A REQUEST TO Protestants, To produce Plain Scriptures directly authorising these their Tenets. I. Scripture is clear, in all Necessaries, to every Sober Enquirer. II. The Secular Prince hath all Spiritual Jurisdiction and Authority, immediately, from and under God. III. Justification by Faith alone (viz. a Persuasion that we are justified) is a wholesome Doctrine. iv The Substance of Bread and Wine remains after, what it was before, Sacerdotal Consecration. V Our Lord's Presence in or with the Eucharist is merely gracious and influential; and, if more, only to the Faithful. VI Adoration of the Eucharist (i. e. of our Saviour under the Species of Bread and Wine) is Idolatry. VII. All Christians, whenever they communicate, are obliged to receive in both Kind's. VIII. Chastity, deliberately vowed, may be, inoffensively, violated. IX. All Christian Excellencies are commanded. X. Every Soul, as soon as expired, is conveyed to Heaven or Hell. XI. Desiring the Intercessions of the Blessed, is more Superstitious, and derogatory to our Lord's Mediatorship, than entreating the Prayers of Holy Men Militant. XII. Honouring the Cross, the Relics and Representations of our Lord and his Saints, with that degree of Reverence as we do the Gospels, (commonly kissed and sworn by) Altar, and other Sacred Utensils, is Idolatry. XIII. The Pope is Antichrist. XIV. Every Prayer, used in Divine Offices, must be in a Language vulgar, and intelligible to every Auditor. XV. A Company of Christians, voluntarily separating from all other Christian Societies, condemning their Doctrines and Rites, destitute also of any visible Correspondence with them in the Eucharist, in any Religious Assemblies or Solemn Devotions, can, notwithstanding this perverse, entire, and manifest Separation, be a mystical Member of Christ, in Catholic Unity, and a Charitable Part of the Catholic Church. XVI. The whole Clergy of the Catholic Church may apostatise 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. IN these positive Propositions (if Protestants have any affirmative Belief) does their Religion chief consist: because, Baptism, and such Articles of the Creed, as are still uncorrupted by them, are no more theirs, than * Tertul. de Prescript. c. 36. Constat ratio Propositi nostri, definientis non esse admittendos Haereticos ad ineundam de Scripturis provocationem, quos sine Scripturis probamus ad Scripturas non pertinere.— Nullum jus capiant Christianarum Literarum. the Scriptures were the Valentinians: they are the Churches Peculiar, and claimed by Her against all novel and unjust, both Foreigners and Outlaws: but they have invented or 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. Now Protestant's (as all other Deserters of Truth and Unity) conscious of their own Deficiencies as to Defensive Weapons, are more earnest and solicitous to invade † Tertul. de Prescript. c. 42. Negotium illis, non Ethnicos convertendi, sed nostros evertendi.— Ipsum opus eorum non de suo proprio aedificio venit, sed de veritatis destructione nostra suffodiunt, ut sua ●edificent. Catholic Doctrines, than to justify their own Inventions; more ready also to assault particular Doctrines, than that decisive and most conspicuous Truth, Church-Authority, obliging all Christians to repose in and assent to her Decisions in all Points of necessary Faith. In Disputes, their usual Clamour is, Allege Scripture; Produce Reason. Intimating the Catholic Church must, to convince them, offer Scriptures and Reasons demonstrating what they contradict (not with the Auxiliary of her Authority, but against the most impudent prejudice of), themselves being Judges. Yet, could this be performed, solent oculis clausis denegare, qui non credunt factum esse, quod nolunt: Hieron. adv. Lucif. Like to those who will not believe that to be, which they have no mind should be, it is not unusual with them to shut their Eyes and deny it. She, however, gentle, patiented, and apt to teach her own, than to pry into, and other ways perilously confute contagious Doctrines, to recover such Strays out of the Snare of the Devil, instructs them by rightly dividing the Word of Truth, and by yielding those Reasons of the Faith that is in her, as It (a Revelation and Mysterious) can condescend unto. What Protestant's so insultingly demand, we then retort; and what the Catholic Church returns, we expect: Nor can they here take Sanctuary under Negatives; for the above-recounted Points are Positive, and Affirmers must prove. We then require express Scriptures and solid Reasons for