A26947:776
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. Though this that is said is enough as to the Papists, yet I add for fuller satisfaction, that their succession is interrupted; and therefore they are most unfit to be our Judges in this. They have had so long schisms in which no man knew who was the ⟨p. 208⟩right Pope, nor knoweth to this day; and so long removes and vacancies, and such interpositions of various ways of choosing their Pope, and interruptions by Heretical Popes, condemned by General Councils; besides Murderers, Adulterers, Simonists, and such as their own Writers (as Genebrard) expressly say, Were not Apostolical, but Apostatical; yea Popes that by General Councils have been judged or charged with infidelity it self (as I have formerly proved,) that there's nothing more certain then that their succession hath been interrupted.
2. Though this that is said is enough as to the Papists, yet I add for fuller satisfaction, that their succession is interrupted; and therefore they are most unfit to be our Judges in this. They have had so long schisms in which no man knew who was the ⟨p. 208⟩right Pope, nor knoweth to this day; and so long removes and vacancies, and such interpositions of various wayes of choosing their Pope, and interruptions by Hereticall Popes, condemned by General Councils; besides Murderers, Adulterers, Symonists, and such as their own Writers (as Genebrard) expresly say, Were not Apostolical, but Apostatical; yea Popes that by General Councils have been judged or charged with infidelity it self (as I have formerly proved,) that there's nothing more certain then that their succession hath been interrupted.
3. They cannot be certain but its every age interrupted, and that there's no true Pope or Bishops among them, because the intention of the Ordainer or Consecrator is with them of necessity to the thing: and no man can be certain of the Intention of the Ordainers. And therefore Bellarmine is fain to take up with this, that though we cannot be sure that he is a true Pope, Bishop, or Presbyter that is ordained, yet we are bound to obey him. But where then is the Certainty of succession?