A26975:311
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied…
Of national churches their description, institution, use, preservation, danger, maladies and cure, partly applied to England / written by Richard Baxter for promoting peace ... and for the fuller explication of the Treaty for Concord in 1660 and 1661, and of the Kings gracious declaration about ecclesiastical affairs ... and for further explication of his treatise of episcopacy ...
London: printed by T. Snowden for Thomas Parkhurst, 1691
Chapter 9: That Christ hath Instituted no true Ecclesiastical Government in Man, of any larger ext…
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.
8. When the Roman Empire was broken into many Kingdoms, the National pretence of the Pope or Councils could reach but to some one of them; and so the Pope slightly pretended to all, and turned the Imperial Universality, into a Terrestrial Universality, and the Roman World into the whole World, or else they had fallen.
9. In all this they took the advantage of the Ignorance of Princes and Lords.
10. And of the Wars and Enmity against each other striking in with the side that was likest to advance them.
§ 2. To this day Popery is upheld by the same means by which it was set up; especially by the Ignorance, Ungodliness, and Slothfulness of Kings and Lords: Did they exceed the Clergy as much as Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, Nehemiah, Zorobbabel, did the Priests, and as much as the Heathen Emperors, Titus, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, Antoninus Philosophus, Alexander Severus, &c. did their Priests, they would be honoured above the Priests as they were: The Emperors then were thought fit to be Pontifices Maximi; and as in the times of the Ancient Family-power, an Abraham, an Isaac, and a Jacob, and a Job, and a Melchizedek, were thought fit to have the highest Government in matters of Religion, so would it be still. And a Samuel would be Prophet, and King. But as God will honour those that honour him, so those that despise him shall be lightly esteemed.