A27045:161
The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members…
The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members I. defended against the opposition of Mr. William Johnson, II. proved by many arguments / by Richard Baxter ; whereunto is added 1. an account of my judgement to Mr. J. how far heretics are or are not in the church, 2. Mr. Js. explication of the most used terms, with my queries thereupon, and his answer and my reply, 3. an appendix about successive ordination, 4. letters between me and T.S., a papist, with a narrative of the success.The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members I. defended against the opposition of Mr. William Johnson, II. proved by many arguments / by Richard Baxter ; whereunto is added 1. an account of my judgement to Mr. J. how far hereticks are or are not in the church, 2. Mr. Js. explication of the most used terms, with my queries thereupon, and his answer and my reply, 3. an appendix about successive ordination, 4. letters between me and T.S., a papist, with a narrative of the success.
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1660
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.
Either therefore you must make the Eutychians and Nestorians no Heretics, and so contradict the Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus, and Chalcedon, which condemned them as such; and the consent of all Orthodox Christians, who ever since esteemed them no others; or you must make condemned Heretics parts of the Catholic Church, against all antiquity and Christianity. And for those Greeks near Constantinople, who are not infected with Nestorianism and Eutychianism, yet in the Procession of the Holy Ghost, against ⟨p. 47⟩both us and you, they must be thought to maintain manifest Heresy; it being a point in a fundamental matter of faith, the Trinity: and the difference betwixt those Greeks and the Western Church, now for many hundred of years, and in many General Councils esteemed and defined to be real and great; yea so great, that the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone, and ever esteemed the Bishop of Rome and his party to have fallen from the true faith,1 and lost his ancient authority by that sole pretended error; and the Latins always esteemed the Greeks to be in a damnable error, in maintaining the contrary to the doctrine of the Western or Roman Church in that particular. And yet sure they understood what they held, and how far they differed one from another, much better then some Novel writers of yours, who pressed by force of Argument, have no other way left them to maintain a perpetual visibility, then by extenuating that difference of Procession betwixt the Greek and Latin Church, which so many ages before Protestancy sprung up, was esteemed a main fundamental error by▪ both parts, caused the Greeks to abandon all subjection and Communion to the Bishops ⟨p. 48⟩of Rome; made them so divided the one from the other, that they held each other Heretics, Schismatics, and deserters of the true faith, as they continue still to do to this day, and yet you will have them both to be parts of the Catholic Church.
Either therefore you must make the Eutychians and Nestorians no Hereticks, and so contradict the Oecumenical Councils of Ephesus, and Chalcedon, which condemned them as such; and the consent of all Orthodox Christians, who ever since esteemed them no others; or you must make condemned Hereticks parts of the Catholick Church, against all antiquity and Christianity. And for those Greeks neer Constantinople, who are not infected with Nestorianism and Eutychianism, yet in the Procession of the Holy Ghost, against