Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	great_a	mortal_a	venial_a	3,197	5	11.4523	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53665	Animadversions on a treatise intituled Fiat lux, or, A guide in differences of religion, between papist and Protestant, Presbyterian and independent by a Protestant.	Owen, John, 1616-1683.	1662 (1662)	Wing O713; ESTC R22534	169,648	656

souls of those that departed before the resurrection of the Messias did not enter heaven as though that was any thing to his purpose in hand but he is as I said marvellous unsucessful in that attempt also The Parable of Lazarus and the Rich man prove only that Lazarus's soul was in Abraham's bosom that Abraham's bosom was not in Heaven it doth not prove Peter in the second of the Asts proves no more than that the whole person of David body and soul was not ascended into Heaven the not ascending of his soul alone being nothing to his purpose But what he cannot evince by Testimonies we will win by dint of Arguments The Jews saith he could not believe what God had never promised but heavenly bliss was none of the promises of Moses 's Law nor were they ever put in hope of it for any good work that they should do It seems then that which was promised them in Moses's Law was Eternal Life in some place citra coelum or citra culum until the coming of the Messias for this he would fain prove that they believed and that rightly This I confess is a rare notion and I know not whether it be do fide or no but this I am sure that it is the first time that ever I heard of it though I have been a little conversant with some of his great masters But the truth is our Author hath very ill success for the most part when he talks of the Jews as most men have when they talk of what they do not understand Eternal life and everlasting reward the enjoyment of God in bliss was promised no less truly in the old Testament then under the new though less clearly and our Author grants it by confessing that the estate of the Saints in rest extra Coelum to be admitted thither upon the entrance made into it by the Messias was promised to them and believed by them though any such promise made to them or any such belief of them as should give us the specification of the reward they expected he is not able to produce The Promise of Heaven is made clear under the New Testament yet not so he tell us but that in the execution of this promise it is sufficiently insinuated that if any spirit issue out of his body not absolutely purified himself may indeed by the use of such Means of Grace as our Lord instituted be saved yet so as by fire 1 Cor. 3. I think I know well enough what he aims at but the sense of his words I do not so well understand Suppose a spirit so to issue forth as he talks seeing we must not believe that the blood of Jesus purges us from all our sins Who or What is it then that he means by himself Is it the spirit after it is departed Or is it the person before its departure If the latter to what end is the issuing forth of the spirit mentioned And what is here for Purgatory seeing the person is to be saved by the means of grace appointed by Christ If the former as the expression is uncouth so I desire to know Whether Purgatory be an instituted means of Grace or no and Whether it was believed so by Virgil or is by any of the more learned Romanists I think it my duty a little to retain my Reader in this stumbling passage Our Author having a mind to beg some countenance for Purgatory from 1 Cor. 3. and knowing full well that there is not one word spoken there about the spirits of men departed but of their trials in this life was forced to confound that living and dead means of grace and punishment things present and to come that somewhat might seem to look towards Purgatory though he knew not what Nor doth he find any better shelter for his poor Purgatory turned naked out of doors throughout the whole Scripture as injurious to the grace of God the mediation of Christ the tenor of the Covenant of Grace and contrary to express Testimonies in those words of our Saviour Mat. 5. who speaking of sinners dying in an unreconciled condition having made no peace or agreement with God says that being delivered into prison they should not go forth untill they had paid the utmost farthing For as the persons whom he parabolically sets forth are such as die in an absolute estate of enmity with God which kind of persons as I take it Roman-Catholicks do not believe to go to Purgatory so I think it is certain that those enemies of God who are or shall be cast into hell shall not depart untill they have paid the uttermost farthing and that the expression untill doth in Scripture alwayes denote a limitation of time to exspire and the accomplishment afterward of what is denyed before I suppose nay I know he will not say So that their lying in Prison untill they pay the uttermost farthing of their debts which is not Gods way of dealing with them whom he washes and pardons in the bloud of Christ who are not able to pay one farthing of them is their lying there to eternity And so also the sins of which it is said they shall not be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come in one Gospel it s said in another that they shall never be forgiven that is not really forgiven here nor declared or manifested to be forgiven hereafter Besides methinks this should make very little for Purgatory however the words should be interpreted for they are a great aggravation of the sins spoken of as the highest and most mortal that men may contract the guilt of that can be pardoned if they can be pardoned That the remission of such sins may be looked for in Purgatory as yet we are not taught Nay our own Author tells us That mortal sins must be remitted before a man can be admitted into Purgatory so that certainly there is not a more useless text in the Bible to his present purpose then this is though they be all useless enough in all Conscience But here a matter falls across his thoughts that doth not a little trouble him and it is this That St. Paul in his Epistles never makes use of Purgatory directly at least as a topick-place either in his exhortations to virtue or disswasions from vice and I promise you it is a shrewd Objection It cannot but seem strange that St. Paul should make no use of it and his Church make use almost of nothing else Little surely did St. Paul think how many Monasteries and Abbies this Purgatory would found how many Moncks and Fryers it would maintain what revenue it would bring into the Church that he passeth it by so slightly but St. Paul's business was to perswade men to virtue and dehort them from vice And he informs us that there is such a contemperation of heat and cold in Purgatory such an equal ballance between pains and hopes good and evill that it is not very meet to

