Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus The Protestant Resolved c. Marâ— 12. 1687. Guil. Needham RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep Cant. a Sacr. Dom. THE Protestant Resolved OR A DISCOURSE Shewing the UNREASONABLENESS Of his Turning Roman Catholick FOR SALVATION The Second Edition LONDON Printed for William Rogers at the Sun over-against St. Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCLXXXVIII No Necessity for a Protestant to turn Roman Catholick for Salvation WE are all I hope thus far argeed That sincere Christianity is the sure Way to Salvation That to be saved we must have the Hearts and not content our selves with the bare Name and naked Profession of Christians That the Authority of God and Divine Truth and no worldly or carnal Concern must sway and govern our whole Conversation If we be not religious in good earnest resolving and endeavouring to honour God in Heart and Life according to the Holy Gospel of our Blessed Iesus it 's no matter to us what Religion we profess or to what Church we join our selves Wickedness and Hypocrisy through what Church soever our Way lieth lead assuredly to Hell. A wicked Protestant and a wicked Papist will in Hell be of the same Communion True Christianity is none other but that which was taught at first by Christ and his Apostles and all they who believe and live according to their Doctrine shall be saved Herein again we are all I suppose agreed And if so I think it very reasonable we should agree as well in that which I now add It is not material to enquire whether a Man be of the Church of Rome or of the Church of England to find whether or no he may be saved but he that would satisfy himself of the possibility of Salvation in the Way wherein he now is ought to enquire whether he believe and live according to the Doctrine taught by Christ and his Apostles seeing they who do this are good Christians what other Names soever Men may bestow upon them and all that are such shall be saved If therefore I may be able to satisfy my self that I believe and live according to the Doctrine deliver'd by Christ and his Apostles I have no reason to doubt of the Possibility of my Salvation in the Way wherein I now am tho it were so that I had never heard to this day of any such Thing as a Church headed by a Pope or Bishop of Rome And I am yet somewhat confident that a Man may believe and live according to the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and never hear of a Bishop of Rome because once Men certainly did so and yet were saved The next thing therefore that I have to do is to enquire by what Means I may certainly know what was the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles for by the same Means whereby this may be known I may also know the certain Way to Salvation If there be no such Means left us we are all Fools in professing a Religion the certain Doctrine whereof can by no means be known If such Means there be there must be some certain Records safely convey'd down from their Time to ours for by what other Means we at this distance of so many hundred years should be certainly inform'd what they taught is by me unconceivable These Records then are to be diligently searched into and impartially examined and whosoever is found to believe and practise according to the Doctrine in those Records contained may be concluded to be in the Way to Salvation Such certain Records we have even the Books of the holy Evangelists and Apostles which together with the Books of the Old Testament we call the Holy Scripture In this we are all again unamimous both Papists and Protestants agree that the Doctrine in these Books contained is the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and Divine Truth Whence it certainly follows that whatsoever Doctrine is contrary to the Doctrine contained in these Books whether it it be taught by Papists or Protestants is to be rejected as none of the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles It ought not therefore to satisfy me that this or that Doctrine is taught by the Church of Rome or by the Church of England for by which of them soever it be taught if it be found contrary to the Doctrine of the holy Scripture it is by the Consent of both Churches to be rejected Now seeing we Protestants take this holy Scripture and it only for the Rule of Faith and Life it is certain that holding to this Rule we do not err either in Belief or Practice while on the other side we cannot be sure thot they do not err in both who receive another Rule till it appear that the other Rule which they receive is as true and certain as ours is acknowledged to be Our part of the Rule and that which indeed we take to be the whole being granted us all the Question is about their part of it Ours is on all hands granted to be most sure and certain their 's alone remains disputable and therefore I cannot yet see any reason why I should think their Way safer than our own except it can be safer to follow an uncertain than a certain Rule which I think no body will be so hardy as to affirm The Rule which they of the Roman Communion advance against ours is that of Tradition I am therefore next to to consider First what they understand by it And Secondly what greater reason I can find to perswade me that it is safer to trust to it whether singly or in Conjunction with our own than to our own alone which is the holy Scripture This Tradition consists of such Doctines of Faith and Practice as are supposed to have been taught either by Christ himself or being dictated by the Holy Ghost to his Apostles were delivered by them to the Church not in Writing but in Word only and so have successively been handed down from Father to Son unto the present Age. And these are all according to the Council of Trent to be received with equal affection of Piety and Reverence as the holy Scripture Now I confess if it may appear as evidently to me that Christ or his Apostles left such Doctrines to the Custody of the Church of equal necessity to the Salvation of Christians with those that are written in the Scpipture as it doth that they left us these which are written in the Scripture and if I may be well assured that these very Doctrines which the Church of Rome now holds and pretends to an Authority of imposing upon all Christendome are indeed the very same which were at first as abovesaid deliver'd to the Church I can see no reason why I should not be bound to believe the one as firmly as the other For seeing it is the Authority of the first Preachers of it and not barely the Writings of it that bind me to believe the Doctrine if I can be
