A27015:285
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.
10. And here it must be known whether the Cardinals have the sole power to elect? If they have, then how came they by it? And then, whether wer• all those that were elected by the people in the first ages, and by the Emperors in after ages, true Pope•, ⟨p. 97⟩or not: If they were not, then Saint Peter hath no successors, because of the interruption of the succession so long; and the Church had then no visible head. If they were, then the sufficient power is not only in the Cardinals. And if it be not only in them, then whether are any of those true Popes that have been chosen only by them of late ages?
10. And here it must be known whether the Cardinals have the sole power to elect? If they have, then how came they by it? And then, whether wer• all those that were elected by the people in the first ages, and by the Emperors in after ages, true Pope•, ⟨p. 97⟩or not: If they were not, then Saint Peter hath no successors, because of the interruption of the succession so long; and the Church had then no visible head. If they were, then the sufficient power is not onely in the Cardinals. And if it be not onely in them, then whether are any of those true Popes that have been chosen onely by them of late ages?
11. And so it must be known how a possibility of uninterrupted succession can be proved, when Popes have been chosen three several ways, sometime by the people (or else there had not been so many slain at the election of Damasus, nor had the ancient Canons made this necessary to all Bishops) and sometime by the Presbyters of that Church, and sometime by the Emperors; and now by titular Presbyters, who are Bishops of other Churches, and are uncapable of being true Presbyters of the Church of Rome. If all these several ways of Election may make true Popes, then it seems any way may serve, and then the three Popes at once will be all true: If not, then there hath been an interruption of the succession, and so according to their own Principles, there can be now no true Pope.