ninja007
Gold Member
theres a lot more then 14.
Particular Ways Rome’s False Gospel Overturns The True Gospel.
1. It Overturns the Nature of Justification.
1. More particularly, we will find it overturns the nature of justification, and at best it does put in sanctification in the room thereof. And there is never any distinct ground laid by which a sinner may come to receive a sentence of absolution before God, but this, to wit, justification, is lost by the former doctrine [of Rome]. And they acknowledge no such thing distinct from regeneration or sanctification, as if no such act as justification were needful or mentioned in Scripture as distinct from these. And in effect it leaves a sinner to a way of salvation that wants justification in it, and therefore cannot profit him. For by denying that which is the formal cause of justification, they deny justification itself, seeing that gives it a being.
2. Rome’s False Gospel Perverts the Nature of Grace.
2. It derogates from the nature of grace, and that in several respects. 1. As to grace’s efficacy, that it hangs at man’s free will. 2. As to its sovereignty, that it bounds it to man’s disposing of himself. 3. As to its freedom, in that it appoints man’s own satisfaction for the removing of punishment, and his own merit for the obtaining of reward. And 4. As to its spiritual sublime way of working, making it carnally to be conferred ex opere operato.
3. Rome’s False Gospel Undermines Christ’s Merit.
3. It enervates the merit of Christ: For, at the best it attributes to that only the restoring of a Covenant of Works, which may be entered, kept, and broken according to men’s working. And, as it were, the procuring to men a new stock of habitual grace, with which they are to trade and procure their own happiness by their after merit. In reference to which if they fail, Christ’s merit, and their habitual grace will not profit them. Therefore the weight of obtaining life is laid there.
But the removing of the punishment, and the obtaining of the reward, they ascribe to human satisfaction and good works. And that by reason of their own intrinsic worth, without the imputation of Christ’s merit, except in respect of the general influence formerly alleged. Yea, they fear not to call saints their redeemers, in so far as by their works of Supererogation they suppose them to have satisfied in something for them, as Bellarmine asserts (lib. 1, de indulg., cap. 4, col. 1161). And at most they are sanctified by Christ’s merit, but after [all] that they do for themselves.
4. Rome’s False Gospel Maligns Christ Himself.
4. It wrongs the Lord Himself. 1. In His grace, as has been said. 2. In His justice, as if He were to be satisfied by creature’s satisfaction, and that in such things as many men would not be pleased with. Yea, they scare not to affirm that such holiness could not but have satisfied Him and merited, although Christ had never suffered—which shows also how little they respect Christ’s merit, as the forecited Suárez (pp. 484, 486) asserts. 3. It wrongs His sovereignty, in that it ties Him in proper justice to be man’s debtor. And that not by virtue of His promise only, but from the consideration of the intrinsic value and merit of men’s good works—as if He were not just if He did not reward them.
5. Rome’s False Gospel Abuses God’s Covenant.
5. It wrongs God’s Covenant. For either it allows no Covenant at all, or quite alters the nature and terms thereof, and turns it to works, as has been said. For it still makes the stipulation on man’s part the same which constitutes the form of the Covenant of Works—however one be enabled to perform that stipulation, which certainly was by Grace, even to Adam.
6. Rome’s False Gospel Undermines Faith.
6. It enervates faith, excluding altogether that faith that receives Christ and takes hold on Him, and closes with the Covenant of Grace. And [it] leaves no more to a believer, but a naked assent to the truth of God, which is in the devils (James 2:19); and utterly secludes faith from any particularity of application in the making of our peace with God in any respect.
7. Rome’s False Gospel Overturns the Reality of Man’s Natural Estate.
7. It overturns the truth concerning man’s natural estate: in giving him a free-will in reference to spiritual good, and that before the infusion of grace, and in making this acting of free-will a necessary disposition to justification and a necessary condition of merit.
8. Rome’s False Gospel Corrupts the Law of God.
8. It corrupts the holy Law of God. 1. In its end, as if now it were to be the condition of God’s Covenant upon which life is to be attained. 2. In its meaning, as if it did not condemn natural concupiscence. And many other things are exempted by them from it, that they may make the fulfilling thereof possible.
9. Rome’s False Gospel Denies the True Nature of Sin.
9. It denies the true nature of sin, and makes many things that are contrary to the Law of God to be no sin. As by its exclusion of the remains of original sin, and many others (by that fond distinction of venial and mortal sins) from being accounted sins that make men liable to eternal wrath.
10. Rome’s False Gospel Overturns the Nature of the Sacraments.
10. It overturns the nature of the Sacraments. 1. In making these to be Sacraments which are not, as penance, extreme unction, etc. 2. In attributing other ends and another manner of attaining to these ends than agrees with the Word, or can quiet a conscience in reference thereto, as the conferring of grace ex opere operato.
11. Rome’s False Gospel Destroys Church Discipline.
11. It does not leave discipline undestroyed. For it abuses the power of the keys in this absolution, to make up a Sacrament and confer grace, and give indulgences, and suchlike, which no sober man will think a sufficient way for founding of his peace, or to be a defense against a challenge in the Day of Judgment.
12. Rome’s False Gospel Overturns Assurance of Salvation.
12. It does altogether overturn that consolation that God allows His people. For, 1. There is great anxiety in the supposed way of attaining it. 2. No certainty of having it, and so it can yield comfort to no one. 3. According to their principles, it may be lost, and one that is justified today, may be in a state of damnation tomorrow. 4. It makes their recovery difficult and almost desperate. For (as Bellarmine in the forecited place asserts) it may have with it 20,000 years continuance in Purgatory. Of this uncomfortableness, and of all this matter, more may be seen in chapter 9, lecture 1.
13. Rome’s False Gospel Causes Ignorance.
13. It excludes knowledge, and cries up ignorance. So that Bellarmine (lib. de Justific.) does not fear to say that faith ought rather to be defined by ignorance than knowledge, per ignorantiam potius quam per notitiam.
14. Rome’s False Gospel Corrupts the Nature of Holiness.
14. It overturns and corrupts the nature of holiness and good works, and all spiritual worship, putting in, I cannot tell what will-worship, external rites, etc. in the place of all practice, mumbling and muttering unknown words for prayer, afflicting of the body for mortification, and many such like things have they.
These are but a part of the horrible absurdities of this way, and yet we suppose are sufficient to demonstrate the truth of what we assert, to wit, that this way is involved with many fundamental inconsistencies with the truth and way of the gospel, and so cannot be a possible way of attaining salvation. For it makes men to count many sins not to be sins, and so never to repent of them. The sins that it discovers, it leads them not to the right satisfaction, which only can be accepted for them, to wit, Christ’s righteousness, but to their own inherent holiness and good works. Yea, even this they corrupt; and what they account saving grace, as faith, repentance, humility and such like, are nothing less than such indeed before God. 14 Reasons Roman Catholics Are Not Saved
