Some important truths about conversion, delivered in sundry sermons, / by Increase Mather, D.D.…

3. This confuteth their Error, who maintain that a man may be saved in any Religion, if he be but civil, and live up to his Religion. Such a Principle as this there is in the Turkish Alcoron; and it were well if some Christians did not say after Mahomet in this particular. But sure it is, that there is but one true Religion, and many false ones. And as they that are of no Religion, are out of the way to life, so are they that are of a false one. The Jewish Religion will not bring to life, John 8.24. You shall dye in your sins, if you believe not that I am he, you shall dye in your sins. So that they that believe ⟨p. 194⟩not that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah, that our Christ is the Son of God, and Saviour of the World, shall not live, but dye for ever in their sins. This you know is the case of the Jews at this day. And as for the Mahometan Religion, there's no Salvation in that. Therefore you find, Rev. 9. that that Religion is come out of the Bottomless Pit. It is said, vers. 11. They had a King over them, which is the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, whose name in the Hebrew Tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek Tongue Apollyon, that signifieth a Destroyer. So then, those of that Religion are in the way to destruction. And as for the Popish Religion, it is also Heretical and Damnable. Mr. Perkins long since wrote a Book, wherein he proveth, that a Papist living up to the Principles of his Religion, cannot go beyond a Reprobate: And doth not the Apostle when he speaketh concerning the Apostasy of the Man of Sin, teach, that those that are deceived therewith, shall perish, and that they all shall be damned, who are given up of God to believe the Lies & Delusions of Antichrist, 2 Thes. 2.10, 11, 12. Now that by the Man of sin, the Popedom is intended, is past all doubt, to those that are willing to be convinced of the Truth; because the description which the Apostle doth there give of Antichrist, doth agree wholly and only to the Popedom, even in all the particulars of it. ⟨p. 195⟩Again, doth not John show, that all Liars shall be excluded the heavenly Jerusalem,