The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation

The state of the question; with a summary of the reasons for which amongst men of different religions, one side only can be saved,

“Nbver is malice, more indLscreet, than when it ctargetH otfaen with imputation of that, to which itself becomes more liable, even by that very act of accusing others; for though guiltiness be the effect of some error, yet usually it begets a kind of moderation, so far forth, as not to let men cast such aspersions upon others, as most apparently reflect upon themselves. Thus cannot the poet endure that Gracchus, who was a factious and unquiet man, should be inveighing against sedition: and the Roman orator rebukes philosophers, who, to wax glorious, superscribed their names upon those very books which they entitled. Of the Contempt of Glory, What then shall we say of D. Potter, who, in the title and text of his whole book, doth so tragicaliy^;harge want of charily on all such Romanists as dare affirm that protestancy destroyeth salvation; while he himself is in act of pronouncing the hke heavy doom against Roman catholics? For, not satisfied with much uncivil language, in affirming the Roman churchf many ways to have played the harlot, and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Cnrist, and detestation of Christians; in styling her that proud J ahd cursed dame of Home, which takes upon her- to revel in the liouse of God; in talking of an idol to be worsliipped at Rome; he comes at length to thunder out his fearful sentence against her: ‘For that mass of erK>rs,’ saith he, * in judg- “inent and practice, which is prf>per to her, and wherein she differs from us, we judge a reconciliation impossible, and to us (who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions) damnable.’ And in another place he saith, ‘For us wholF are convinced in conscience that she that of two men dissenting in matters of faith, great or smal few or many, the one cannot be saved without repentance, unless ignorance accidentally may in some particular person plead excuse. For in that case of contrary behef, one must of necessity be held to oppose God’s word of revelation sufficiently represented to his understanding by an infiillable propounder; which opposition to the tea-* timony of God is undoubtedly a damnable sin, whether otherwise the thing so testified be in itself great or small. And thus we have already made good what was promised in the argument of this chapter, that amongst men of mflferent religions one is only capable of being saved.