Cover of A Short and Plain Answer to Two Questions

Classic Christian work

A Short and Plain Answer to Two Questions

by John Owen

A concise and penetrating apologetic letter addressing two challenges Romanists commonly leveled at Protestants: *Where was your religion before Luther?* and *How do you know the Scriptures are the Word of God?* Owen's answer to the first is brisk — true Christianity existed wherever Scripture was kept. The bulk of the letter defends Scripture's divine authority through evidence of sense, reason, and the Spirit's witness, drawing a memorable parallel between the certainty of sunlight and the self-evidencing clarity of God's Word. A model of readable Reformed apologetics in under twenty pages.
Chapters
2
Word count
6,035
Type
Letter
Start reading →
Original
PDF 683 KB EPUB 410 KB

Table of contents

  1. 01 Where Was Your Religion Before Luther? 238 words
  2. 02 How Do You Know the Scriptures to Be the Word of God? 5,531 words
Front matter (2 sections)

Title Page

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.

LONDON, Printed by T. N. for Jonathan Hutchinson Bookseller in the City of Durham. 1682.

Text

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 has 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 has 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 to. 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,

Take it with you.

Get the app for offline reading, bookmarks, and progress sync.

Download on the App Store Get it on Google Play