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fundamental (if I may so speak) than any article of our creed; for all those articles are fundamental only in order to this; that is, they are necessary to be believed, because they have an influence upon our practices; and without the belief of them we cannot reasonably live a Christian life. They therefore that are ignorant of or disbelieve the necessity of a holy life, are ignorant of or deny that article, upon the supposition of which the necessity of all other articles of our religion depends. He indeed that thinks himself not obliged by the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, as expounded by our Saviour Christ, may at the same time as reasonably throw away his whole creed. For if it be not necessary to live according to the precepts of Christ, it cannot be necessary to believe any proposition or doctrine in Christianity. If there be no danger in an ill life, there can be no danger in a wrong belief. And yet, I say, how many are there among those on whom the name of Christ is called, and who glory in that name, who seem not yet convinced or persuaded of this great and manifest article! It is a sad truth, (but a truth it is,) that the very principles of Christianity are perverted and corrupted by the professed disciples of that religion, yea (which is yet worse) by the very doctors and teachers of it too. And here

Iliacos intra muros peccatur, et extra.

Protestants and papists are both to blame. To begin with ourselves first. Among us protestants there have been many (too too many) that have taught for pure, yea the purest Gospel, such doctrines as these: "That the faith whereby we are justified, is nothing else but a recumbence or reliance upon

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Christ, or (which is a worse definition) that it is only a firm belief and persuasion, that our sins are already pardoned, and we already justified; "and consequently, that the justification spoken of "in Scripture is nothing else but the sense and knowledge of our justification past, decreed from eternity that Christ obeyed the law, and suffered "in our persons, and that his righteousness is formally ours, and consequently that there is no "necessity of any righteousness in ourselves in order "to our salvation: that the moral law" (though Christ himself hath taken the pains to explain and press it on us) "concerns not us Christians, as a law "obliging us sub periculo animæ, under penalty of "damnation;' but is only a contrivance to frighten "sinners, to convince them of their sins, and to shew "them their impotence and weakness: that we are "to work, not for life, but from life, as they phrase "it; and consequently, that all our good works are

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(after a sort) works of supererogation, to which no "necessity obligeth us, but only gratitude freely in"clines us." The men that taught these sad propositions were called antinomians; whose name indeed is now every where odious and decried; but the doctrines themselves have taken such deep root in the hearts of the people, (who greedily entertained them, as grateful and pleasing to their carnal appetites,) that multitudes still perish upon the confidence of the same principles. And there being some obscurer places of holy writ, that seem to sound this way, and to favour the forementioned errors, they pertinaciously adhere to them; though there be five hundred texts of Scripture that in the most express and plainest terms teach the contrary. Yet

(God be thanked) I know of no protestant church of any denomination whatsoever, that openly avoucheth any of those doctrines. I am sure, our church of England is far from doing so they are the errors or heresies, rather of certain, private, and unlicensed doctors, who took occasion to sow their tares, not when our watchmen slept, but when they were by a tyrannical power silenced, and driven from their charges in the time of usurpation. And the same men (when they are now not only not licensed, but themselves forbidden to preach) are the only men that still maintain and strenuously propagate those pernicious doctrines in their schismatical assemblies.

But having done this justice to ourselves, let us next call the papists to account. The church of Rome, I say, the very church of Rome, teacheth and avoweth such doctrine, as evidently and utterly destroys the necessity of a holy life, and encourageth men to hope they shall reap in mercy, though they sow not to themselves in righteousness. Such is that doctrine of theirs, "That a man by attrition, or “such a sorrow for sin as ariseth only from fear, " and is void of charity and the love of God above "all things, with the help of the sacrament of penance, that is, of confession to and absolution "from a priest, may obtain the pardon of his sins, justification, and eternal life." This dangerous proposition the council of Trent doth plainly enough assert, in the fourth chapter of the fourteenth session, concerning Contrition. But in the Roman catechism (which was allowed and published by the order of the Trent Fathers and pope Pius the Fifth, and is therefore as much their doctrine as any thing decreed by them in their sessions) it is so manifestly

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delivered that there is no room for contradiction, in the fifth chapter of the second part of the Sacrament of Penance. [page 223, and the following, according to the edition of Antwerp, 1606.] The sum of their doctrine there is plainly this, "That true contrition, "joined with the love of God above all things, is "indeed a thing very desirable, and most accept"able to God, even without the sacrament of penance: but because very few have this true con"trition, that therefore God out of his infinite mercy "and indulgence, hath provided for the common "salvation of men in a more easy way." They are the very words of the catechism, wherein the Fathers seem to have forgotten the words of our Saviour, Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it, Matt. vii. 14. And that therefore he hath appointed the sacrament of penance, as a help or crutch to a lame and defective repentance, as a supply to their contrition and sorrow for sin, wherein the love of God above all things is wanting.

Need I now to shew the danger of this doctrine? It is indeed a doctrine so dangerous, so damnable, that it seems of itself sufficient to unchristian and unchurch any society of men that shall teach and maintain it. It razeth the very foundations of the Gospel: it takes away those two great hinges, upon which (as our Saviour himself tells us) all the Law and Prophets depend and turn, viz. the love of God above all things, and of our neighbours as ourselves, for God's sake. For these, according to this doctrine, are not necessary: the rare device of the sacrament of penance can reconcile men to God without them; and by this expedient, men that never loved God

with all their hearts, in all their days on earth, may for ever enjoy God in heaven. People may expiate their sins at this rate of a servile attrition, toties quoties, as often as they commit them, and so be saved without ever having loved God above all things in their lives. But the danger of this doctrine will more evidently appear, if we apply it to such as are in agone mortis, at the point of death. Suppose a man to have lived in a course of wickedness for fifty or sixty years, and being now upon his deathbed, to be attrite for his sins, that is, heartily to grieve for them only out of the fear of hell, (and he is a bold man indeed that will not in earnest fear hell, when it gapes upon him, and is ready to devour him,) and in that fear to purpose amendment of life, if God restore him, and to have a hope of pardon; (and in so comfortable a church as the Roman, who hath any reason to despair?) this man, according to the doctrine of the council of Trent, though he cannot be saved without the sacrament of penance, yet with it he may.

If he hath but breath enough to tell the priest the sad story of his vicious life, and beg absolution, he can do wonders for him, more than God himself ever promised: he can by pronouncing only a few words over him, presently translate him from death to life ; and make him, that was all his life before a child of the Devil, in one moment the son of God, and an heir of salvation.

Let not therefore the church of Rome boast any more of the strictness and severity of her doctrine; and that she especially presseth good works, and the necessity of a holy life; when it is apparent, that by such loose propositions as these, she utterly destroys

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