A53727:6
A short and plain answer to two questions
A short and plain answer to two questions: I. Where was your religion before Luther? II. How know you the Scriptures to be the word of God? By a Protestant.A short and plain answer to two questions: I. Where was your religion before Luther? II. How know you the Scriuptures to be the word of God? By a Protestant.
London: printed by T.N. for Jonathan Hutchinson bookseller, 1682
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SIR,
I Have received your Letter, wherein you seem to be at a loss for a ready and pertinent Answer to Two capping Questions, by which the Papists are wont to puzzle and confound those silly Souls, whom they compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes. I know you are well satisfied, that Popery is a grand Cheat, upheld by fraud and violence, and hath nothing truly Rational to Recommend it: But yet sometimes a Man of honesty and good Principles may be at a stand to render a satisfying Reason of his Belief, and to obviate the cunning Craftiness of those, who lie in wait to deceive. I suppose moreover you cannot expect any thing from me, but what hath been said before, and what is infinitely better performed in some hundreds of Printed Books already extant, than any Scribbling of mine will ever amount unto. But yet since Men ofttimes make most use of those Reasons, which arise in their own Minds, by thinking and Meditation; I shall, for my own satisfaction, rather than for yours, note down, as briefly and plainly as I can, such Answers to those two Questions you mention, as shall at present occur to my Thoughts; which nevertheless I shall communicate to you, if perhaps they may be worth your Acceptance. The first is,
I Have received your Letter, wherein you seem to be at a loss for a ready and pertinent Answer to Two capping Questions, by which the Papists are wont to puzle and confound those silly Souls, whom they compass Sea and Land to make Proselites. I know you are well satisfied, that Popery is a grand Cheat, upheld by fraud and violence, and hath nothing truly Rational to Recommend it: But yet sometimes a Man of honesty and good Principles may be at a stand to render a satisfying Reason of his Belief, and to obviate the cunning Craftiness of those, who lie in wait to deceive. I suppose moreover you cannot expect any thing from me, but what hath been said before, and what is infinitely better perform'd in some hundreds of Printed Books already extant, than any Scribling of mine will ever amount unto. But yet since Men oftimes make most use of those Reasons, which arise in their own Minds, by thinking and Meditation; I shall, for my own satisfaction, rather than for yours, note down, as briefly and plainly as I can, such Answers to those two Questions you mention, as shall at present occur to my Thoughts; which nevertheless I shall communicate to you, if perhaps they may be worth your Acceptance. The first is,