her Who I wonder shall now be thought fit to decide this Dispute She will be tried and judg'd by no other but her self for She is resolv'd to be Sole and Infallible Iudg in all Controversies of Religion That is in plain terms She will accuse us and she will leave us no room for our own Defence She will condemn us and she will not permit us to question the Iustice of her Sentence She tells us we are bound to believe her and obey her or else we must die eternally for it We desire some reason may be brought to convince us of this Duty and she tells us again she is our Supreme and Infallible Mistress and Mother and Iudg and so the Conclusion is We must believe she hath this Supreme Authority and Infallibility because she is Supreme and Infallible which we can yet see no reason to believe and therefore cannot believe and because we cannot believe it we are declared to be Hereticks and in a State of Damnation Seeing then that the Church of Rome will by no means recede from her Claim to this Supremacy and Infallibility it seems plain to me that there is no possibility of satisfying her any way whatsoever but by yielding my self up intirely to her without any farther dispute But because I cannot do this without violence to my Conscience and incurring that very Damnation which she would persuade me thereby to prevent I must of necessity leave her a while to satisfy her self about the Truth and Charity of this Doctrine as she can whilst I for my own private Satisfaction take into a very serious Consideration these two things I. Whether I can discern any solid ground to hope that I may be saved as I am now a Protestant of the Church of England II. What more hopeful way to Salvation the Church of Rome can me put into should I enter into her Communion If the result of this double Enquiry shall be that I really think my self in a fair way to Salvation where I am already and cannot discern any more hopeful way to it in the Church of Rome I must needs accout my self bound in Conscience and under the Penalty of Damnation to steer my course according to the best Light I shall be able by such a diligent and impartial Inquiry to attain unto and content my self with that Religion which seems best and safest to me till some better and safer can be found SECT I. The first thing I am to inquire into is What good ground of hope I can discern that I may be saved as I am a Protestant And here the first thing I am to consider is what I mean by the Name of Protestant as it is own'd by the Members of the Church of England and as I can heartily answer to it By a Protestant I understand no other but a Christian adhering firmly both in Faith and Practice to the written Word of God and protesting against both the Faith and Practice of the Papists and all others whatsoever so far only as they are either repugnant to the Holy Scripture in any thing or ungrounded on the same in things pretended by them necessary to Salvation Such Protestants do we of the Church of England profess our selves to be as is apparent unto all from the 6 th of our XXXIX Articles affirming That the Scriptures contain all things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation This is our very first Principle as we are called Protestants and such an one I do heartily profess my self neither see I yet the least cause to doubt of my Salvation whilst by the Grace of God I live answerably to this Profession For that the Protestant Religion built upon this Principle is a safe Religion is I think altogether as plain as that Christianity it self pure and unmix'd is the Way to Salvation because 't is plain that this Religion we profess holding to this Principle can be nothing else but pure and unmix'd Christianity being that and no other which is contained in the Holy Scripture Is then the holy Scripture the Word of God or not Was it given unto us of God to be the Rule of our Religion that is of our Faith Worship and holy Conversation or was it not If Bellarmine may be credited this is the Declaration of the Catholick Church both in the third Council of Carthage and also in that of Trent The Books of the Prophets and Apostles are the true Word of God and the sure and stable Rule of Life And as he shortly after adds The most sure and safest Rule Now whether it be the compleat perfect and adequate Rule as we constantly affirm or only a partial Rule or but some part of it as the Papists contend it self when diligently consulted will be best able to inform us For it is on all hands granted to be the Word of God which cannot lie and therefore unquestionably true in all things what soever it teacheth us and of those many excellent things which it very plainly teacheth its one Perfection and Sufficiency is one and for my present Satisfaction very considerable I find in the first place that God himself writ the Ten Commandments the compleat Rule of Piety and Iustice with his own Finger Exod. 31. 1 18. Deut. 9. 10. 10. 2 4. That he commanded them to be written on the Posts and Gates Deut. 6. 9. 11. 20. That Moses wrote all the Words of the Lord Exod. 24. 4. and deliver'd the Writing to the Priests to be read unto the People Deut. 31. 9. And that the King was to have by him a Copy of it for his Direction Deut. 17. 18. I find many Curses denounced against the Breakers of it Deut. 28. 58. and Blessings promised to them that keep it Deut. 30. 10. I find it was expresly forbidden to add unto it or to aiminish from it Deut. 4. 2 12 32. To turn from it to the right-hand or to the left Josh. 1. 7. And that the good Kings were careful to order all things according to it and to reform what had been amiss by it 1 Chron. 16. 40. 2 Kings 22. 13. And therefore I do not wonder to hear the Psalmist saying The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the Soul Psal. 19. 7. nor to find Isaiah sending Men to the Law and to the Testimony saying If any speak not according to this Word it is because there is no Light in them Isa. 8. 20. Again I find our Blessed Saviour himself and his Apostles after him very frequently appealing and referring their Hearers to that which had been written in the Books of Moses in the Psalms and in the Prophets They have Moses and the Prophets let them hear them saith Abraham in the Parable Luk. 16. 29. Search the Scriptures saith Christ
