A26947:442
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. And if you take the word [Church] in the second sense, for a Diocesan or Patriarchal Church, or Association of Churches; supposing such forms proved warrantable, the same answer serveeth as to the first.
2. And if you take the word [Church] in the second sence, for a Diocesan or Patriarchiall Church, or Association of Churches; supposing such forms proved warrantable, the same answer serveeth as to the first.
3. But (to come to the true state of our Controversy) If by [a true Church] you mean either of the two last, that is, 1. The whole Universal Church: or 2. A Mistress Church that must Rule all the rest, it was never such a true Church in Pauls days.
3. But (to come to the true state of our Controversie) If by [a true Church] you mean either of the two last, that is, 1. The whole Universal Church: or 2. A Mistris Church that must Rule all the rest, it was never such a true Church in Pauls dayes.
And therefore here we turn this argument of the Papists against themselves. If the Church of Rome were neither the whole Catholic Church, nor the Mistress of all other Churches when Paul wrote his Epistle to them, then it is not so now, nor ought to be so accounted. But the former is proved: 1. That the Church of Rome was not the whole Catholic Church then, no man that's well in his wits can doubt, that reads what a Church there was at Jerusalem, what a Church at Ephesus, and Philadelphia, Smyrna, Thyatira, Laodicea, Corinth, and abundance more. Prove that all or any of these were parts of the Church of Rome if you can. 2. Where doth Paul once name them either the Catholic Church, or the Mistress or Ruler of all Churches? or give the least hint of any such thing? or mention any Pope among them whom the whole world was to take to be their Sovereign Head? Is it not an incredible thing that Paul (and all the Apostles) would forget to make any mention of this privilege, or teach them how to use it, or teach other Churches their duty in obeying the Church of Rome, if indeed they had been made the Mistress Church? Men that can believe what they list, may say what they list. But for my part I will never think so hardly of Paul and all the Apostles, as to accuse them of so great oblivion or negligence. And therefore I conclude, Rome was neither the Universal Church, nor the Mistress Church then (not many an age after) and therefore it is not so to be accounted now. So that you see how easily this silly Argument shows its shame.