§. II.
Proof 2. Papist Indulgences.Secondly, This will yet more appear in the Matter of Indulgences, where Remission of all Sins, not only past but for Years to come, is annexed to the visiting such and such Churches and Reliques, saying such and such Prayers; so that the Person that so doth is presently cleared from the Guilt of his Sin, and justified and accepted in the Sight of God. As for Example: He that in the great Jubilee will go to Rome, and present himself before the Gate of Peter and Paul, and there receive the Pope’s Blessing; or he that will go a Pilgrimage to James’s Sepulchre in Spain, or to Mary of Loreto, is upon the Performance of those Things promised Forgiveness of Sins. Now if we ask them the Reason how such Things as are not morally good in themselves come to have Virtue? They have no other Answer but because of the Church and Pope’s Authority, who being the great Treasurer of the Magazine of Christ’s Merits, lets them out upon such and such Conditions. Papists Mass, what it is?Thus also the Invention of saying Mass is made a chief Instrument of Justification; for in it they pretend to offer Christ daily to the Father a propitiatory Sacrifice for the Sins of the Living and Dead: So that a Man for Money can procure Christ thus to be offered for him when he pleases; by which Offering he is said to obtain Remission of Sins, and to stand justified in the Sight of God. From all which, and much more of this Nature which might be mentioned, it doth appear, that the Papists place their Justification, not so much in any Work of Holiness really brought forth in them, and real forsaking of Iniquity, as in the mere Performance of some Ceremonies, and a blind Belief which their Teachers have begotten in them, that the Church and the Pope having the absolute Dispensation of the Merits of Christ, have Power to make these Merits effectual for the Remission of Sins, and Justification of such as will perform those Ceremonies. This is the true and real Method of Justification taken by the Generality of the Church of Rome, and highly commended by their publick Preachers, especially the Monks, in their Sermons to the People, of which I myself have been an Ear and an Eye-witness; however some of their modern Writers have laboured to qualify it in their Controversies. Luther and the Protestants opposing the Pope’s Doctrine of Works, fell into the other Extreme, of no good Works necessary to Justification.This Doctrine Luther and the Protestants then had good Reason to deny and oppose; though many of them ran into another Extreme, so as to deny good Works to be necessary to Justification, and to preach up not only Remission of Sins, but Justification by Faith alone, without all Works, however good. So that Men do not obtain their Justification according as they are inwardly sanctified and renewed, but are justified merely by believing that Christ died for them; and so some may be perfectly justified, though they be lying in gross Wickedness; as appears by the Example of David, who they say was fully and perfectly justified while he was lying in the gross Sins of Murder and Adultery. As then the Protestants have sufficient Ground to quarrel and confute the Papists concerning those many Abuses in the Matter of Justification, shewing how the Doctrine of Christ is thereby vitiated and overturned, and the Word at God made void by many and useless Traditions, the Law of God neglected, while foolish and needless Ceremonies are prized and followed, through a false Opinion of being justified by the Performance of them; and the Merits and Sufferings of Christ, which is the only Sacrifice appointed of God for Remission of Sins, derogated from, by the setting up of a daily Sacrifice never appointed by God, and chiefly devised out of Covetousness to get Money by; Papists Device to get Money.so the Protestants on the other Hand, by not rightly establishing and holding forth the Doctrine of Justification according as it is delivered in the holy Scriptures, have opened a Door for the Papists to accuse them, as if they were Neglecters of good Works, Enemies to Mortification and Holiness, such as esteem themselves justified while lying in great Sins: By which Kind of Accusations, for which too great Ground hath been given out of the Writings of some rigid Protestants, the Reformation hath been greatly defamed and hindered, and the Souls of many insnared. Whereas, whoever will narrowly look into the Matter, may observe these Debates to be more in Specie than in Genere, seeing both do upon the Matter land in one; and like two Men in a Circle, who though they go sundry Ways, yet meet at last; in the same Center.
Papists Belief of Justification meets in the same Center with the—For the Papists say, They obtain Remission of Sins, and are justified by the Merits of Christ, as the same are applied unto them in the Use of the Sacraments of the Church, and are dispensed in the Performance of such and such Ceremonies, Pilgrimages, Prayers, and Performances, though there be not any inward renewing of the Mind, nor knowing of Christ inwardly formed; yet they are remitted and made righteous ex opere operato, because of the Power and Authority accompanying the Sacraments and the Dispensers of them.
—Protestants Belief. So saith the Westminster Confession of Faith. Chap. 11. Sect. 1.The Protestants say, That they obtain Remission of Sins, and stand justified in the Sight of God by Virtue of the Merits and Sufferings of Christ, not by infusing Righteousness into them, but by pardoning their Sins, and by accounting and accepting their Persons as righteous, they resting on him and his Righteousness by Faith; which Faith, the Act of believing, is not imputed unto them for Righteousness.
So the Justification of neither here is placed in any inward Renewing of the Mind, or by Virtue of any spiritual Birth, or Formation of Christ in them; but only by a bare Application of the Death and Sufferings of Christ outwardly performed for them: Whereof the one lays hold on a Faith resting upon them, and hoping to be justified by them alone; the other by the saying of some outward Prayers and Ceremonies, which they judge makes the Death of Christ effectual unto them. I except here, being unwilling to wrong any, what Things have been said as to the Necessity of inward Holiness, either by some modern Papists, or some modern Protestants, who, in so far as they have laboured after a Midst betwixt these two Extremes, have come near to the Truth, as by some Citations out of them hereafter to be mentioned will appear: Though this Doctrine hath not since the Apostasy, so far as ever I could observe, been so distinctly and evidently held forth according to the Scripture’s Testimony, as it hath pleased God to reveal it and preach it forth in this Day, by the Witnesses of his Truth whom he hath raised to that End; which Doctrine, though it be briefly held forth and comprehended in the Thesis itself, State of the Controversy.yet I shall a little more fully explain, and shew the State of the Controversy as it stands betwixt us and those that now oppose us.