A27015:182
The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholic religion against popery proving…The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving…
The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholic religion against popery proving that popery is against the Holy Scriptures, the unity of the catholic church, the consent of the ancient doctors, the plainest reason, and common judgment of sense it self / by Richard Baxter.The safe religion, or, Three disputations for the reformed catholike religion against popery proving that popery is against the Holy Scriptures, the unity of the catholike church, the consent of the antient doctors, the plainest reason, and common judgment of sense it self / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by Abraham Miller for Thomas Underhill, 1657
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.
This one great falsehood containeth two not small ones in it, and each of those two contain abundance more.
This one great falshood containeth two not small ones in it, and each of those two contain abundance more.
1. That all these Churches differ from you in no one point but the Popes supremacy is a falsehood beyond all modesty. For besides the supremacy they believe not your pretended Infallibility, nor do they pretend to the like of their own: They believe not your Purgatory: they own not your pardons for easing the pains of Purgatory, nor prayers for the dead to that end; nor the application of the treasury of the Saints Merits to that end, or for satisfaction to the Justice of God. They own not your Transubstantiation: They have the Scripture in their known languages: They worship God in their Liturgies in their known languages, the Muscovites in the Moscovian tongue, the Georgians in the Iberick; the Arabians in the Arabic; and so the Carmanians, Slavonians, Greeks in theirs: They administer the Eucharist in both kinds, and detest your Sacrilegious ⟨p. 56⟩withholding of the cup: They reject your confirmation: so do they your extreme Unction▪ They admit Priests to live with their wives which were married before ordination: They reject t•e Religious use of graven Images or Statues: They teach that the holy Scriptures are a sufficient and perfect rule of faith: they believe that they should not be locked up from the people: They maintain that God is to be worshipped in understanding, and they abhor your praying by Beads and tale: They think not to wash away sin or drive away the devil by holy water: They take not Traditions to be one part of Gods Word, necessary to supply the defects of Scripture; but take them and Church customs and constitutions to be only for matters of order and determination of such circumstances as it belonged not to the perfection of Gods Laws, to determine, but were to be left to the wisdom of Governors; the Scriptures containing sufficient for salvation: They believe with the Protestants that Justification is not by the Merit of works: And that it is impossible for us properly to Merit ex condigno the least mercy, much less the Kingdom of Heaven at the hands of God: They have but one order of Monks, viz. of St Basil, and those not such as the Papists; that live a private, unprofitable, droanish life; but their Monasteries are as Colleges to fit them for the service of God in the Church, and thence they oft proceed to be Priests and Prelates: They take your Pope to be condemnable for his pride, cruelty and presumption: