A26947:1475
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.
4. If the Pope be he that must call General Councils, we shall have none, till it will stand with his interest. And if he have not the power of calling them, no one else hath, for none pretendeth to it. And if they must be called by universal consent, three hundred years is little enough for all the world to treat of the time, place, and other circumstances, and consent.
5. And if the Pope must call them, he will easily by the very choice of the place, procure the accomplishment of his own designs.
6. Those that think it the Popes prerogative to call a Council, do also affirm (as I before showed in the express words of Binnius and others) that a Council hath no more power then the Pope will give them, and that when they are convened by him, and have done their work, it is all of no Validity, if he allow it not: If he approve one half, that half is valid, and his approbation will make their Decrees the Articles of our faith; when as the other half which he disapproveth shall not be worth a straw. And is it not a most foolish thing for all the world to put themselves to so much charge to defray the expenses of their Bishops, and hazard their lives, and lose their labours at home for so many years, and hazard the Churches by their absence, when for ought they know the Bishops of the whole Christian world do but lose all their labour, and nothing shall be valid if they please not the Pope of Rome? And is it not most abominable justice in him thus to put all the world to trouble, and cost, and hazard the Churches and the Pastors lives, for nothing, when if the infallible spirit be only in himself, he might have done the work himself, and saved all this cost and labour.
6. Those that think it the Popes prerogative to call a Council, do also affirm (as I before shewed in the express words of Binnius and others) that a Council hath no more power then the Pope will give them, and that when they are convened by him, and have done their work, it is all of no Validity, if he allow it not: If he approve one half, that half is valid, and his approbation will make their Decrees the Articles of our faith; when as the other half which he disapproveth shall not be worth a straw. And is it not a most foolish thing for all the world to put themselves to so much charge to defray the expenses of their Bishops, and hazzard their lives, and lose their labours at home for so many years, and hazzard the Churches by their absence, when for ought they know the Bishops of the whole Christian world do but lose all their labour, and nothing shall be valid if they please not the Pope of Rome? And is it not most abominable justice in him thus to put all the world to trouble, and cost, and hazzard the Churches and the Pastors lives, for nothing, when if the infallible spirit be only in himself, he might have done the work himself, and saved all this cost and labour.