who say 't is but a partial and imperfect Rule We who say 't is plain and easy to be understood in all things necessary or They who say 't is dark and obscure unable to inform and resolve Learners Doubters and Inquirers and that even in Essentials and Fundamentals of Religion Finally Whether We who say it ought to be read and studied of all Men Or They who say it is not needful yea dangerous to be read of all have the higher Veneration for the Holy Scripture is no hard matter to determine if to commend a thing may be said to be more Honour to it than to disparage it And tho here again they use some Art and Colour to set off such ill-favour'd Sayings as well as they can yet serves this to no other end in my Mind but to make them more Ugly and Odious They deny not for all this they say the Perfection Sufficiency or Plainness of the Scripture nor that it may be read by the People What then is it they say They affirm that it contains all necessary Truths either Explicitly or at least Virtually for some Truths it declares expresly and yet so as the Church alone must give the Sense and for all the rest it plainly if the same Church may here also give the Sense sends us to the Church to learn them Now I cannot for my Heart imagine what all this can signify but only a desire to lessen the Scripture's Authority as plausibly as they can To me it seems very plain that they make the Scripture just nothing and the Church all in all I think it here again well deserves my Consideration That the SCRIPTURE is very copious in declaring and repeating too over and over again many necessary Points of Faith and Duty and not only necessary things but many other things also it largely teacheth which are by all granted to be of less moment and necessity to the Salvation of Men and all this it doth in as plain Words and Phrases as can be used And hence I find it very hard for me to believe that the HOLY GHOST by whose Inspiration it was Written should do all this for our Instruction and that in a Book written on purpose to make us wise unto Salvation and by himself declared able so to do and yet omit many things of greatest necessity to that end never so much as once no not in any obscure manner pointing out to us that Church to whose Authority we must resort and submit This were to leave us a Treasure closely lock'd up and not to tell us where we may find the Key that can let us in to it and so we are neither the Wiser nor the Richer for it Whatsoever the PAPISTS are pleas'd to alledg for their speaking thus of the Word of the Blessed God I confess I cannot think any better of their Religion for it Let us say what we will in Commendation of holy SCRIPTURE they will be sure to find something to say against it lest I suppose it should be thought we can at any time speak Truth And when we charge them for speaking dishonourably of the SCRIPTURE they so interpret their Words as they seem to say the same that we did and which they blamed us for What can be their meaning in this but either to make the World believe that we are in an Error tho when they come to Apologize for themselves they are forced to confess it a Truth or that their Religion necessarily requires it of them in its Vindication to vilify the SCRIPTURE tho by saying such things of it as they acknowledge cannot be true unless interpreted so as to speak our Sense They must therefore in this deal either very disingenuously with us or very injuriously with the holy SCRIPTURE For my part I cannot believe that Men professing the Christian Faith and owning the SCRIPTURE to be the Word of GOD could ever be persuaded to speak so as but seemingly to vilify or disparage it if their Doctrines could be any other way defended Their Religion I say must need it or they too little consult the Honour of their Religion in needlesly uttering such Speeches as stand in need of a very great measure of Charity to think them less than Blasphemy Fourthly If any PROTESTANT dares venture thus far towards the Church of ROME the next thing he has to do is to resolve not to believe one Word that GOD speaks without that Church's leave I am confident that there are not many of our Lay-PAPISTS that think themselves to be under this Obligation and that if they were sensible of it they would make haste to break loose from it But for my own part I see not how I can enter into their Communion but I must draw it upon my self And this I think would be to advance the ROMAN Church to as great a height in my esteem as they in her who are most zealous for her Infallibility can desire What more would they have than that GOD himself where they confess he speaks should stand to their Church's Courtesy whether or no he should be believed I know it will be said They never disallow'd any man to believe GOD. But because all men cannot understand GOD speaking in the SCRIPTURE the Church is appointed by Him to be his Interpreter This I hear and to me it sounds not well That GOD should speak to Men things necessary for all to know and which he commands all to learn and believe upon pain of eternal Damnation and yet not speak so intelligibly as they may understand Him. Certainly he that made the Tongue and gave man Understanding can speak if he please as Intelligibly as the Church which cannot Speak or Understand at all without his Help and Teaching And considering his Infinite Goodness and Impartiality till he shall tell me so himself I know not how to believe that he hath so much more respect to the Honour of the ROMAN Church than to the Salvation of Mankind that he would so deliver things belonging to Salvation that no Man can be able to understand and be the better for them but he that resorts to that Church as God's sole Interpreter And if indeed she be so it must follow that we cannot believe one Word that God speaks without her leave For therefore is she made God's Interpreter because otherwise we cannot understand his Word and I am sure what we cannot understand we cannot believe 'T is the Sense they say and not the Letter is God's Word and this Sense is in the Church's Breast and of Her alone we must learn it and therefore till She give us leave we cannot believe it no not so much as that JESUS is the CHRIST altho till we believe this we cannot believe that he hath a Church and therefore cannot believe She is His Interpreter I will not now inquire into the Reasons Why this Church which is God's sole Interpreter takes so excellent a Course to make her