A26947:777
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.
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?
3. They cannot be certain but its every age interrupted, and that theres 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?
4. What succession of Episcopal Consecration was there in the Church of Alexandria, when Hierom (Epist. ad Evagrium) tells us that [At Alexandria from Mark the Evangelist even till Heraclus and Dionysius their Bishops, the Presbyters did always name one man that Bishop whom they chose from among themselves, and placed in a higher degree. Even as if an Army make an Emperor, or the Deacons choose one of themselves, whom they know to be industrious, and call him the chief Deacon.] Thus Hierom shows that Bishops were then made by mere Presbyters. And in the same Epistle he proves from Scripture, that Presbyters and Bishops were then all one. And if so, there were no Prelatical Ordinations then at all. And your Medina accusing Hierom of error in this, saith, that Ambrose, Austin, Sedulius, Primasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophilact, were in the same heresy, as Bellarmine himself reporteth him. So that Presbyters now may either ordain, or make themselves Bishops as those of Alexandria did, to do it. And as Hierom there saith, [All are the successors of the Apostles,] and our Bishops or Presbyters are such, as much, at least, as yours: yet Apostles as Apostles have no Successors at all, as Bellarmine