A Protestants Resolution Shewing his REASONS Why He Will not be a PAPIST Digested into so plain a Method of Question and Answer that an ordinary Capacity may be able to defend the Protestant Religion against the most Cunning Jesuit or Popish Priest Useful for these Times Be ready to render a reason of the hope that is in you c. 1 Pet. 3.15 LONDON Printed for D. Newman at the Kings Arms in the Poultrey 1679. A Protestants Resolutioâ— Question HOw many Religions are there the World Ans Principally four Quest Which are they Ans Pagan Jewish Mahometan Christian Quest Of which of these Religions are you Ans Of the Christian Religion Quest How many parties lay claim to the Christian Religion Ans Two principally 〈…〉 Which be they and how are they 〈…〉 〈…〉 The Papist and the Protestant 〈…〉 Of which of these parties are 〈◊〉 〈…〉 Of the Protestant â—â—est What understand you by a Proâ—â—â—â—â—â—t Ans One who takes part with those â—ho formerly protested against the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome Quest What are those Errors Ans They are very many I am ready to give an account of some of their principal ones Quest What is the First Error Ans In that they forbid the Bible to be read in the vulgar Tongue Quest What is your opinion in this thing concerning the Scriptures Ans The Scriptures were written for the use of the common people and therefore should be translated into known Tognues Quest To what end Ans That they may be heard read and understood of all Quest How prove you that Ans Because the Lord frequently commands the reading of the Scriptures by the people and solemnly charges the reading of them to the people Quest Where is the Command Ans Deut. 31.11 Thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing Joh. 5.39 Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternal life Act. 15.21 Moses hath in every city them that preach him being read in the Synagogue every Sabbath-day Eph. 3.4 Whereby when ye read ye may understand my knowledg in the mystery of Christ Col. 4.16 When this Epistle is read among you cause it that it be read also in the Church of the Laodiceans and that ye also read the Epistle from Laodicea 1 Thes 5.27 I charge you by the Lord that this Epistle be read unto all the holy brethren Rev. 1.3 Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy Quest What is a Second Error of the Papists Ans Their receiving unwritten Traditions with equal respect and reverence as we receive the Holy Scriptures Quest Wherein lieth the evil of this opinion Ans In this namely in making Traditions of men equal in dignity and authority with the express Revelation of God Quest What is your opinion in this matter Ans That the Scriptures in themselves are a full sufficient and perfect rule Quest How prove you that Ans Because it containeth all things that are necessary for men to believe and do in order to eternal life Isa 8.20 To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this world it is because there is no light in them Joh. 20.31 These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his Name Gal. 1.8 Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed Eph. 2.20 Built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone 2 Tim. 3.16 17 From a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus That the man of God may be perfect thorowly furnished marg perfected unto all good works Quest What is a Third Error of the Papists Ans That we are to believe the Scriptures upon the sole Authority of the Church Quest Wherein lieth the evil of this opinion Ans It lieth in this namely that men being liable to mistakes may lead me into to errors so that I can never be sure that what I take as my rule is indeed that right one of Gods prescribing therefore the testimony of the Church cannot be the only or chief reason of our believing the Scripture to be the Word of God Eph. 2.20 Built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone 1 Thes 2.13 For this cause thank we God without ceasing because when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us ye received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth the word of God which effectually worketh also in you that believe Quest What then is the chief reason of our belief of the Scriptures Ans The testimony of the Spirit of God in the word it self witnessing it to be of God Psal 119.105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path Prov. 6.23 Commandment is a lamp and the law is light Heb. 4.12 The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the Joynts and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart 2 Pet. 1.19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy whereunto you do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts Quest What is a fourth Error of the Papists Ans In asserting the infallibility of their Pope and Church and that every man must