Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typ...os. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE CENTRAL POWER OF POPERY. So long as men admit the being of a God and believe in the immortality of the soul, their most powerful motives will be derived from their hopes and fears as to eternal life. It matters not whether these hopes or fears are founded on truth or falsehood, genuine religion or superstition; so long as they exist they will sway the masses of mankind with resistless power. The sway of Popery over the popular mind is derived from this source. It all depends upon a false answer to the question, " What shall I do to be saved ? " The sublimity and importance of the ideas called up before the mind by this brief question I suppose no one will deny. It calls up God; a spiritual world; a moral government; a law and its penalty; a revolt; an atonement; reconciliation to God, resulting in heaven; eternal alienation, resulting in hell. But what has it to do with the central error of Romanism and the main issue between Romanists and Protestants ? Much every way, as I shall soon show. The answer to this question given by the great reformers is plain and distinct. It unfolds God, the correlation of the mind to him, the nature of his law, and of life in him by love, and shows that this perfects the mind and conducts it to its true end. It unfolds sin in its nature, forms, and effects upon the mind ? its guilt, and desert, and eternal consequences. It unfolds the divinity and incarnation of the Son of God and his atonement, and the possibility of pardon on the ground of repentance, faith, and a holy life. And then, with the apostles, it says, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." This is the answer of the whole evangelical Protestant world. In this they all agree. With them the church of Rome does not agree. Teaching a h...Detailed info »« Brief info