Introduction
Section III: Communion with Christ in the Lord's Supper Section IV: The Headship of Christ vs. the Papacy
Section V: The Glory of the Church Section VI: True Church Government and the Ministry
Section VII: The Corruption of Discipline and Fellowship Section VIII: The Corruption of Christian Duty into Force and Coercion Section IX: The False Image of Repentance and Conversion
Section X: Image of Satisfaction by Human Merit Section XI: Other Abominations Briefly Mentioned
Section XII: Christ the Only Helper — Replaced by Saints and Angels Section XIII: The False Glory of External Prosperity
Section XIV: Mortification Replaced with Monasticism Section XV: Good Works Reimagined as Ritual Observance
Introduction
QUESTION: How is the practical love of truth the best preservative against Popery?
"If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious."—1 PET. 2:3.
WHEN false worship had prevailed in the church of old unto its ruin, God showed and represented it unto his prophet under the name and appearance of "a chamber of imagery," Ezek. 8:11, 12. For therein were portrayed all the abominations wherewith the worship of God was defiled, and religion corrupted. Things relating unto divine truth and worship have had again the same event in the world, especially in the Church of Rome; and my present design is to take a view of the chambers of their imagery, and to show what was the occasion and what were the means of their erection: and in them we shall see all the abomination wherewith the divine worship of the gospel hath been corrupted, and Christian religion ruined. Unto this end it will be necessary to lay down some such principles of sacred truth as will demonstrate and evince the grounds and causes of that transformation of the substance and power of religion into a lifeless image, which shall be proved to have fallen out amongst them. And because I intend their benefit principally who resolve all their persuasion in religion into the word of God, I shall deduce these principles from that passage of it in 1 Pet. 2:1–3.
The first verse contains an exhortation unto, or an injunction of, universal holiness, by the laying aside or casting out whatever is contrary thereunto: "Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings;" the rule whereof extends unto all other vicious habits of mind whatever.
And in the second, there is a profession of the means whereby this end may be attained; namely, how any one may be so strengthened in grace, as to cast out all such sinful inclinations and practices as are