submit his faith and conscience to them Quest Do the Papists any where assert this Ans Yes and Bellarmine in particular layeth down this position That if the Pope command the practice of vice and forbid virtuous actions the Church is bound to believe vices to be good and virtues to be bad Bell. de Pontif. Rom. li. 4. cap. 5. Quest What is the Protestant belief in this matter Ans That there is no human supreme infallible Judg in the Church of God to whom all Christians are obliged to submit their faith and conscience in all matters of Religion Quest How prove you that Ans From three Reasons 1. Because it is a greater authority than the Apostles did ever claim 2 Cor. 1.24 Not for that we have dominion over your faith but are helpers of your joy for by faith ye stand 2. Because it is contrary to Christs command concerning tryal of Doctrine 1 Pet. 3.15 Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you 1 Joh. 4.1 Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God 3. Because as to matter of fact guides and teachers have caused the people to sin in following them Exod. 32.5 31 When
whom God grant a long and happy Reign Nor have we only instances at home but abroad the Murder of Henry the 4th of France and many others but above all the unparallel'd Murder of that Emperor whom they poysoned with the Sacrament I call it unparallel'd having never met with a Religion before that would poyson their God to kill their Emperor 6. 'T is a Blind Religion It leads men out of the way of salvation it hides the danger of damnation to all who have not their hearts thorowly changed from the love of sin to the love of God and Holiness from their eyes it covers the pit whose descent is into that which is bottomless with Spiders webs and perswades them 't is firm-ground it leaves them no sense noâ— notice of many sins no conscience of the most no fear of any no not of the worst such as themselves call deadly crimes it gives as much security to such wickedness as a heart that hath sold it self to it need wish for it keeps the Bible the Law of the Lord which good men make a light to their feet a lanthorn to their paths away from them it will not suffer men to believe their senses or act their reason nor bottom their faith upon the Scriptures That as that General first blinded the men then led them into the Enemies quarters so do they and all the answer you shall have from the common sort among them is this They believe as the Priest bids them and if he deceive them the Devil take him And as their faith is such is their Devotion the matter of their Prayers is lock't up from them and they as little concerned to know what becomes of them sure if the blind lead the blind they must both fall into the ditch Lastly 'T is a Blasphemous Religion In ascribing the peculiar Excellencies of the Divine Majesty and the Prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ to the blessed Virgin and other creatures and to their Popes though divers of them as themselves acknowledg were Monsters and Incarnate Devils When one Phocas took the Emperor Maurice and his family Prisoners who was his lawful Soveraign and having slain his Wife and Children before his eyes not sparing the little Innocent which hung at the Breasts did afterward cause his Master's Throat to be cut likewise a Proceduce so black and barbarous that Historians cannot mention it without horror Yet Pope Gregory congratulates this bloody Treason with abominable Blasphemies and begins his Address to this Phocas in his 36 Epistle with Gloria in Excelsis the Song of the Angels at the Nativity of our Saviour Glory be to God on high and then proceeds Let the Heavens send forth acclamations the Earth leap for joy and let all the people be glad thereof The Jesuits frequently teach that Jesus Christ might have sinned might have been subject unto vices might have fallen into error and folly and that it is no more repugnant to him to err or to speak a thing false in it self by the nature he hath assumed than to be tormented and dye in the same nature so Amicus so Vasquez and many more of them No other sort of Hereticks not excepting Turk Jew nor Pagan no not those of Calcute who adore the Devil did ever maintain by the Grounds of their Religion that it was lawful or rather meritorious as the Romish Catholicks calls it to murther Princes or people for the quarrel of Religion and although particular men of all professions of Religion have been some Thieves some Murtherers some Traitors yet ever when they came to their end and just punishment they confessed their fault to be in their nature and not in their profession But these persons cleave to it at their deaths as zealously as if all they had been doing were the immediate guidance of the blessed Spirit Such is their blasphemy A Protestant Fathers Letter of Advice to his Son in danger of being seduc'd to Popery SON BY a