A26947:507
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.
the Roman Bishops were aspiring by degrees to be Arch-bishops, and so to be Patriarchs, and so to have the first seat and vote, and to be called the Chief Bishops or Patriarchs, and at last they made another thing of their office, and claimed (about six hundred years or more after Christ) to be universal Monarchs or Governors of all the Church: But though this claim was soon laid, it was comparatively but few, even in the West, that made it any Article of their faith, but multitudes sided with the Princes that would have kept the Pope lower, and the most of the People meddled not with the matter, but yielded to necessity, and gave place to violence, except such as the Albigenses, Bohemians, Wicklefists and the rest that more openly opposed. So that no man could judge of the multitude clearly, which side they were on, being forced by fire and sword, and having not the freedom to profess their minds.
the Roman Bishops were aspiring by degrees to be Arch-bishops, and so to be Patriarchs, and so to have the first seat and vote, and to be called the Chief Bishops or Patriarchs, and at last they made another thing of their office, and claimed (about six hundred years or more after Christ) to be universal Monarchs or Governours of all the Church: But though this claim was soon laid, it was comparatively but few, even in the West, that made it any Article of their faith, but multitudes sided with the Princes that would have kept the Pope lower, and the most of the People medled not with the matter, but yielded to necessity, and gave place to violence, except such as the Albigenses, Bohemians, Wicklefists and the rest that more openly opposed. So that no man could judge of the multitude clearly, which side they were on, being forced by fire and sword, and having not the freedom to profess their minds.
So that in sum, our Religion was at first with the Apostles, and the Apostolic Church: and for divers hundred years after, it was with the universal Christian Church: And since Romes usurpation, it was even with the Romanists though abused, and with the greater part of the Catholic Church that renounced Popery then, and so do now; and also with the opposers of the Pope in the West under his own nose. You see now what Succession we plead, and where our Church and Religion still was.