A26947:936
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.
Well; but you have a third Question [By what Authority was she otherwise reproved?] Answ. By the Authority of that Precept, Levit. 19. 17. and many the like. By the same Authority that Paul reproved Peter, Gal. 2. and withstood him to the face: by such Authority as any man may seek to quench a fire in his neighbours house, or pull a man out of the water that is drowning: or as any one Pastor may reprove another when he sinneth. By the same Authority as Irenaeus rebuked Victor, and the Asian Bishops withstood him, and as Cyprian and the Council of Carthage reproved Stephen; and the rest aforecited did what they did. By as good Authority as the Church of Rome condemneth the Greek Church, doth the Greek Church and many another condemn the Church of Rome.
3. The next case is about the Roman schism. To your Questions, I answer, 1. To Question whether Papists be Schismatics, is to question whether Ethiopians be black. Do you not at this day divide from all the Christian world, save your selves? Do you not unchurch most of the Christians on earth (O dreadful presumption! when Christ is so tender of his interest and his servants, and is bound as it were, by so many promises to save them and not forsake them.) You ask, what Church you left? and when was it? and whose company? Senseless Questions. By a Church if you mean the Universal Church, there is but One in all: and therefore One Universal Church cannot forsake another: but when part of it forsaketh the other ⟨p. 253⟩part, and arrogateth the title of the whole to themselves, do you doubt whether this be Schism? If you mean a particular Church: How can Spain, Italy, France, and many more Kingdoms go out of a particular Church, that contain so many hundred particular Churches in them? No more then London can go out of Pauls Church. The Catholic is but One containing all true Christians on earth: and you have been guilty of a most horrid Schism, as ever the Church knew. For 1. You have set up a Church in the Church: An Universal Church in the Universal Church: A new form destructive to the old. Your Pope as Christ-representative is now an Essential part of it, and no man is a member of it, that is not a member of the Popes body, and subject to him. So that even the Antipdes and the poor Abassians that know not whether the Pope be fish or flesh, or never heard of such a name or thing, must all be unchristened, unchurched and damned, if you be Judges. Yea and Bellarmine tells us (which indeed your Church Constitution doth infer) that all that are duly baptized, are interpretatively or implicitly baptized into the Pope.