A27015:462
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.
Answ. If you speak of the Universal Church, which is Christs body, there is but one and that is all true Christians. But if you speak of particular associations of Christians called particular Churches, there are many thousands: And so we say that the Church of Rome is (at best) but one particular Church, or one combination of some particular Churches under the Bishop of that City: But that Rome, or the Roman party, are the whole of the Catholic Church of Christ, we do with abhorrency deny.
Answ. If you speak of the Universal Church, which is Christs body, there is but one and that is all true Christians. But if you speak of particular associations of Christians called particular Churches, there are many thousands: And so we say that the Church of Rome is (at best) but one particular Church, or one combination of some particular Churches under the Bishop of that City: But that Rome, or the Romane party, are the whole of the Catholike Church of Christ, we do with abhorrency deny.
2. If the Church of Rome be any part of that Universal Church, and so in a state of Salvation, or way to it, it is not as Papists, but as Christians, as was said before. And therefore though there be but one safe way to Heaven, yet that one being not Popery, but Christianity, why may not other Christians be in a safe way to He• ven, as well as the Papists? especially who are free from those dangerous diseases wherewith the Papists Christianity is corrupted.
Obj. 5. That Church which hath Unity, Universality, Antiquity, and uninterrupted succession of Pastors and Apostles, is the only true Church, and consequently only in the safe way to Salvation. But such is the Church of Rome: therefore.