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A59872
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The second part of the preservative against popery shewing how contrary popery is to the true ends of the Christian religion : fitted for the instruction of unlearned Protestants / by William Sherlock ...
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Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.
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1688
(1688)
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Wing S3343; ESTC R35181
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73,416
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99
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them for the only use of them is to excuse men from the necessity of being good But this is most evident in their Doctrine about the Sacrament of Penance that bare Contrition with the Absolution of the Priest puts a man into a state of Salvation I do not lay it upon Attrition which is somewhat less than Contrition though the Council of Trent if I can understand plain words makes that sufficient with the Absolution of the Priest but because some men will unreasonably wrangle about this I shall insist only on what is acknowledged by themselves that Contrition which is only a sorrow for sin if we confess our sins to a Priest and receive absolution puts us into a state of Grace now contrition or sorrow for sin is not a holy life and therefore this Doctrine overthrows the necessity of a holy life because men may be saved by the Sacrament of Penance without it and then I know no necessity there is of mortifying their Lusts for if they sin again it is only repeating the same remedy confessing their sins and being sorry for them and receiving absolution and they are restored to the favour of God and to a state of salvation again Nay some of their Casuists tell us that God has not commanded men to repent but only at the time of death and then contrition with absolution will secure their salvation after a whole life spent in wickedness without any other good action but only sorrow for sin and if men are not bound by the Laws of God so much as to be contrite for their sins till they find themselves dying and uncapable of doing any good all men must grant that a holy life is not necessary to salvation 2. More particularly The love of God in giving his own Son to die for us and the love of Christ in giving himself for us are great Gospel Motives to Obedience and a Holy Life but these can only work upon ingenuous minds who have already in some measure conquered the love of sin for where the love of sin prevails it is too powerful for the love of God but the holiness and purity and inflexible justice of the Divine Nature is a very good argument because it enforces the necessity of a holy life for a holy God cannot be reconciled to wicked Men will not forgive our sins unless we repent of them and reform them which must engage all men who hope for pardon and forgiveness from God to forsake their sins and reform their lives but the force of this Argument is lost in the Church of Rome by the judicial absolution of the Priest for they see daily the Priest does absolve them without forsaking their sins and God must confirm the sentence of his Ministers and therefore they are absolved and need not fear that God will not absolve them when the Priest has which must either destroy all sence of God's essential holiness and purity and perswade them that God can be reconciled to sinners while they continue in their sins or else they must believe that God has given power to his Priests to absolve those whom he could not have absolved himself To be sure it is in vain to tell men that God will not forgive 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
The Second Part OF THE Preservative AGAINST POPERY Shewing how Contrary POPERY is to the True Ends OF THE Christian Religion Fitted for the INSTRUCTION OF Vnlearned PROTESTANTS By WILLIAM SHERLOCK D. D. Master of the Temple The Second Edition LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street M DC LXXXVIII THE Second Part OF THE PRESERVATIVE AGAINST POPERY Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus The Second Part of the Preservative against Popery May 3. 1688. Guil. Needham R. R. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiepisc Cant. Ã Sacr. Domest The Second Part OF THE PRESERVATIVE AGAINST POPERY CHAP. IV. Some Directions relating to particular Controversies THose who would understand the particular Disputes between Us and the Church of Rome must of necessity read such Books as give the true State of the Controversie between us and fairly represent the Arguments on both sides and where such Books are to be met with he may learn from a late Letter Entituled The Present State of the Controversie between the Church of England and the Church of Rome Or an Account of Books written on both sides But my present Design is of another nature to give some plain and easie Marks and Characters of true Gospel-Doctrines whereby a man who has any relish of the true Spirit of Christianity may as certainly know Truth from Error in many cases as the Palate can distinguish Tasts There are some things so proper to the Gospel and so primarily intended in it that they may fitly serve for distinguishing marks of true Evangelical Doctrine I shall name some of the chief and examine some Popish Doctrines by them SECT I. Concerning IDOLATRY 1. ONe principal intention of the Gospel was more perfectly to extirpate all Idolatry 1 John 3.8 For this purpose the Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil That is not only all Sin and Wickedness but the very Kingdom of Darkness that Kingdom the Devil had erected in the World the very Foundation of which was laid in Idolatrous Worship To this purpose Christ has expresly taught us that there is but one God and has more perfectly instructed us in the nature of God 1. Joh. 18. For no man hath seen God at any time but the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father he hath declared him Ignorance was the Mother of Pagan Idolatry because they did not know the true God they Worshipped any thing every thing for a God and therefore the most effectual course to cure Idolatry was to make known the true God to the World for those men are inexcusable who know the true God and Worship any thing else Tho' indeed according to some mens Divinity the knowledge of the true God cures Idolatry not by rooting 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 Supreme 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 Mat. 10. 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 1 Cor. 8.5 6. 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