Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	deny_v	live_v	ungodliness_n	2,303	5	11.2667	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A71330	A preservative against popery. [Parts 1-2.] being some plain directions to unlearned Protestants, how to dispute with Romish priests, the first part / by Will. Sherlock ...	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1688 (1688)	Wing S3326; Wing S3342; ESTC R14776	130,980	192

sinners while they continue in their sins if they believe the judicial authority of the Priest to forgive sins for they every day absolve men who do not forsake their sins and if their absolution be good God must forgive them too and thus the holiness and inflexible justice of God loses its force upon good Catholicks to reform their lives and therefore were there no other arguments against it it is not likely that the judicial absolution of the Priest as it is taught and practised in the Church of Rome should be a Gospel-Doctrine 3. The Death and Sacrifice of Christ is another Gospel-Motive to Holiness of Life not only because he has now bought us with his own Blood and therefore we must no longer live unto our selves but to him who died for us but because his Blood is the Blood of the Covenant and the efficacy of his Sacrifice extends no farther than the Gospel-Covenant which teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world That is no man can be saved by the Blood of Christ but those who obey the Gospel which obliges all men who hope to be saved by Christ to the practise of an universal righteousness This the Church of Rome seems very sensible of that none but sincere Penitents and truly good men can be saved by the Sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross which gives no hope to Sinners who do not repent of their sins and amend their lives and therefore she has found out a great many other ways of expiating Sin which give more comfort to Sinners The Sacrifice of the Mass has a distinct vertue and merit from the Sacrifice upon the Cross it is a propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead to expiate especially the sins of those for whom it is particularly offered and thus those sins which are not expiated by the Death of Christ upon the Cross are expiated by the Sacrifice of the Mass and that by the bear opus operatum by the offering this Sacrifice of the Mass itself without any good motion in the person for whom it is offered and thus the Sacrifice of the Mass destroys the vertue of Christ's Sacrifice upon the Cross to oblige men to holiness of life for though none but sincere and reformed Penitents are pardoned by the Sacrifice of the Cross the Sacrifice of the Mass will expiate the sins of unreformed Sinners and then there is no need to reform our lives Thus I am sure all men understand it or they would never put their confidence in the Mass-Sacrifice for if it does no more for us than Christ's Death upon the Cross it might be spared for it gives no new comforts to impenitent Sinners They are very sensible that holiness of life is necessary to intitle us to the Pardon and Forgiveness purchased by the Death of Christ but then the Sacrifice of the Mass Humane Penances and Satisfactions and Merits and Indulgences seem on purpose contrived to supply the place of Holiness of Life for no body can imagine else what they are good for Christ has by his Death upon the Cross made a perfect Atonement for the sins of all true penitent and reformed Sinners and therefore a true Penitent who according to the terms of the Gospel denies all ungodliness and worldly lusts and lives soberly righteously and godly in this present world needs no Expiation but the Death of Christ Will they deny this by no means They grant that all our sins are done away in Baptism meerly by the application of Christ's Death and Passion to us and therefore the Death of Christ is a complete and perfect satisfaction for all Sin or else Baptism which derives its whole vertue from the Death of Christ could not wash away all sin What use can there be then of the new propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass of humane Satisfactions and Merits and Indulgences Truly none but this that when our sins are expiated by the Death of Christ and the pardon of all our sins applied to us in Baptism the Gospel exacts a holy life from us and therefore men forfeit the baptismal Pardon of their sins by the Bloud of Christ unless they either live very holy lives or make some other satisfaction for their not doing so And for this purpose the Sacrifice of the Mass humane Penances and Satisfactions serve It will not be unuseful nor unpleasant to draw a short Scheme of this whole matter which will explain this great Mystery and make it intelligible which now appears to be nothing but nonsence and confusion Christ then has made a perfect Atonement and Expiation for sin this is applied to us at Baptism wherein all our sins are forgiven and while we continue in this state of Grace we cannot be eternally damned though we may be punished for our sins both in this World and Purgatory But every mortal sin puts us out of the state of Grace which we were in by Baptism and till we be restored to the state of Grace again we must be eternally damned because we have no right to the Sacrifice and Expiation of Christ's Death the only way in the Church of Rome to restore us to this state of Grace is by the Sacrament of Penance and the Absolution of the Priest which restores us to the same state which Baptism at first put us into and therefore very well deserves to be thought a Sacrament And thus we recover our interest in the Merits of Christ's Death and therefore cannot be eternally damned for our sins but still it is our duty to live well for the Death of Christ does not excuse us from Holiness of Life which is the condition of the Gospel and therefore if we are in a state of Grace and thereby secured from eternal damnation yet if we live in sin we must be punished for it unless we can find some other expiation for sin than the Death of Christ upon the Cross which still leaves us under the obligations of a holy life and therefore cannot make such an Expiation for sin as shall serve instead of a holy life Now here comes in the Sacrifice of the Mas Humane Penance Satisfactions Indulgencies For the sacrifice of the Mass as I observed before does not serve the same end that the Sacrifice of the Cross does the Sacrifice of the Mass is a propitiatory Sacrifice for the living and the dead But what sins is it a Propitiation for For such sins for which men are to satisfie themselves that is for all sins the eternal punishment of which is remitted for the Sacrifice of the Cross. This is evident from their making the Sacrifice of the Mass a propitiatory Sacrifice for the dead that is for the Souls in Purgatory who suffer there the temporal punishments of sin when the eternal punishment is forgiven the Souls in Hell are capable of no Expiation and therefore an expiatory Sacrifice for the dead can be only for