these Novelties, or a disavowing and Anathema of what they cannot thus defend. Neither shall Perversions of the One, Calumnies and Fallacies in lieu of the Other, satisfy us. Their Private Spirit adulterating Scripture by corrupt Translations, sacrilegious Mutilations, blasphemous Misapplications, gross Wrest, and false Interpretations; Their Wit imposing on the credulous Multitude, Indefinits, Non-consequences, Ambiguities, Drollery, Digressions evading the Cause, and, if any Truth, utterly impertinent to the Controversy. I say, these Phantomes and Abuses of Scripture and Reason will not content us; tho' thereby the Delusion, Protestancy, be strenghthned as 'twas begotten (for can a Falsehood be supported without lying?) and wretched Souls seduced to confide in damnable Fables. Their Brethren * Tertul. ibid. Agnoscit naturam suam, & originis suae morem, profectus rei.— Id●m licuit.— Marcionitis quod Marcioni, de suo arbitrio fidem innovare. , by Descent and Iniquity, the Socinians, steering by the Blast of a Private Spirit, the Chart o●●lear Scripture, and Compass of Human Reason, have made shipwreck of Faith; and their other Relations, the Antinomians, adding another Protestant Implement (Faith alone is a wholesome Doctrine), have made shipwreck of a good Conscience; and no other Protestant either does, or can, without confusion to his own Principles, hinder their being cast away. When Prelatical Protestants are pressed with Church Authority, and submission of Judgement, they straight retire to Hobbism, their Lay-Supremacy, declaring their Prince, the Sole and Sovereign Judge in all Causes Spiritual; and that a Christian, certain of the Truth of his own Profession, and of the Falsehood of the Established Religion, may not, unless permitted by the Prince, or enabled by God to work Miracles, preach his own, and decry the other. And will not such absolute Lay-Authority (indeed unknown to St. Austin when he wrote the Unit. Eccles. c. 13. Neque enim quia & orbe terrarum plerumque regna dividuntur, ideo & Christiana Unitas dividitur, cum in utraque parte (sc. multis regnis) Catholica inveniatur Ecclesia [indivisa]; Will not, I say, such absolute Lay-Authority (though pernicious to Catholic) procure a National Unity? We see nothing like it; because, when the Supremacy grows suspicious or heavy on their Private Spirits, and disfavours Protestant Libertinism in Opinion and Life, than Supremacy was devised against a Foreign not Domestic Ecclesiastical Authority, and the King was only the Church of England's Father-in-Law, or Guardian in her Minority, chosen who● she broke lose from the Pope and General Councils; but now she is at discretion, and means to challenge and exercise her essential Rights: Rights inalienable, notwithstanding the Encroachments of some, and Usurpations of others. Having thus disclaimed all Clerical Authority, whether Conciliary or Papal, Primatical or Diocesan, and attributed it to the Sovereign; and now deposing Him also from his Spiritual Supremacy and Absoluteness, with a The Church hath her Rights, etc. what can be intended, by these new Church-Rights, consistent with Supremacy? What can these perplexed People (perplexed most justly by their own Servileness to some, and Disobedience to others) what can they erect, in stead of their Head's now-rejected Prerogative, but an Equality of all the Headless Members? I say, a Parity or an individual Supremacy must be retreated to, as least unjust, and more free than preferring one or more Tyrants. For thus the King shall have no Superior, as no Subject, Spiritual; all will share alike (as they ought to do) in the Spoil; and, according to Custom, a Republic succeeds a Monarchy. The Royal cashiered the Synodical Authority, and the Popular (i. e. every Man's) the Royal Authority. Thus Cranmers and Tillotson's Court-Doctrin is relinquished, and Stillingfleet's Maxim entertained; That none be constrained to Submission of Judgement to any Authority, but All be left to judge according 〈◊〉 the Pandects of the Divine Law. Ipsi sibi & Laici sunt & Episcopi * St. Jerom of Hilarius the Roman Deacon, separating from all the World. . Nor are these individual Catholic Churches without their Schisms.— Cum sint, non modo non parent [praesidibus], sibi ipsis autem non constantibus, quotidianam fidem cudunt; but refusing to obey their Rulers, and contradicting themselves, every day invent a new Faith. Published with Allowance. LONDON, Printed by Henry Hills, Printer to the King's Most Excellent Majesty for His Household and Chapel. 1686.