Skip to content

A26962:160

Naked popery, or, The naked falsehood of a book called The Catholic naked truth,…Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth,…

Naked popery, or, The naked falsehood of a book called The Catholic naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental error of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental errour of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...

Richard Baxter 1615–1691London: printed for N. Simmons, 1677

196, [8] p. · 61k words · Wing B1315 · ESTC R13884

Title page: Princeton Theological Seminary Library copy, digitized by the Internet Archive (opens the Internet Archive in a new tab)

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.

[ Earlier:157–172 of 699

:157p. 67

Contrarily, If it be Madness and Hostility to all Kings and States, for any one man on earth to claim and seek to be the Monarch of all the World in Civil Government, it is madness and hostility to Kings, Pastors, and People, for any one man to claim and seek to be the Monarch of all the World in Ecclesiastic Government. But the former is true: Ergo, so is the latter. I am ready to make good the Comparison.

Contrarily, If it be Madness and Hostility to all Kings and States, for any one man on earth to claim and seek to be the Monarch of all the World in Civil Government, it is madness and hostility to Kings, Pastors, and People, for any one man to claim and seek to be the Monarch of all the World in Ecclesiastick Government. But the former is true: Ergo, so is the latter. I am ready to make good the Comparison.

:158p. 67–68¶3

III. But, Sir, if the Pope be S. Peter's Successor, is not his Apostolic office as Universal as his Monarchy or Ruling office? Surely the first part of the Apostles office was to preach and baptize, and make Christians and gather Churches, and the Governing of them was but the second part: And is the Pope the Apostle of all the world? Then it seemeth that he is a betrayer of most of the whole earth to the Devil, that neither preacheth to them per se vel per alios. But S. Peter's Charge was not Universal but Indefinite. And even as to Government, why did he never so much as send his Deputies to govern the Abassins for so many hundred years? Nay hence it seemeth to follow, that all the preaching and Church-order that hath been for so many hundred years, either there or in any other Nation, by which millions have been turned to Christianity and edified, without the mission or ⟨p. 68⟩Commission of the Roman Monarch, should have been left undone, and all was unlawful?

III. But, Sir, if the Pope be S. Peter's Successor, is not his Apostolick office as Universal as his Monarchy or Ruling office? Surely the first part of the Apostles office was to preach and baptize, and make Christians and gather Churches, and the Governing of them was but the second part: And is the Pope the Apostle of all the world? Then it seemeth that he is a betrayer of most of the whole earth to the Devil, that neither preacheth to them per se vel per alios. But S. Peter's Charge was not Vniversal but Indefinite. And even as to Government, why did he never so much as send his Deputies to govern the Abassins for so many hundred years? Nay hence it seemeth to follow, that all the preaching and Church-order that hath been for so many hundred years, either there or in any other Nation, by which millions have been turned to Christianity and edified, without the mission or

[ Earlier passages Later passages ]

Position

Cited: :160
On this page: :157–172
Section: :111–174
Whole work: 699 passages

Cite

Richard Baxter, Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth,… (London, 1677), ch. 3, §5, pp. 68–69. EEBO-TCP A26962.

Or select words in any passage to make an image of them.

The book

Title as printed: Naked popery, or, The naked falsehood of a book called The Catholic naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental error of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...Naked popery, or, The naked falshood of a book called The Catholick naked truth, or, The Puritan convert to apostolical Christianity, written by W.H. opening their fundamental errour of unwritten tradition, and their unjust description of the Puritans, the prelatical Protestant, and the papist, and their differences, and better acquainting the ignorant of the same difference, especially what a Puritan and what a papist is / by Richard Baxter ...
Author: Richard Baxter 1615–1691
Place: London
Bookseller: N. Simmons
Year: 1677
Size: 196, [8] p.
Words: 60,859
Catalogue: Wing B1315 · ESTC R13884
Text: EEBO-TCP A26962

Passages: 699
Sections: 22

:159p. 68¶4

IV. But must your Pope be obeyed as Supreme but in the Vacancy of General Councils? Dare you preach this at Rome? 1. How then come the Councils of Constance and Basil for such Doctrine to be unapproved or reprobate Councils? How came Pope Eugenius to keep up and continue the succession, when so great a General Council had deposed him as Heretical, Simoniacal, and many ways flagitious? 2. And what? Have we a Catholic Church with two Heads? that are per vices the Vicars of Christ? A Pope one year, and a Council another? Then sure they are two Churches, seeing the Pars imperans is the specifying part. 3. But the best is, it is at the Pope's will, whether ever there shall be a General Council more? And he knoweth which side his Bread is Buttered on? Nay, they say, no Decree is valid without his approbation: And if ever a John, or Eugenius of them all will approve of his own Deposition for Heresy, Simony, Adultery, &c. he is not the Man that I took him for. 4. But if the name [General Council] be not a Cheat, and taken for a Council very far from being General, as to the whole Christian World, let the Pope set his heart at rest, I will undertake to secure him from the danger of such a Council, and to prove that such there never ought to be, will be, or can be, unless Christianity come much nearer to be rooted out of the Earth, and the Church brought into a narrower room.

