A26898:229
Church-history of the government of bishops and their councils abbreviated including the chief part…
Church-history of the government of bishops and their councils abbreviated including the chief part of the government of Christian princes and popes, and a true account of the most troubling controversies and heresies till the Reformation ... / by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by B. Griffin for Thomas Simmons, 1680
Church-History OF BISHOPS And their COUNCILS ABRIDGED, &c. › Chapter 1
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.
§. 70. And when our Christianity, Salvation, Union and Communion, yea, our Lives, Liberties and mutual forbearances, and Love, is laid upon this very form of Church-policy and Prelacy, and Christ is supposed to have such a Church as is not in the World, even constituted with a Visible Vicarious Collective Sovereign, that must make Laws for the whole Christian World, it's time to do our best to save men from this deceit.
§. 70. And when our Christianity, Salvation, Union and Communion, yea, our Lives, Liberties and mutual forbearances, and Love, is laid upon this very form of Church-policy and Prelacy, and Christ is supposed to have such a Church as is not in the World, even constituted with a Visible Vicarious Collective Soveraign, that must make Laws for the whole Christian World, it's time to do our best to save men from this deceit.
§. 71. I must confess, If I believed that the Whole Church had any Head or Sovereign under Christ, I should rather take it to be the Pope than any one, finding no other regardable Competitor. He is uncapable of ruling at the Antipodes and all the Earth; but a General Council is much more uncapable, and so are the feigned College of Pastors or Bishops, (none knoweth who.)
§. 71. I must confess, If I believed that the Whole Church had any Head or Soveraign under Christ, I should rather take it to be the Pope than any one, finding no other regardable Competitor. He is uncapable of ruling at the Antipodes and all the Earth; but a General Council is much more uncapable, and so are the feigned College of Pastors or Bishops, (none knoweth who.)
§. 72. IV. And a blind zeal against error, called Heresy, doth cry down the necessary Love and toleration of many tolerable Christians; And some cry, down with them, and away with them that err more themselves, and by their measures would leave but few Christians endured by one another in the World: Thus do they teach us to understand Solomon,