A27015:708
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.
Quest. 16. And if it be the Pope that they call •he Church, and take it to be this infallible judge, • then demand, How knows the Pope that the Scripture is Gods word, or that the Christian Faith is •rue? The like also I ask of a Council: How doth that Council know it themselves from whom we must know it? Either the Pope and Council must believe it because they first believe themselves, and so take it on their own words, or else on the words of some others. •f the former, then they Believe it because they Believe •t: then they are the original of their own belief, and believe themselves first, and then would have all the world to believe them. And this is not only to be •o arrogant as to be the God of themselves, and the Church, but also so impudent and unreasonable as ⟨p. 292⟩to believe themselves without reason, and to expect that all others should do so too. But if it be not from themselves that the Pope and Council believe the Scriptures, from whom then is it? not from any others of the present Church doubtless, therefore it must be from the former Church: And if so 1. Have not we the same means to know that the former Church believed the Scriptures as the Pope hath, and therefore may believe it without recourse to him, and as infallibly as he? 2. And then it seems that according to their doctrine the Pope and his Council receive not their faith or the Scriptures on the same ground as all the rest of the Church must do: so that the Church must have a twofold foundation of her faith, whereof one is necessary only to one part, and not to the other that is, All the rest of the Church must believe the Scripture to be Gods word, because the presen• Pope or Council saith so (having first believed the infallibility) but the Pope and Council themselves need not any such ground of their faith? And this distinction is not made between the Laity and the Clergy in general: But even the Clergy themselves out of Council, or who never were of the Council (which sure is more then a hundred for one) must thu• differ from the Pope and Council in the foundation of their Faith. This is another taste of the famous Roman unity: Paul saith there is One Faith: b if two divided Foundations, or Reasons of Belie do make two Beliefs, surely the Church of Rome hat two.