly corrupted them Diverse Instances of the Papists Idolatry Their Image worship one Instance Their praying to Saints departed another Other Impieties accompanying it mentioned Some account of their Blasphemies particularly in their Prayers to the Blessed Virgin Their worshipping the Hoast the third and Grossest instance of their Idolatry Some other of their Wicked and most Anti-christian Doctrines SEcondly By what hath been said concerning the Design of the Christian Religion we easily understand how fearfully it is abused by those that call themselves the Roman Catholiques Nor need we any other Argument to prove Popery to be nothing less than Christianity besides this viz. That the Grand Design of this is to make us holy and also aimeth at the raising of us to the most Elevated pitch of Holiness and is admirably contrived for that purpose But the Religion of the Papists as such doth most apparently tend to carry on a Design that is diametrically opposite thereunto To serve a most carnal and corrupt interest to give men security in a way of sinning and pretendeth to teach them a way to do at one and the same time effectually the most contrary and inconsistent works That is to deprave their natures and save their Souls and even in gratifying their wicked inclinations to lay a firm and safe foundation for eternal happiness So that if this as they pretend it alone is be the Christian Religion we must needs ingenuously acknowledge that what we said in the Introduction was by Celsus and Iulian charged upon it is no calumny but an accusation most just and well deserved For as the Church of Rome hath rendred diverse excellent Precepts of Holiness contained in the Gospel very in-effectual by making them Counsels onely not Commands and also not a few of its Prohibitions unnecessary by her Distinction of sins into Mortal and Venial understanding by Venial sins such as for the sake of which no man can deserve to lose the Divine favour and therefore making them really no sins So hath she enervated all the Evangelical Commandments both Positive and Negative and made them sadly insignificant by a multitude of Doctrines that are taught by her most Darling-sons and decreed or allowed by her self That one Popish Doctrine of the Non-necessity of Repentance before the imminent point of Death and that though the Church requireth it upon Holy-days yet no man is bound by the Divine Law to it until that time is of it self without the help of any other sufficient to take away the force of all the holy Precepts of our Saviour and to make them utterly unsuccessful to the Embracers of it And this other goeth beyond that in aptness for this purpose viz. That mere Attrition or sorrow for sin for fear of Damnation if it be accompanied with Confession to the Priest is sufficient for Salvation For as the former maketh a Death-bed-repentance onely necessary