this matter with him before any competent Judges Tu dic mecum quo pignore How else to end this matter I know not I see not then any Ground my Countrymen have to alter their thoughts concerning the Pope for any thing here tendred unto them by this Author yea I know they have great reason to be confirmed in their former apprehensions concerning him For all that truly honour the Lord Jesus Christ have reason to be moved when they hear another if not preferred before him nor set up in competition with him yet openly invested with many of his Priviledges and Pre●ogatives especially considering that not only the person of Christ but his word also is debased to make way to his exaltation and advancement Thence it is that it is openly averred that were it not for his infallibility we should all this time have been at a loss for truth and unity Of so small esteem with some men is the wisdom of Christ who left his Word with his Church for these ends and his Word its self All is nothing without the Pope If I mistake not in the light and temper of my Countrymen this is not the way to gain their good opinion of him Had our Author kept himself to the general terms of a good Prince an universal Pastor a careful Guide and to general stories of his wisdom ●a●e and circumspection for publick good which discourse makes up what remains of this Paragraph he might perhaps have got some ground on their affection and esteem who know nothing concerning him to the contrary which in England are very few But these Notes above Ela these transcendent Encomiums have qui●e marred his Marker And if there be no medium but men must believe the Pope to be either Christ or Antichrist it is evident which way the general vogue in England will go and that at least until fire and faggot come which blessed be God we are secured from whilest our present Soveraign swayes the Scepter of this Land and hope our posterity may be so under his Off-spring for many Generations CHAP. XXIII Popery SECT 30. OUR Author hopes it seems that by this time he hath brought his Disciples to Popery that is the Title of the last Paragraph to his business not of his Book for that which follows being a parcel of the excellent speech of my Lord Chancellor is about a matter wherein his concernment lies not This is his close and farewell They say there is one who when he goes out of any place leaves a worse favour at his departure then he gave all the time of his abode and he seems here to be imitated The disingenuity of this Paragraph the want of care of truth and of common honesty that appears in it sends forth a worse favour then most of those if not than any or all of them that went before The design of it is to give us a parallel of some Popish and Protestant Doctrines that the beauty of the one may the better be set off by the deformity of the other To this end he hath made no Conscience of mangling defacing and defiling of the latter The Doctrines he mentions he calls the more plausible parts of Popery Such as he hath laboured in his whole discourse to gild and ●rick up with his Rhetorick nor shall I quarrel with him for his doting on them only I cannot but wish it might suffice him to enjoy and proclaim the beauty of his Church without open slandering and defaming of ours This is not handsome civil mannerly nor conscientious A few instances will manifest whether he hath fail'd in this kind or no. The first plausible piece of Popery as he calls it that he presents us in his Antithesis is the Obligation which all have who believe in Christ to attend unto good works and the merit and benefit of so doing in opposition whereunto he sayes Protestants teach that there be no such things as good works pleasing unto God but all be as menstruous raggs filthy odious and damnable in the sight of Heaven That if it were otherwise yet they are not in our power to perform Let other men do what they please or are able for my part if this be a good work to believe that a man conscientiously handles the things of Religion with a Reverence of God and a regard to the account he is to make at the last day who can thus openly calumniate and equivocate I must confess I do not find it in my power to perform it It may be he thinks it no great sin to calumniate and falsly accuse Hereticks or if it be but a venial one Such a one as hath no respect to Heaven or Hell but only Purgatory which hath no great influence on the minds of men to keep them from vice or provoke them to vertue Do Protestants teach There are no such things as good works pleasing to God or that those that believe are not obliged to good works In which of their Confessions do they so say In what publick writing of any of their Churches What one individual Protestant was ever guilty of thinking or venting this folly If our Author had told this story in Rome or Italy he had wronged himself only in point of Morality but telling it in England if I mistake not he is utterly gone also as to reputatiō But yet you 'l say That if there be good works yet it is not in our power to perform them No more will Papists neither that know what they say or are in their right wits That it is so without the help of the grace of God and the Protestant never lived that I know of that denyed them by that help and assistance to be in our power But they say They are all as filthy raggs c. I am glad he will acknowledg Isaiah to be a Protestant whose words they are concerning all our righteousness that he traduceth we shall have him sometime or other denying some of the Prophets or Apostles to be Protestants and yet it is known that they all agreed in their doctrine and Faith Those other Protestants whom he labours principally to asperse will tell him that although God do indispensibly require good works of them that do believe and they by the assistance of his grace do perform constantly those good works which both for the matter and the manner of their perforance are acceptable to him in Jesus Christ according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace and which as the effect of his grace in us shall be eternally rewarded yet that such is the infinite purity and holiness of the great God with whom we have to do in whose sight the Heavens are not pure and who charges his Angels with folly that if he should deal with the best of our works according to the exigence and rigour of his Justice they would appear wanting defective yea silthy in his sight so that our work● have need of acceptation in Christ no less then our persons and they add this to their faith in this matter that they believe that those who deny this know little of God or themselves My pen is dull and the Book that was lent me for a few dayes is called for Ex hoc uno by this instance we may take a measure of al the rest wherein the same ingenuity and conscientious care of offending is observed as in this that is neither the one or other is so The residue of his Discourse is but a commendation of his Religion and the Professors of it whereof I must confess I begin to grow weary having had so much of it and so often repeated and that from one of themselves and that on principles which will not endure the tryal and examination Of this sort is the suffering for their Religion which he extols in them Not what God calls them unto or others impose upon them in any part of the world wherein they are not to be compared with Protestants nor have suffered from all the world for their Papal Religion the hundredth part of what Protestants have suffered from themselves alone for their refusal of it doth he intend but what of their own accord they undergo Not considering that as outward affliction and persecution from the world have been alwayes the constant lot of the true Worshippers of Christ in all Ages so voluntary Self-macerations have attended the wayes of false-worship among all sorts of men from the foundation of the world FINIS