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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A56075 Protestancy destitute of Scripture-proofs 1687 (1687) Wing P3817; ESTC R217047 5,943 12

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PROTESTANCY DESTITUTE OF Scripture-Proofs A Request was some time ago made to Protestants to produce for sixteen of their positive Tenets plain Scriptures Scriptures but so plain to Us for their Doctrines as they require to be yielded them by the Catholic Church for Her 's An Answer was return'd disclaiming some how consistently with their imposed Doctrines will be examined in due place and evading other of the Propositions alledging also Scriptures so perversely for such as are own'd that the Requester concluded the Pamphlet unworthy a public or special notice and expected if not more pertinent yet at least more plausible Replies to follow except Protestants who have hitherto boasted that Scripture is the Rule of their Faith meant their Profession should be exposed by silence or a silly Defence and for the future esteemed destitute of any Divine Evidence But since the Requester hears no better of the Matter and to prevent an Imagination that he acquiesces in the Answer as satisfactory He thinks it expedient to draw up a brief Remark upon it Those of the Thirty nine Articles which are opposed to Catholic Religion contain Affirmative Propositions or may be resolved into equivalent Affirmatives whereupon the Pretence of Negative Articles is a Subterfuge to escap● proving their Tenets But if it were true that their Faith contradictory to ours were concerning Negatives only yet this Plea seems insufficient to exempt Protestants from that Duty because tho for a Negative or every Non-Assent or Suspence of Assent a Reason may not be given or required yet for Belief a deliberate Act of the Mind for a solemn Profession Subscription and Swearing of that Belief whether it be of Negatives or Affirmatives a Reason may be assign'd and required Unless Belief may be without ground and motive unless Subscriptions and Oaths may be exacted of such as have neither Why nor Wherefore besides Authority for their compliance which Protestants explode as blind Obedience or unless that no Man be obliged to render a Reason of the Faith that is in him if he can convert his Opinions into equivalent Negatives As what Doctrine may not But does the Artifice of Negative Articles affect the Request proposing Affirmatives only If Protestants could prove their Doctrines this fencing and tergiversation about Negative Articles would not be imploy'd nor could They be kept from divulging their Plea. As trifling and defective is the Answerer's Definition of the Protestants Belief of Negatives for they believe if their Faith may be Collected from the Thirty nine Articles not only that the opposite Affirmatives are not in Scripture for they may not be there and yet be true but also that they are * Article 14.22.24.28 rather and plainly repugnant to Scripture and the Teachers of them arrogant impious c. which if they be they are false and Anti-christian Now to characterize Doctrines so ignominiously and when importuned to prove the slander by Scripture to shift off the Charge by saying Their belief of Negatives is only believing such a Doctrine is not in Scripture will not serve our turn that expect satisfaction by their either proving themselves no Calumniators or retracting their Calumnies Having said this to shew Protestants obliged to give Scripture Reasons for their Belief of Negatives had the Requester demanded them We pass to examine the Answers to the Propositions where we shall find no Scriptures produced for some of them and for the Rest none that conclude and prove that for which they are quoted The Propositions that Protestants should prove by Scriture are I. Scripture is clear in all Necessaries to every sober Enquirer Ps 119.105 and 1. it should be 2. Tim. 3.15 are brought to justifie this Tenet but had these Texts been truly quoted they do not reach the Proposition to be proved for if the Word of God were a Light to the Prophet David 's feet If all Scripture be given that the Man of God may be perfect yet a perspicuity of Scripture in all necessaries to every sober Enquirer cannot be deduced thence except every sober Enquirer be a Prophet or a Man of God or at least subject to such But this Notion of sober Enquiry involves the Catholic Doctrine of Submission of Judgment to Church Guides which would have prevented and quite overthrows all Protestancy And sure this Author intends not by sober Enquiry what spoils his Profession II. The Secular Prince hath all Spiritual Jurisdiction and Authority immediately from and under God. The Answerer behaves himself as if He were in apprehensions and durst neither own nor reject this Tenet The Reasons are obvious Yet at length He inclines towards it and thinks Rom. 13.1 proves it Indeed that Scripture either sounds too much or signifies nothing at all to his purpose If it proves what He thinks it proves more than He grants It proves ministring the Word and Sacraments to belong to the higher Powers It leaves this Author's Church no Rights independent no Jurisdiction inherent no Power inalienable unless ministring the Word and Sacraments be not a Soul-affair be no act of Power Pag. 18. in short it will invest every Prince with Spiritual Jurisdiction properly so call'd tho this Author says the Head of his Church has it not III. Justification by Faith alone viz. a Persuasion that we are justified is a wholesome Doctrine The Answerer says his Church does not teach this Tenet and we know some of his Communion have condemned it What then Are we any more bound to conclude thence his Church does not teach it than Protestants are from the Decrees of our General Councils and our constant Profession against a Doctrine they impute to us and to the Catholic Church that we and the Catholic Church hold not as they accuse us and Her to do Besides we must suppose His Church to teach now as She was taught and did teach in Edward the Sixths time when the Articles were devised by Cranmer But that Worthy and his Complices were constant Disciples of Luther in Crede fortiter c. Tho in Consubstantiation they deserted Him. Again not only the Antinomians plead the Doctrine of the Eleventh Article as the Parent of their Irreligion but the strictest Adherers to the Primitive Reformers in Doctrine the Puritans assert this Solifidian Parenthesis as the genuine and literal Sense of Justification by Faith alone and of the Eleventh Article The very same Doctrine was the first new Light bestow'd on the Apostle of the Reformation by the Prince of Darkness But this Author might have given us a Text asserting what He confesses his Church to teach viz. that Justification by Faith only is a most wholesome Doctrine and very full of comfort which intimates no necessity of Repentance to Justification none of the Sacraments c. IV. The Substance of Bread and Wine remains after what it was before Sacerdotal Consecration This is my Body is an express proof or the Answerer brings no Scripture proof That the Substance of Bread and