IV. But must your Pope be obeyed as Supreme but in the Vacancy of General Councils? Dare you preach this at Rome? 1. How then come the Councils of Constance and Basil for such Doctrine to be unapproved or reprobate Councils? How came Pope Eugenius to keep up and continue the succession, when so great a General Council had deposed him as Heretical, Simoniacal, and many ways flagitious? 2. And what? Have we a Catholick Church with two Heads? that are pervices the Vicars of Christ? A Pope one year, and a Council another? Then sure they are two Churches, seeing the Pars imperans is the specifying part. 3. But the best is, it is at the Pope's will, whether ever there shall be a General Council more? And he knoweth which side his Bread is Buttered on? Nay, they say, no Decree is valid without his approbation: And if ever a John, or Eugenius of them all will approve of his own Deposition for Heresie, Simony, Adultery, &c. he is not the Man that I took him for. 4. But if the name [General Council] be not a Cheat, and taken for a Council very far from being General, as to the whole Christian World, let the Pope set his heart at rest, I will undertake to secure him from the danger of such a Council, and to prove that such there never ought to be, will be, or can be, unless Christianity come much nearer to be rooted out of the Earth, and the Church brought into a narrower room.

:168p. 72

But perhaps you take the word Religion in the Roman sense, as you confine it to those that you call [the Religious] (as if you took the people of your Church to be irreligious:) And so you have indeed too many Religious, however they come to make one Church: The Religion of the Carthusians is one, and of the Benedictines another, and of the Franciscans another; I cannot name them all: One eateth Herbs and Fish, and another eateth Flesh seldom, another often; one weareth one habit, and another weareth another; one Religion hath one Rule of Life, and another hath another. But with us there is but one Religion (which is the Christian) though one man wear cloth and another stuff, one white and another black, one eat Flesh and another Fish, and another can seldom get either; though one wear his Hair long and another short, though one be old and another be young, yet we are all of one Religion: Yea, though one preach and pray in English, another in Welsh, another in French, and another in Dutch, yet we take not these to be so many Religions: No nor though one think Free praying fitter for Ministers than an imposed Form, and another think an imposed Form only fit, and a third think as the mere Puritan, that both having their Conveniences and Inconveniences, there should be seasons for both.

But perhaps you take the word Religion in the Romane sense, as you confine it to those that you call [the Religious] (as if you took the people of your Church to be irreligious:) And so you have indeed too many Religious, however they come to make one Church: The Religion of the Carthusians is one, and of the Benedictines another, and of the Franciscans another; I cannot name them all: One eateth Herbs and Fish, and another eateth Flesh seldom, another often; one weareth one habit, and another weareth another; one Religion hath one Rule of Life, and another hath another. But with us there is but one Religion (which is the Christian) though one man wear cloth and another stuffe, one white and another black, one eat Flesh and another Fish, and another can seldom get either; though one wear his Hair long and another short, though one be old and another be young, yet we are all of one Religion: Yea, though one preach and pray in English, another in Welch, another in French, and another in Dutch, yet we take not these to be so many Religions: No nor though one think Free praying fitter for Ministers than an imposed Form, and another think an imposed Form only fit, and a third think as the meer Puritan, that both having their Conveniences and Inconveniences, there should be seasons for both.

:170p. 73–74¶2

2. Whether all the doctrinal Controversies among your selves, as between all your School Doctors about Predestination, Grace, and free will, about Perseverance, about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, about the Power of the Pope over all Kings in Temporals, and about the killing of excommunicate Kings, and the absolving their Subjects, and whether after excommunication they are Kings or no, (of which Hen. Fowlis hath cited great store on one side,) and all the Moral Controversies about loving God, about Perjuries, Vows, Murder, Fornication, Lying, Stealing, Drunkenness, Gluttony, (of which you may see great store in Montaltus's Letters, The Mystery of Jesuitism, and Mr. Clarkson's late Book called The Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome:) I say, is not Religion as much concerned about all these differences, and all the rest among you which make many Horse-loads, yea I think Cart-loads of Volumes, as it is in the colour of the Preachers Clothes, or the Meat he eateth? And are not Protestants (that is, mere Christians disowning Popery) as justifiable in their Unity and Charity, for taking Men to be of the same Religion, who use not the same Garments, Gestures, and Ceremonies, and that bear with differences herein, as your Church that beareth with all these loads of different Doctrines in your most Learned Famous Doctors (and not in the weaker Priests alone) even whether excommunicate ⟨p. 74⟩Kings may be killed or no; and whether the Pope hath Power to put down and set up Emperors and Kings? If you say that your One Religion and One Church hath no such difference, it must be by saying that you all agree to Gregory the seventh in Concil. Rom. & Innoc. 3. in Concil. Lateran. on the worser side, and all own the Doctors cited by H. Fowlis aforesaid: But indeed I must speak better of you, even that some are of a better mind, whom Goldastus hath gathered and preserved, and divers of the Learned Men of France, and some in Spain. But we think the difference even between the Prelatists, Presbyterians, Independents, yea and the moderate Anabaptists, to be far less than these which your unanimous agreeing Church doth constantly bear with, without Silencing, Imprisoning, Ejecting, or Condemning, or so much as disowning the judgments of the worser side.

