Christ’s Perfect Sacrifice: Once for All – Part 1 – Hebrews 10:11-14

If all those divine institutions, in the diligent observation of them, could not take away sin, how much less can any thing do so that we can betake ourselves unto for that end!—There are innumerable things invented in the Papacy to take away sin and its guilt, especially of those sins which they are pleased to call venial. And all men, on the conviction of sin, are apt to entertain thoughts that by some endeavors of their own they may so take them away. To comply with this presumption are all the papal inventions of confession, absolution, indulgences, masses, penances, purgatory, and the like, accommodated. Others trust solely unto their own repentance and following duties, as do the Socinians, and all men in their unrenewed estate. But certainly if the apostle proveth this assertion beyond contradiction, that none of them could ever take away any sin, that their legal institutions of divine worship and their observations could not do it; how much less can the inventions of men effect that great end! This account he gives us of the inefficacy of the sacrifices of the priests, notwithstanding their diligent attendance on their offerings. – John Owen