A26947:493
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.
But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue, and telling them where our Church was before Luther: To this we further answer; we have no peculiar Catholic Church of our own; for there is but one, and that is our Church: Wherever the Christian Church was, there was our Church. And wherever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship, there were Churches of the same sort, as our particular Churches. And wherever Christianity was, there our Religion was: For we know no Religion but Christianity. And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world, since Christ? Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manual, that names you some Popes, and about twenty professors of their faith in each age, as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholic Church: Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them? This is easy, but silly disputing.
But all this will not serve them without a Catalogue, and telling them where our Church was before Luther: To this we further answer; we have no peculiar Catholick Church of our own; for there is but one, and that is our Church: Wherever the Christian Church was, there was our Church. And whereever any Christians were congregate for Gods worship, there were Churches of the same sort, as our particular Churches. And wherever Christianity was, there our Religion was: For we know no Religion but Christianity. And would you have us give you a Catalogue of all the Christians in the world, since Christ? Or would you have us as vain as H. T. in his Manuall, that names you some Popes, and about twenty professors of their faith in each age, as if twenty or thirty men were the Catholick Church: Or as if those men were proved to be Papists by his naming them? This is easie, but silly disputing.
In a word, Our Religion is Christianity. 1. Christianity hath certain Essentials, without which no man can be a Christian; and it hath moreover many precious truths, and duties necessary necessitate praecepti, and also necessitate medii, to the better being of a Christian. Our being as Christians is in the former; and our strength and increase and better-being is much in the latter. From the former, Religion and the Church is denominated. Moreover, 2. Our implicit and actual explicit Belief (as the Papists call them) must be distinguished; or, our General and our particular Belief. 3. And also the Positives of our Belief must be distinguished from the implied Negatives; and the express Articles themselves, from their implied Consectaries.