Letter last Week from your Uncle I am to my grief inform'd that you have lately fallen into the unhappy Acquaintance of some Popish Emissaries and are in danger of being inveigled by them to revolt from the Protestant Church to that of Rome I confess the news much surpriz'd me and I cannot but esteem it an essential part of my Fatherly care to admonish and warn you both of the unreasonableness and danger of such a change I do not much admire that those that have been always conversant in darkness should find their eyes offended with the Light which makes me extend very charitable thoughts to poor Souls train'd up in Papal ignorance labouring under the almost invincible prejudices of corrupted Education and Erroneous Principles but that you born and brought up in a Gospel Meridian and as I well hop'd understandingly grounded in the Protestant Doctrine should now stagger in those important Truths and be gull'd and cheated out of the Religion sealed with the Blood of your Martyr'd Ancestors and hazard your Soul by a Relaps to that long since exploded Faction and their slavish as well as ridiculous superstitions is matter of no less wonder than trouble to me the rather for that I am satisfied your circumstances admit not of any temptations of profit or honour to engage you to their party and without those allurements I profess you are the first that my experience can remember in danger of such a shameful Apostacy I shall not swell this Paper with a particular Examen of all the Romish Errors that task has been sufficiently and unanswerably performed by multitudes of our Learned Writers to whom I refer you and charge you to weigh their Arguments seriously before you suffer your Judgment to be debauch'd to a contrary perswasion but because I have some hopes your duty and filial respect may oblige you to a more near and sensible regard of what is said though briefly and weakly by my self that can have no design but the good of your Soul than to the abler reasonings of others more remote I shall offer some general Considerations which methinks should deter you from casting away your self in their communion First then I do affirm to you That to body of the Popish Religion so far as it differs from the Protestant is composed notwithstanding all their pretences to Antiquity of strange Doctrines Innovations and Abuses never instituted by Christ nor warrantable by Holy Scripture nor known nor practic'd in the Primitive Church but introduced at several times in latter Ages meerly to serve the pride or the vanity the covetousness or the sensuality of the Inventors 2. That their Doctrines interfere with and infringe the Greatness and Soveraignty of God and tend to the diminishing the honour and service due to him witness their dividing adoration betwixt him and Images Invocation betwixt him and Saints and absolute obedience betwixt him and the Church c. Now what gross and horrible sacriledge is this What is it less than to divest
when life is concerned rather than a Protestant shall be safe in any of his concerns where they can reach them It is a virtue a duty in their Religion to snap asunder all security by which the world hath hitherto been preserved to ruin a Heretick They who would see more of this at large may read the Jesuits Morals the Practical Divinity of the Papists and Mystery of Jesuitism besides the late instances which they have given at their Deaths who have been executed for Treason and Murders denying the things for which they suffered though proved upon them as clear as the Sun at noon-day occasioned by the awe their Priests have upon them being so far led away with them that the obedience of the dying Proselyte is prevalent even above his Considerations for a future estate This will be more apparent if we consider that hundreds of Irish Papists are executed in the Kingdom of Ireland every year for Murthers Thefts c. and though taken in the very fact yet when they come to dye usually take it upon their Deaths and as they must appear before the great Judg that knows all things that they are as innocent from the fact for which they dye as the Child unborn For they having discharg'd their Consciences by confessing it to the Priests and received his absolution it would bring an odium on their Religion and would be a strengthening the hands of the Protestants if the Priests should suffer it Whereas on the other side could they perswade the simple people to believe they dyed innocent they hope it may lay a stain upon that Religion which they call so often by the name of Heresie And though those Priests have always that regard to their Church as to impose upon the Prisoner to let the world know he dyeth a Roman Catholick yet he hath also much care of the Man that he must not desire the Prayers of any but Papists These things being so usual among them any considerate man will easily judg without breach