N01147:82
A dissertation, wherein the strange doctrine lately published in a sermon, the tendency of…
A dissertation, wherein the strange doctrine lately published in a sermon, the tendency of which, is, to encourage unsanctified persons (while such) to approach the holy table of the Lord, is examined and confuted. With an appendix, showing what Scripture ground there is to hope, that within a very few years there will be a glorious reformation of the church throughout the world. / By I. Mather, D.D. ; [Six lines of Scripture texts]A dissertation, wherein the strange doctrine lately published in a sermon, the tendency of which, is, to encourage unsanctified persons (while such) to approach the holy table of the Lord, is examined and confuted. With an appendix, shewing what Scripture ground there is to hope, that within a very few years there will be a glorious reformation of the church throughout the world. / By I. Mather, D.D. ; [Six lines of Scripture texts]
Boston: printed by B. Green for Benj. Eliot, 1708
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
These things being so, the Godly & Learned Mr. Vines might well say, That the Opinion of the Sacraments being a Converting Ordinance, is a new up-start Opinion; & that he wondered any one will stand up for it, since there is among Orthodox Divines an Army to a Man against them. And as Mr. S. his Notions are against the stream of the most Eminent, and Orthodox Divines, so they agree with those who are in other Points very Heterodox in their Judgments. Popish Writers say as he does. They are mighty sticklers for the Sacraments being Converting Ordinances. Bullinger (h)(that great Reformer) his account of them is this, Docuit vulgus Sacerdotum et Monachorum Sacramenta, non tantum esse signa Gratioe sed Gratioe causas, h. e. quoe habent virtutem Conferendi Gratiam: Their Priests teach that the Sacraments are not only Signs, but Causes of Grace. Which he ⟨p. 53⟩confutes, by showing that men ought first to have the thing Signified, before they have the Sign, Greg. de valentia. Estius & other Papists, mention this as one difference between the Calvinists and them, that the Calvinists held that Sacraments are only a sign of Grace, and not a cause of it: Whenas Catholics maintain, that the Sacraments work Grace in those that do not obicem ponere, withstand their operation. Some Lutherans also, who are a looser sort of Protestants, and in the Doctrine of the Sacrament come nearer to the Papists than the Reformed do, make the same complaint against the Calvinists. Brockmond (a bitter Lutheran) mentions it as a Calvinian Error, that Sacraments are not Instituted to be means of conferring Grace: he chargeth Zuinglius, Beza, Daneus, Musculus, and Piscator, as Guilty of this supposed Error. If some Prelatic Writers in our own Nation say as Mr. S. does, shall Christians in New-England conform to such Principles, when their Fathers came into this Land whilst it was a Wilderness, that so they might Enjoy a more Pure Discipline? And yet in the beginning of the English Reformation, there were Principles avowed by those Reformers contrary to Mr. S. his Doctrine. They would have a visible Church to be a Congregation of ⟨p. 54⟩Faithful Men; whenas Mr. S. his Doctrine allows them to be a Congregation of Unfaithful or Unsanctified men.
These things being so, the Godly & Learned Mr. Vines might well say, That the Opinion of the Sacraments being a Converting Ordinance, is a new up-start Opinion; & that he wondred any one will stand up for it, since there is among Orthodox Divines an Army to a Man against them. And as Mr. S. his Notions are against the stream of the most Eminent, and Orthodox Divines, so they agree with those who are in other Points very Heterodox in their Judgments. Popish Writers say as he does. They are mighty sticklers for the Sacraments being Converting Ordinances. Bullinger