A26947:1448
A key for Catholics, to open the juggling of the Jesuits, and satisfy all…A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all…
A key for Catholics, to open the juggling of the Jesuits, and satisfy all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part showeth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholic Church is not united in any merely humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholic Christian and Pastor of a church ...A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part sheweth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholick Church is not united in any meerly humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a church ...
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1659
Quest. Whether the way to heal any Divisions in the Churches of Chr… › Chapter 3
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.
3. And then before the Nicene Council, what General Councils were there since the Apostle days? None doubtless that the world now knows of. It's senseless enough to think that 350 Roman Bishops at the second Council of Nice, or the 150 Bishops in the third Council at Constantinople, or the 165 Bishops ⟨p. 409⟩at the second Council at Constantinople, or the 150 Bishops at the first there, were the Universal Church of Christ? But it will be more ridiculous to say, that the new-found Concilium Sinuessanum, imagined without proof to meet in a certain Cave, for the deposition of an Idolatrous Pope, were a General Council. Where then was the Head, the unity, the form of the Church for 300 years? Was it governed all that time, think you, by a General Council? yea or ever one day since the Apostles?
Well, but was there ever such a thing at all? Indeed men have a fairer pretence when the Church was contained in a family, or a City, or a narrow space, to call the meetings of the Apostles or other Christians then, by the name of a General Council, but they are hard put to it, if this be all. The great Instance insisted on is the Council, Act. 15. But were the Bishops of all the Churches there? or summoned to appear? Act. 14. 23. they had ordained them Elders in every Church; but few of them were there, Timothy, Titus, abundance were absent. It's plain, that it was to the Apostles and Church at Jerusalem as the Fountain, and best informers that they sent. Not because these were the Universal Church, but because they were of greatest knowledge and authority. If it could be proved that all the Apostles were there, it would no more prove them a General Council, then that the Deacons of one Church were ordained by a General Council, Act. 6. And Matthias and Justus put to the Lot by a General Council,