A26947:1473
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.
2. It would be guilty of cruelty and Church destoying by the starving and desertion of the flocks at home. What will become of the poor peoples souls, when they are left to the Wolves, to Heretics, and Deceivers, and to the temptations of their own flesh, and the world, being for ten or twenty years, or for ever deprived of their Pastors under pretence of a General Council? Basil in his seventieth Epistle tells the Western Bishops, that they of the East could not come to solicit their own cause with them. For, saith he, If any one of us (N. B.) do for the least moment leave his Church, he presently leaveth his people to deceivers. And on this ground he shows that they could not so much as spare Bishops to be mere Messengers to them. Much less could they have spared a sufficient number to stay seven or ten years together. If any think that such Necessities are unusual, he knows not the world. And Councils are most useful if ever, when necessities are greatest.
2. It would be guilty of cruelty and Church destoying by the starving and desertion of the flocks at home. What will become of the poor peoples souls, when they are left to the Wolves, to Hereticks, and Deceivers, and to the temptations of their own flesh, and the world, being for ten or twenty years, or for ever deprived of their Pastors under pretense of a General Council? Basil in his seventieth Epistle tells the Western Bishops, that they of the East could not come to solicite their own cause with them. For, saith he, If any one of us (N. B.) do for the least moment leave his Church, he presently leaveth his people to deceivers. And on this ground he shews that they could not so much as spare Bishops to be meer Messengers to them. Much less could they have spared a sufficient number to stay seven or ten years together. If any think that such Necessities are unusuall, he knows not the world. And Councils are most usefull if ever, when necessities are greatest.
3. In Councils things are carried by Votes: and so Abyssinia, Armenia, Mexico, and places so remote that they can send but one or two, would be out-voted by that corner of the world where the Council is called, that can send in proportionably an hundred for one; and so under the name of a General Council, a faction might promote any heresy or carnal interest, and no Churches would be so enslaved as those that send at the dearest rates. Italy and a few more parts, at Trent, would over-vote all the Churches of East and South, and set up what interest or opinion they please: And so if one corner of the Church can err, all may err, for all the Council: Where there is an equal interest, there should be an equal power in Councils: which will certainly be otherwise.