A27015:625
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.
Argu. 5. If General Councils be infallible, or to be credited, then the Pope is fallible: But according to one party of the Papists, a General Council is infallible: therefore the Pope is fallible.
The consequence of the Major is easily proved 1. Because General Councils have differed from the ⟨p. 254⟩Pope. 2. Yea they have deposed divers Popes, and that for heresy: charging divers Articles against them, as also for wickedness of life. The Council at Pisa deposed two Popes at once, Gregory the 12. and Benedict the 13. and in the tenor of their deprivation call them [Notorious schismatics, heretics departed from the faith, scandalizing the whole Church, cut off from the Church, unworthy the Papacy] aThe Council of Constance bdeposed the same Pope Benedict again, commanding all men to esteem him as an heretic and schismatic. The same Council deposed also John 23. accused for holding cand defending as his judgement that there is no eternal life, nor immortality of the soul, nor resurrection of the dead, and so was a stark infidel. Concerning this Pope I would desire the impartial Reader to observe what a miserable answer Bellarmine is put to give? and whether it do not plainly give up their whole cause? His words are these (de Pontif. li. 4. c. 14.) [Responde• Johannem 23. non fuisse Pontificem omnino certum & indubitatum, proinde non necessario esse defendendum: erant enim eo tempore tres qui Pontifices haberi volebant: Gregorius 12. Benedictus 13. & Johannes 23. nec poterat facile judicari quis corum verus ac legitimus esset Pontifex cum non deessent singulis doctissimi patroni.] That is [I answer that John the 23. was not a Pope altogether certain and undoubted: and therefore it is not necessary that he be defended: for at that time there were three that would be taken for Popes, Gregory