A26962:313
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 ...
London: printed for N. Simmons, 1677
Chapter 5: The true History of the Papacy, its original and growth.
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.
Qu. But if most did not favour them, how did they ascend to so great power? Ans. 1. The old Name of the Imperial Rome, and the Popes Primacy in the Empire, kept up a Veneration for him in the ignorant. 2. The Eastern Emperors seated at Constantinople were so taken up with Wars, Rebellions, and other Difficulties ⟨p. 120⟩at home, that they could not take sufficient care of the West; but left the Popes too much advantage to grow great: and wickedness also increasing among them (though the Princes presence kept their Patriarchs in more order and submission, than the Popes that were become masterless) provoked God to give them up to be conquered by the Mahometan Turks: And by the Ambition of the Popes, the Emperors wanted the due assistance of their Western Subjects, to resist their Enemies. And the Pope took the advantage of the Eastern Emperors weakness, to lead the West into a settled Rebellion, offering the King of France the Western Empire, which he embraced, the Pope making his Bargain with him for his own advantage. 3. And in the Wars of Christian Princes, the Pope used to obtrude his Arbitration, in such a manner as tended to his gain: so that he shortly got to be a temporal Prince of a great part of Italy, and to have Crowns and Kingdoms made feudatary to him. 4. And he got Germany to be broken into so many small Republics and Liberties, as that they were not able to unite to resist him. 5. And he took great advantage of the religious humours of any that were devout, and allowed them so many and various Societies, and with so great Privileges, as obliged them generally to uphold and serve him. Though he cruelly persecuted all that were against his Power and Interest, yet he allowed almost all the Diversities of such as would but unite in him and serve him. 6. And as he so twisted his own and all his Clergies Interest, that they were all ready to obey and defend him against their several Princes, and thereby had a great power in every Christian State in Europe, so, keeping all his Clergy unmarried, their wealth still accumulated and flowed into the Church:
Qu. But if most did not favour them, how did they ascend to so great power? Ans. 1. The old Name of the Imperial Rome, and the Popes Primacie in the Empire, kept up a Veneration for him in the ignorant. 2. The Eastern Emperours seated at Constantinople were so taken up with Wars, Rebellions, and other Difficulties ⟨p. 120⟩