Selected quad for the lemma: sin_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sin_n	mortal_a	nature_n	venial_a	6,243	5	12.3225	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59894	A short summary of the principal controversies between the Church of England, and the church of Rome being a vindication of several Protestant doctrines, in answer to a late pamphlet intituled, Protestancy destitute of Scripture-proofs.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1687 (1687)	Wing S3365; ESTC R22233	88,436	166

Shrine of any other powerful Saints to give all our Estates for saying Masses for the Dead to adore Reliques and Images to kiss the Pavement of such a Church or some Cross drawn on it to say over some particular Prayers so many times a day or to pray before such a particular Altar and such like things as by the liberality of Popes have so many thousand years Indulgence for a reward are indeed works of Supererogation because God has not commanded them but I doubt are no Christian excellencies Such things as these make Men Saints and enrich the Church with Merits and much good may do them with it X. Every Soul as soon as expired is conveyed to Heaven or Hell. In Answer to this I told him that the Scripture gives us no account of any other places of rewards and punishments in the other World but Heaven and Hell. And that this proposition that every Soul as soon as expired is conveyed to Heaven or Hell is only an Inference from this Doctrine that we know of no other place they should go to after death the Scripture having not told us of any other That our Church though She rejects Purgatory yet has not determined against an intermediate State between Death and Judgment Though Christ's Parable of Dives and Lazarus and S. Paul's desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ look fairly towards proving that good Men go to Heaven and bad Men directly to Hell when they die He takes notice only of this last passage of Dives and Lazarus and S. Paul and says that this would prove something if three Souls be All or All Souls expire in either Dives ' s fitness for Hell or Lazarus ' s and S. Paul ' s for Heaven But he should have taken the whole proof together that there is no mention made in Scripture of any other place of rewards or punishments in the next World but Heaven and Hell and that whereever we have any account of the state of Men after Death we either hear of them in Heaven or Hell. As Dives when he died was immediately tormented in Hell and Lazarus was conveyed into Abraham's bosom and S. Paul expected when he died to go immediately to Heaven and to be with Christ but we read of no Man who went to Purgatory when he died and what other proof can we have of this but that Heaven is promised to good Men and Hell threatned against bad Men and we have some examples of both recorded in Scripture unless we expect the Scripture should give us a compleat Catalogue of all who were saved or damned in those days As for Mens fitness for Heaven or for Hell when they die I know not well what he means by it For Men may be fit as he calls it for Hell who are not as wicked as Dives and we all have reason to hope that those may be fit for Heaven who are not so holy as St. Paul was Though there are different degrees of Vice and Vertue which may qualifie Men for different degrees of rewards and punishments yet as we read in Scripture but of two states in the other World Heaven and Hell so we read but of two distinctions of Men in this World the good and the bad to whom these promises or threatnings belong Now every Man when he dies must be one of these either a penitent or an impenitent sinner for the Scripture knows no medium between them If he be a penitent sinner by the gracious terms of the Gospel he has a right to pardon of sin and eternal life and why is not that Man fit for Heaven who has a Covenant-right to it and what should detain him in Purgatory who has an immediate right to Heaven if he be an impenitent sinner Hell is his portion and he must have it But after all this is no controversie between us and the Church of Rome whether every Soul as soon as expired is conveyed to Heaven or Hell but whether those who shall finally be saved must suffer the pains of Purgatory in the other World before they shall be received into Heaven Our Author has a mind to confound these two and seems to think it proof enough that there is a Purgatory if there be a middle state between death and judgment which is neither Heaven nor Hell and possibly those who do not understand this Controversie may be deceived with such pretences and therefore it will be convenient briefly to state this matter There have been I confess very different opinions among some of the Fathers about the state of Souls departed both before and since the Resurrection of Christ from the dead as you shall hear more presently and there may be very different opinions about it still and I believe will be among thoughtful and inquisitive Men and no great hurt done neither while they are not made Articles of Faith nor the foundation of some new and unscriptural worship But that our People may not be imposed on with sham-proofs which are nothing to the purpose as it is plain this Author intended to do in this Article it will be necessary plainly to represent the Doctrine of the Church of Rome concerning Purgatory that they may know what proofs to demand of it Now the Council of Trent determines no more than that there is a Purgatory and that the Souls which are detained there are helpt by the suffrages of the faithful but principally by the most acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar and commands the Bishops diligently to take care that the wholesome Doctrine of Purgatory delivered by the holy Fathers and Councils be believed held taught and preached to Christ's faithful People The Fathers of this Council were very careful not to determine what Purgatory is what the punishments of it are where the place of it is but refer us to former Fathers and Councils for it and therefore among the rest I suppose they mean the Council of Florence where this purgation is expresly affirmed to be by fire and to be a state of punishment Cardinal Bellarmine who wrote since the Council of Trent understood Fathers and Councils and the sense of the Roman Church as well as any Man and therefore I shall briefly shew what he thought of this matter That Bellarmine did believe that Souls departed were purged with fire is abundantly evident from what he discourses on 1 Cor. 3. and from those testimonies of the Fathers which he abuses to this purpose But for what end these punishments serve is as considerable as Purgatory fire it self and they Bellarmine tells us are to expiate venial sins or such mortal sins whose guilt is pardoned but not the temporal punishment due to them For according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome there are some venial sins which in their own nature do not deserve eternal but only temporal punishments and as for mortal sins when the guilt of them is pardoned by the Sacrament of Penance by