out Idolatrous Worship but by excusing it by making that to be no Idolatry in a Christian who knows God which was Idolatry in a Heathen who did not know him for if as some say none can be guilty of Idolatry who acknowledge one Supream Being then the Heathens when once they were instructed in the knowledge of the one true God might have Worshipped all their Country Gods which they did before without being guilty of Idolatry which is as if I should say that man is a Rebel who through mistake and ignorance owns any man for his Prince who is not his Prince but he is no Rebel who knows his lawful Prince and pays Homage to another whom he knows not to be his Prince And therefore our Saviour confines all Religious Worship to God alone Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve It is his Answer to the Devil when he tempted him to fall down and worship him but he gives such an answer as excludes all Creatures not only bad but good Spirits from any share in Religious Worship Our Saviour does not deny to worship him meerly because he was the Devil tho' that a man may do without the guilt of Idolatry who knows him to be the Devil if those men are in the right who allow nothing to be Idolatry but to worship some Being for the Supreme God who is not Supreme for then you may worship the Devil without the guilt of Idolatry if you do not believe him to be the Supreme God but our Saviour's reason for not worshipping him was because we must Worship none but God. Which is as good a reason against the worship of the most glorious Angel as of the Devil himself Nay our Saviour denies to worship him though the Devil made no terms with him about the kind or degrees of Worship He does not require him to offer Sacrifice to him which is the only Act of Worship the Church of Rome appropriates to the Supreme God but only to bow down before him as an expression of Religious Devotion he did not demand that degree of Worship which the Church of Rome calls Latria and appropriates to the Supreme God nay he confesses that he was not the Supreme God for he does not pretend to dispose of the Kingdoms of the World in his own right but says they were given to him and he had power to give them to whom he pleased in which he acknowledges that he had a Superiour and therefore could not in the same breath desire to be owned and worshipped as the Supreme But our Saviour denies to give him this inferiour degree of Worship and thereby teaches us that no degree of Religious Worship must be given to any Being but the Supreme God. And because Mankind were very apt to worship inferiour Daemons as believing them to have the care of this lower World and that it was in their power to do great good to them to answer their Prayers and to mediate for them with the Superiour Deities or with the Supreme God if they believed one Supreme which appears to be a received Notion among them to prevent this kind of Idolatry God advances his own Son to be the universal Mediator and the Supreme and Soveraign Lord of the World that all Mankind should make their Addresses and Applications to him and offer up their Prayers only in his Name that in him they should find acceptance and in no other name Which was the most effectual way to put an end to the Worship of all inferiour Deities and Creature-Patrons and Advocates for when we are assured that no other Being can Mediate for us with effect and power but only Christ it is natural to Worship no other Mediator but him who being the eternal Son of God may be worshipped without danger of Idolatry Thus St. Paul tells us That tho' the Heathen world had Gods many and Lords many yet to us there is but one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ One Supreme and Soveraign Deity and one Mediator between God and men Now this being so apparently one end of Christ's coming into the World to Suppress the Idolatry of Creature-Worship and to confine all Religious worship to one Supreme Being in opposition to the many Gods of the Heathens and to teach us to make our Applications to this one God by one Mediator in opposition to the worship of inferiour Deities can any man imagine that the worship of Saints and Angels and the Virgin Mary can be any part of the Christian Religion For how dear soever they are to God they are but his Creatures and if Soveraign Princes will not receive their greatest Favourites into their Throne much less will God. If God under the Gospel dispensation has taken care to prevent the Worship of inferiour Beings by appointing his own Son to be our only Mediator and Advocate can we imagine that he ever intended we should offer up our Prayers to other Mediators If he had liked the Mediation of Creatures would he have given his own Son to be our Priest and our Mediator Whatever fair pretences may be made for this it apparently contradicts the Gospel-dispensation for if we must own but one God he alone must be worshipped if we have but one Mediator we must offer up our Prayers only in his Name and Intercession The Religious Worship of Creatures is Idolatry and if God intended to root Idolatry out of the World by the Gospel of Christ he could never intend to set up the Worship of Saints and the Virgin Mary which tho' it have not all the aggravations of Pagan Idolatry yet is Creature-worship Thus we know how fond the Heathens were of material Images and Pictures to represent their Gods as visibly present with them and to receive Religious Worship in their stead not that they did believe their Gods to be Corporeal or that their Corporeal Images were proper Likenesses of their Gods in which a late Author places the whole of Idolatry which I confess was agreeable enough to his design to find out such a Notion of Idolatry as it may be no Persons in the World were ever guilty of and then he might excuse whom he pleased from Idolatry But the Heathens were not such great Sots as this account makes them as the Learned Founder of all Anti-Catholick and Anti-christian Principles as this Author is pleased to stile a very great man whose Name will be Venerable to future Ages has abundantly proved But they wanted some material Representations of their Gods in which they might as it were see them present and offer up their Petitions to them and court them with some visible and sensible Honours Now to cure this Idolatry tho' God would not allow any Images or Pictures for Worship yet by the Law of Moses he appoints them to build an House or Temple for himself where he would dwell among them and place the Symbols of his Presence there was