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A59790 An answer to the request to Protestants, to produce plain Scriptures directly authorizing these tenets Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707. 1687 (1687) Wing S3264; ESTC R16978 12,957 22

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apostatize from Fundamental Truth and Holiness whilst part of a National Laity may preserve both discover the Clergies Defection and depriving them heap to Themselves Teachers of their own sending and instruction A. What he intends by this I cannot well guess I suppose he would have his Readers believe that the whole Clergy of the Christian world did at the time of the Reformation maintain the Doctrines of the Church of Rome which were rejected and condemned only by the major vote of a Parliament of Lay-men in England which how false it is all the world knows For 1. There were many other Churches and better parts of the Catholick Church than the Church of Rome which did not own those Doctrines and corruptions which we reject 2. Nay the whole Clergy of the Roman Church did not For were not our English Bishops and Clergy as Zealous in the Reformation as any Laymen And were not they Bishops in Communion with the Roman Church Were not the German Reformers of the Clergy And was the whole Clergy then against the Reformation These are admirable things to be proved by direct Testimonies of Scripture 3. Nor do we say that the Roman Church her self has Apostatized from fundamental Truth and Holiness We do grant that they have retained the true Faith and Worship of Christ tho they have fatally corrupted both by Additions of their own 4. If the first discovery of this Defection had been made by Laymen and afterwards acknowledged by the Clergy who joyned in the Reformation I should not have thought the Reformation ever the worse for it For if the Clergy corrupt Religion we have Reason to thank God if he opens the Eyes of honest and disinterested Laymen But is not this Author very modest in his Requests who would have us prove his own Calumnies and spiteful Insinuations from Scripture This I think is Answer enough to his Request And as for his following Harangue there is little in it to be answered but some spiteful and sensless Reflections which are better despised then answered But let us briefly consider some of them lest he should think they cannot be answered 1. He saies In these positive Propositions our Religion chiefly consists And truly it is a very sorry Religion if it does But why does not our Religion consist in believing the true Catholick Faith contained in the ancient Creeds In worshipping God through the Mediation of Jesus Christ according to the Rules of the Gospel In obeying all those holy Laws our Saviour has given us In observing the Sacraments of his own Institution and as he has instituted them This is all the Religion we own and know no other and why then is not this our Religion No This is the Churches peculiar and claimed by her against all Novel and Unjust both Foreigners and Out-laws But if this be our Religion and the Religion of the Catholick Church how come we to be Foreigners and Out-laws Why does not the Catholick Faith and Worship make us Members of the Catholick Church And then we have as good a claim to the Creed and Sacraments as they No saies our Author Whatever they have invented and chosen that belongs as sin to a depraved will properly to them thence they derive their Title and thereto must we precisely confine their Religion But now if we have invented and chosen nothing else what then How do we lose our right to the Creed and Sacraments c. because we will allow of no new Inventions and Additions to it And yet this is the plain case Our only Dispute with the Church of Rome is about those corrupt Additions they have made to the Catholick Faith and Worship without any Foundation in Scripture or Reason or true Antiquity and therefore our Religion is precisely confined to the old Catholick Faith and Worship of the Christian Church and therefore is properly ours if they will allow us to have any because it is all we have The German Reformers indeed were called Protestants from protesting against the Corruptions and Innovations of the Church of Rome and this only shows what they do not believe and what they will not practice but they have a better name than this and that is Christians which shows what their positive Faith and Religion is viz. that Faith and Worship which was taught by Christ and his Apostles and owned and practised by the Primitive Church before these Corruptions and Innovations were heard of and therefore this is precisely our Religion what we protest against we declare not to be our Religion so ridiculous is it precisely to confine our Religion to it 2ly The next subject of his Harangue is our demands of Scripture-proofs from the Church of Rome for their new Faith and Worship which I confess is a very hard Request because they have none However he says this makes it just for the Catholick Church as they will needs call themselves to retort this demand upon us and to demand our Scripture-proofs and I confess there is great reason for it and I hope have done him justice for I suppose he would not ask more of us than we do of them Now we only demand either the express words of Scripture or plain and evident consequences or the silence of Scripture to prove that a thing is not revealed and this we are ready to return them as to any Doctrines which we profess and whether we adulterate Scriptures by corrupt Translations such as the vulgar Latin or Sacrilegious mutilations as by leaving out the second Commandment or blasphemous misapplications as applying the Psalter of David to the Virgin Mary by changing Lord into Lady or gross wrestings and false interpretations as proving Supremacy and Infallibility by Tu es Petrus and Pasce oves shall be left to every Impartial Reader 3ly In the next place he reproaches us with the Socinians whom he calls our Brethren by descent and iniquity who steering by the blast of a private spirit the Chart of clear Scripture and Compass of Humane reason have made shipwrack of faith This is intollerable to say that to follow Scripture and Reason is the way to make shipwrack of Faith which can never be unless Scripture and Reason be contrary to Faith which indeed they are in many things to the Faith of the Church of Rome but God forbid they should be to the true Christian Faith. But have not the Socinians made shipwrack of Faith by following clear Scripture and Humane reason And will he then say that Scripture and Reason are on the Socinian side If they be how can he know that they have made shipwrack of Faith if they be not then they make shipwrack of Faith by not adhering to clear Scripture and Reason and is this a reason for us to be ashamed of following Scripture and Reason because the Socinians err by the abuse of both There is no doubt but men who pretend to Scripture and Reason may err and it is demonstrable that men who renounce Scripture and Reason must err and we have so many instances of this in the Church of Rome that it is no great encouragement to us to rely on church-Church-authority without Scripture and Reason They dare not say that we must believe contrary to Scripture or that the Scripture is not the Rule of our Faith but they will allow no body to interpret the Scripture but the Church of Rome which is the most certain way to make her infallible for to be sure she will not interpret the Scripture against her self she must be always in the right if what she says be the Rule of Faith. But we who cannot believe that God has given us Scripture and Reason to make no use of them That he has made the Pope or Church of Rome infallible and divested all other Christians of sense and common understanding have nothing but Reason and Scripture to steer by and that will neither make us Socinians nor Papists 4ly His parting-blow is about the Supremacy of the King which he calls Hobbism as if we ever thought that all men must be of the Kings Religion as the sole and Sovereign Judg of all Causes Spiritual What we mean by the Kings Supremacy I have already explained He has no Spiritual Jurisdiction properly so called can neither ordain nor administer the Sacraments nor has the power of the Keys but is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Church is incorporated into the State so he has the Government of all Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes Whatever Secular Authority the Church has is derived from the Prince and depends on Secular Laws and this may be enlarged retrenched suspended by the same Power that gave it but the Church as a Spiritual Society has Rights of its own can teach the true Faith administer Sacraments inflict Church-Censures though without any Temporal effect by an inherent Authority We thank God when our Prince who has the Supreme Authority does countenance true Religion But whenever it is otherwise we are taught to submit all our Temporal Concernments our Lives and Bodies and Estates to the will of our Prince but to defend our Church and Religion by a modest but resolute profession of the true Faith and meek and patient suffering for it FINIS See the late Disscourse of the Adoration of the Host p. 8 9. c.