Confession and the Absolution of the Priest yet there remains a temporal punishment to be undergone by the penitent either in this World or in Purgatory So that if Men die under any venial sins or mortal sins whose guilt is remitted which they have not made compleat satisfaction for in this World they must bear the temporal punishments of these sins in Purgatory and therefore as very good Men who have neither any venial nor mortal sins to satisfie for go directly to Heaven when they die and bad Men who are under the guilt of mortal sins go directly to Hell so those who are indifferently good i. e. who have only venial sins or the temporal punishment of mortal sins to make satisfaction for what is wanting of a compleat satisfaction for these sins while they lived must be made up in Purgatory For we must not think that this fire of Purgatory is for the purging or reforming sinners that they may ascend more pure and refined into Heaven but only and meerly to bear that Temporal punishment which is due to sin For the Cardinal industriously proves That the Souls in Purgatory can neither merit nor sin that they are perfect in Charity and consequently in all other Graces and come no more perfect out of Purgatory than they went in but when they have paid the uttermost Farthing have undergone all that Temporal punishment which is due to their sins then they shall be released and received into Heaven But because this is a very uncomfortable Doctrine That Men must lie many Hundred or Thousand Years in Purgatory which differs from the torments of Hell only in the continuance of them for Purgatory is as hot as Hell but one is Temporal and the other Eternal which is a very terrible consideration that we must be tormented for many Hundred Years though not for ever therefore they tell us that the Souls in Purgatory may be relieved by the Prayers and Alms of the living and by the Sacrifice of the Mass and principally by Indulgences which the Pope dispenses and applies to particular Persons out of the Treasury of the Church which consists of the Merits of supererogating Saints This short account I have given of the Doctrine of Purgatory not that I intend to spend time to confute it now to show how groundless it is how injurious to the Goodness of God and to the Merits of Christ how contrary to the Sense of the Primitive Church and of most if not all Christian Churches at this day excepting the Church of Rome but to let our People see what kind of proofs they must demand for Purgatory which alone will be sufficient to secure them from the attacques of their wittiest Adversaries As to show this particularly First to prove a middle state between Death and Judgment which is neither Heaven nor Hell does not prove a Popish Purgatory Who ever is acquainted with the Writings of the Fathers of the first four Ages must confess that this was a received Opinion among them that no Man excepting Christ himself was received into Heaven till the day of Judgment I shall not multiply Quotations to this purpose which the Learned know where to find Irenaeus and Tertullian prove this from the example of Christ to which we must be conformed For Christ himself did not ascend into Heaven till after his Resurrection but as his Body rested in the Grave so his Soul went into the place of Souls departed and when he arose again then he ascended into Heaven And thus we must do also When we die our Souls shall live in those places which God has prepared for separate Souls and there they must remain till the Resurrection and when we have re-assumed our Bodies we shall be admitted into the highest Heavens whither Christ is ascended This they affirm in opposition to those Gnostick Hereticks who taught that as soon as they died they should ascend above the Heavens to him whom they called the Father which Irenaeus says is to exceed the order of promoting just Men as being ignorant of the regular gradations and advances to Incorruption And this he attributes to their denial of the Resurrection of the Flesh for it is no wonder that such Men should not know the order of the Resurrection who deny the Resurrection From whence it is plain that in Irenaeus his Opinion no Man who believed the Resurrection of the Flesh could reasonably think that the Souls of good Men did ascend into Heaven till Soul and Body was united at the Resurrection since Christ himself did not ascend into Heaven till after his Resurrection though he grants that some did believe so who were Orthodox in the Article of the Resurrection though herein they agreed with Hereticks That this was the Opinion of Iustin Martyr Lactantius Hilary S. Ambrose S. Chrysostom and divers others is at large proved by the learned Mr. Dally and vindicated from the exceptions of Cardinal Bellarmine But how this differs from a Popish Purgatory will appear in these three particulars First That they affirmed this of all separate Souls That none were received into Heaven before the Resurrection Patriarchs Prophets Apostles whatever they were they continue in the state of separate Souls and have not their full reward and are not received into the highest Heavens till the Resurrection of their Bodies This is the Lex Mortuorum as Irenaeus calls it the Law of the Dead the ordo promotionis justorum the order in which just Men shall be advanced For as S. Chrysostom affirms If the Body do not rise the Soul remains uncrowned out of that state of blessedness which is in Heaven Whereas the Popish Purgatory is not for all Souls but only for those who have not made a perfect satisfaction for their sins in this life and therefore must indure the temporal punishments due to them in Purgatory Whereas the Souls of all Children who die after Baptism before the commission of any actual sin and the Souls of good Men who have completed their satisfaction in this life according to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome ascend directly into Heaven which is expresly denied by these Ancient Fathers and was taught by few in those days but by such Hereticks as denied the Resurrection of the Body Secondly According to these Ancient Fathers this separate state wherein the Souls of good Men continue till the Resurrection is not a state of punishment as the Popish Purgatory is but of Joy and Felicity They were divided indeed about the place where the Souls of good Men lived till the Resurrection some placed it in secret receptacles within the Earth and therefore called it the Infernum as Tertullian did others thought it was above the Earth in some Celestial Region but below the highest Heavens but they all agreed that it was not Heaven and that it was not a state of punishment but of rest and happiness and therefore they called it Abraham's