A26947:190
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
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. There have been long successions of such as you confess your selves, were not Apostolical, but Apostatical. 3. Your own Popes and Councils command us to take such for no Popes. For example, Pope Nicolas in his Decretals (see Caranza pag. 393.) saith [He that by money or the favour of men, or popular or military tumults is intruded into the Apostolical seat without the Concordant and Canonical election of the Cardinal and the following religious Clergy, let him not be taken for a Pope, nor Apostolical, but for Apostatical.] And even of Priests, he commandeth, [Let no man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certainly knoweth to have a Concubine or woman introduced] Caranza, pag. 395. and ibid. he saith, [Priests that commit fornication, cannot have the honour of Priesthood.]
2. There have been long successions of such as you confess your selves, were not Apostolical, but Apostatical. 3. Your own Popes and Councils command us to take such for no Popes. For example, Pope Nicolas in his Decretals (see Caranza pag. 393.) saith [He that by money or the favour of men, or popular or military tumults is intruded into the Apostolical seat without the Concordant and Canonical election of the Cardinall and the following religious Clergy, let him not be taken for a Pope, nor Apostolical, but for Apostatical.] And even of Priests, he commandeth, [Let no man hear Mass of a Priest whom he certai•ly knoweth to have a Concubine or woman introduced] Caranza, pag. 395. and ibid. he saith, [Priests that commit fornication, cannot have the honour of Priesthood.]
4. But our greater Argument is from the authority of God, and the very nature of the office. An infidel, or notoriously ungodly man, is not capable of being a Pastor of the Church (in sensu composito, while he is such) But the Popes of Rome have been Infidels, and notoriously ungodly men: therefore they were uncapable of being Pastors of the Church (and consequently that Church was Headless, and so no Church.) The Major I prove. 1. Where there is not the necessary matter and disposition of the matter, there can be no reception of the form: But Infidels and notoriously ungodly men, are not matter sufficiently disposed to receive the form of Pastoral Power: therefore they cannot receive it.