2. Whether all the doctrinal Controversies among your selves, as between all your School Doctors about Predestination, Grace, and free will, about Perseverance, about the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, about the Power of the Pope over all Kings in Temporals, and about the killing of excommunicate Kings, and the absolving their Subjects, and whether after excommunication they are Kings or no, (of which Hen. Fowlis hath cited great store on one side,) and all the Moral Controversies about loving God, about Perjuries, Vows, Murder, Fornication, Lying, Stealing, Drunkenness, Gluttony, (of which you may see great store in Montaltus's Letters, The Mystery of Jesuitisme, and Mr. Clarksons late Book called The Practical Divinity of the Church of Rome:) I say, is not Religion as much concerned about all these differences, and all the rest among you which make many Horse-loads, yea I think Cart-loads of Volumes, as it is in the colour of the Preachers Cloaths, or the Meat he eateth? And are not Protestants (that is, meer Christians disowning Popery) as justifiable in their Unity and Charity, for taking Men to be of the same Religion, who use not the same Garments, Gestures, and Ceremonies, and that bear with differences herein, as your Church that beareth with all these loads of different Doctrines in your most Learned Famous Doctors (and not in the weaker Priests alone) even whether excommunicate ⟨p. 74⟩Kings may be killed or no; and whether the Pope hath Power to put down and set up Emperours and Kings? If you say that your One Religion and One Church hath no such difference, it must be by saying that you all agree to Gregory the seventh in Concil. Rom. & Innoc. 3. in Concil. Lateran. on the worser side, and all own the Doctors cited by H. Fowlis aforesaid: But indeed I must speak better of you, even that some are of a better mind, whom Goldastus hath gathered and preserved, and divers of the Learned Men of France, and some in Spain. But we think the difference even between the Prelatists, Presbyterians, Independants, yea and the moderate Anabaptists, to be far less than these which your unanimous agreeing Church doth constantly bear with, without Silencing, Imprisoning, Ejecting, or Condemning, or so much as disowning the judgments of the worser side.

:171p. 74–75

He that readeth Parsons on one side, and Watson's Quodlibets on the other; Barclay and Witherington on one side, and Zuarez and the far greater prevalent Party on the other, will either wonder at the strength of your Unity which no doctrinal differences even about the Blood of Kings can at all dissolve; or else he may wonder at the lax and sandy temperament of such Protestants as cannot bear with a Man that readeth not in their Book, and singeth not in their Tune; and is still crying out against others as Sectaries, because they have piped to them and they have not danced; and such as no Man can live quietly within reach of, unless they swallow every Morsel which they cut for them, having Throats neither wider, or at least no narrower than theirs. As if King Henry the eighth's days were the measure of true Discipline, when one Man was burnt for being too far from Popery, and another hanged, or beheaded, for being ⟨p. 75⟩Popish, and it was hard to know the middle Region, and harder to know how long it would be calm? till strangers cryed, Deus bone, quomodo hic vivunt Gentes. But as none are more cruel in Wars than Cowards, (nor in Robberies than Women,) nor any more gentle and pitiful than valiant experienced Soldiers; so few are so insolent and bloody obtruders of their Dictates and Wills upon the World, as those that being least able to prove them good, have nothing but Inquisitions and Prisons, Silencings and Banishings, Fire and Faggot, effectually to make them good.

He that readeth Parsons on one side, and Watson's Quodlibets on the other; Barclay and Witherington on one side, and Zuarez and the far greater prevalent Party on the other, will either wonder at the strength of your Unity which no doctrinal differences even about the Blood of Kings can at all dissolve; or else he may wonder at the laxe and sandie temperament of such Protestants as cannot bear with a Man that readeth not in their Book, and singeth not in their Tune; and is still crying out against others as Sectaries, because they have piped to them and they have not danced; and such as no Man can live quietly within reach of, unless they swallow every Morsel which they cut for them, having Throats neither wider, or at least no narrower than theirs. As if King Henry the eighth's days were the measure of true Discipline, when one Man was burnt for being too far from Popery, and another hanged, or beheaded, for being ⟨p. 75⟩Popish, and it was hard to know the middle Region, and harder to know how long it would be calm? till strangers cryed, Deus bone, quomodo hic vivunt Gentes. But as none are more cruel in Wars than Cowards, (nor in Robberies than Women,) nor any more gentle and pitiful than valiant experienced Souldiers; so few are so insolent and bloody obtruders of their Dictates and Wills upon the World, as those that being least able to prove them good, have nothing but Inquisitions and Prisons, Silencings and Banishings, Fire and Faggot, effectually to make them good.