of charity upon what ground such men are seduced to commit a sin and then out-face the truth of the matter of fact even in the face of Death BEcause the Papists shall not say the charge I give their Religion under the Eighth Error is groundless I shall instance in particular And 1. I say 't is a Superstitious Religion It were innumerable to account the many vain fopperies in their Devotions which they place Religion in as the Tooth of St. Christopher The Hair of St. Peters Beard The shift that came off the back of the Virgin Mary and the Dust and Vermine which they keep of some Saints Valla a great person of Learning and Eminency among them saith There are ten thousand such things in Rome if the Host fall to the ground it must be licked up the ground is to be scraped and the scrapings reduced to ashes is to have place among their Reliques Add to this their Holy-water their salt their spittle their Holy Oyl their Beads Whippings Fish-days Pilgrimages Nunneries Crossing themselves Baptizing of Bells Fonts c. So that the great Erasmus in his Annotations approved by Pope Leo the Tenth saith Their whole Religion is almost brought to their superstitious treatment of Reliques through the covetousness of Priests and the Hypocrisie of Monks fed by the foolishness of the people 2. 'T is an Idolatrous Religion In invocating Saints adoring the Host and worshipping Images Their worshipping of Reliques giving Religious Worship to such things as they do but fancy to be Reliques and not only when they are whole and sound but when they are corrupted and reduced to dust or nothing else left of them but the Vermin bred in them Henricus one of the School Doctors concludes That the Reliques in the form of dust and ashes may and ought to be adored but not under the form of Vermin and gives some reason for it But their great Vasquez rejects this scruple and the ground of it as vain and frivolous and concludes they may be worshipped as well when they are Vermin as when they are ashes Besides their Angel-worship Image-worship and Saint-worship 3. 'T is a Damnable Religion In that it overthrows the very foundation of Christianity their Doctrine of Transubstantiation overthrows the Truth of Christs humane Nature their proper Sacrifice his only Sacrifice for sin offered once for all their Doctrine of Merits for his Merits the multitude of Mediators among them deny that only Mediator betwixt God and Man the man Jesus Christ Their Sacrificing-Priests overthrow Christs Priestly office Their villifying the Scriptures and setting up their unwritten Traditions to be received with equal reverence with them overthrows Christs Prophetical office The great Article of forgiveness of sins and free justification through the Grace of God in Jesus Christ is overthrown by their Doctrine of Merit Pardons Indulgences c. 4. 'T is a Bloody Religion wherein Papal Rome exceeds Heathen Rome Witness the horrid Murthers and Massacres of the poor Waldenses who have been persecuted with Fire and Sword Armies and Inquisitions and very many Thousands nay infinite numbers of them have been inhumanely murdered That Barbarous and prodigious Villany and great Massacre of Protestants in France Anno 1572 where about 30 or 40000 innocent Protestants in Paris and other parts of France were suddenly and inhumanely murdered by Papists Witness Spains Invincible Armada in Anno 1588 when Romes force threatned to swallow us up Witness the Gun-powder Treason a black and unparallel'd villany worthy Rome and a Jesuit the blowing up of a whole Parliament King Lords and Commons the murdering a Kingdom in its Representatives and this in a moment After that their bloody Rebellion in Ireland where they murdered a Hundred thousand Protestants in cold blood without any provocation given but to kill Hereticks Add to this their bloody Traiterous design of late against His Majesty Person the Government and the Protestant Religion a Conspiracy had it taken might have turned England into an Aceldama a Field of Blood or Shambles of Popish Butchers These things considered I hope no man will be so mad to kiss the Popes Toe until his Nails be pared so as he will not scratch and make the blood run about the mouths of Christendom 5. 'T is a Traiterous Religion For they teach that the Pope may depose the Emperor or a King not subject to the Emperor that the Pope may lawfully absolve subjects from their Oath of Allegiance That subjects if they have the Popes consent which they are sure to have if it makes for his interest may depose their Kings That if the King be a manifest Heretick as all Protestants are with them then the Church may depose him Nor have they been wanting to put this their principle into practise so often as they could find occasion as their attempts on Queen Elizabeth by poyson Pistol Dagger on King James by Powder-Treason on King Charles the First and on our King to