commonly use is this, that their religion is the safer. And they prove it thus: "By our confession, salvation may be had in their church; but their doctors absolutely deny the possibility of salvation in ours; and therefore, by the confession of both parties, they may be safe; but of us there is a great question, for none but ourselves say that we can be saved."* That I may give the reader the true state of, and return a full answer to the question propounded, I will lay down these following propo sitions : many 1. That we have great reason to think, that of the laity in the Romish Church, if not the greatest number of them, do not cordially embrace many of their corruptions in doctrinals, nor the most dangerous of them. 2. That these are commonly tainted with so much of their corruptions, as renders their salvation extremely hazardous. 1 Cor. iii. 12, 15. "If any man build on this foundation, wood, hay, stubble,.... he shall be saved, yet so as by fire.” This phrase [so as by fire] is proverbial, and notes the extreme danger a man is in, and yet escapes. They are not saved with less danger than the seven thousand were among the idolatry of the ten tribes, 1 Kings xix. 18; or the Korites in the tents of Korah their father, Numb. * This objection hath been most solidly confuted by the learned Dr. Tillotson, Dean of Canterbury. N xxvi. 11. It was an extraordinary mercy that preserved the one, and I cannot tell how, rescued the other. 3. That a Protestant, leaving the communion of our church, doth incur a greater guilt, and consequently run a greater hazard than one who was bred up in the communion of the church of Rome, and continues therein by invincible ignorance. For a Protestant is supposed to have sufficient convictions of the errors of the Roman church, or is guilty of wilful ignorance if he hath not. And although we know not what allowance God will make for invincible ignorance, and the impresses of birth and education; yet we are sure, that wilful ignorance, or choosing a worse church before a better, is a damnable sin, and, unrepented of, destroys salvation. 4. When we say, that salvation may be had in the Roman church, it is grounded on the hopes we conceive of their repentance, and not the goodness of their religion. 5. That man who embraces popery in its latitude, that is, the canons of the Tridentine Council, and as they are explicated by many of their greatest doctors, and whose practices exactly correspond therewith, cannot be saved: 1. Because he embraceth damnable errors, as worship, ping of images, and the host in the sacrament. 2. Because a reprobate may do, nay, often doth as much, and more than many of their chiefest doctors have placed among the agenda of that church for the attainment of eternal life. I grant, that damnable errors do no more than damnable practices, as whoredom, drunkenness-actually damn men; when sincere repentance intervenes, this will obtain from God a pardon of the one as well as of the other. But the repentance prescribed by their doctors falls so far short of that required by God in his word, that if a man rest in it, (and I fear too many do,) he adds impenitency to his other crimes, and consequently is excluded from all hopes of salvation. This will appear, if we remark the nature of that repentance which (say they) is sufficient to obtain remission of sin. "In the new law, (saith Layman,) after commission of a mortal sin, true contrition is not necessary to a man who is about to receive the sacrament of penance; but attrition is sufficient, though he know it to be no more. And when it is said, that of attrite, by virtue of the sacrament, a man is made contrite, it is not to be understood as if the act of attrition did pass into an act of contrition; but that the sinner, by attrition with the sacrament of penance, is as well justified as by contrition without it."-Theol. Maral. lib. v. tract. 6, cap. 2. And Filliucius, starting this question, "Whether attrition in the article of death be sufficient with the sacrament, or a man ought to have contrition? Answers, that according to divine jus tice, a man that is attrite with the sacrament, is not obliged to be contrite in the article of death; and he gives this reason,-because the opinion of the sufficiency of attrition with the sacrament is practically certain, according to the Council of Trent."-Quæst. Mor. tom. i. tract. 6. cap. 8. num. 197. And Escobar affirms, that this is the received opinion of their schoolmen and casuists. Theol. Moral. tract. 7. exam. 4. сар. 7. READER, My earnest prayer is, that God would give thee a right understanding in all things that concern religion and thy salvation; and to those of the Romish persuasion, repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth, that they may recover themselves from the snare of the devil. THE END. |