A27015:337
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.
The consequence of the Major will not be denied; for they confess that Christs Church is but one; He had not a Church of one sort for the first ages, and a Church of another sort since: though its accidents may vary, yet so doth not its essence. The Minor I prove thus, That which the Papists make to be the Catholic Church, is only all those Christians that acknowledge the Pope to be the universal Bishop and head of the Catholic Church, having universal supreme jurisdiction, and the Church of Rome to be the Mother and Mistress of all other Churches, and its only a Catholic Church convertible with the Roman Church. But such a Catholic Church as this was never known by the Apostles, or of many hundred years after Christ: Therefore Popery maketh a new Catholic Church, which the first ages never knew.
The consequence of the Major will not be denyed; for they confess that Christs Church is but one; He had not a Church of one sort for the first ages, and a Church of another sort since: though its accidents may vary, yet so doth not its essence. The Minor I prove thus, That which the Papists make to be the Catholike Church, is only all those Christians that acknowledge the Pope to be the universal Bishop and head of the Catholike Church, having universal supreme jurisdiction, and the Church of Rome to be the Mother and Mistris of all other Churches, and its only a Catholike Church convertible with the Romane Church. But such a Catholike Church as this was never known by the Apostles, or of many hundred years after Christ: Therefore Popery maketh a new Catholike Church, which the first ages never knew.
Its true that when Rome being then the ruling City of the world did come to own Christianity, that the Glory of the Empire occasioned the Bishop to be called Primae sedis Episcopus, as one that was to take place of the rest of the Patriarchs, who had their several orders or places •ssigned them (as Alexandria to be the second, Antioch the third, &c.) which Bellarmi•• confesseth might be after lawfully changed: but as Alexandria had not the Government of Antioch by that precedency, so neither had Rome any government, of the rest: And as Constantinople was afterward set up