A27045:39
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.
1. They confess the Scripture to be the Word of God: and yet when we would appeal to that as the Rule of Faith and Life, or as a divine Revelation, in our Disputes, they fly off, and tell us of its obscurity, and the necessity of a Judge. If they meet with a Hoc est corpus meum, they seem for a while to be zealous for the Scripture: But tell them that Paul in 1 Cor. 11.26, 27, 28. doth call it Bread after the Consecration, no less than three times in the three next Verses, and then Scripture is non-sense to them till the Pope make sense of it. It is one of their principal labours against us, to argue against the Scriptures sufficiency to this use. By no means can we prevail with them to stand to the Decision of the Scripture.
1. They confess the Scripture to be the Word of God: and yet when we would appeal to that as the Rule of Faith and Life, or as a divine Revelation, in our Disputes, they fly off, and tell us of its obscurity, and the necessity of a Iudge. If they meet with a Hoc est corpus meum, they seem for a while to be zealous for the Scripture: But tell them that Paul in 1 Cor. 11.26, 27, 28. doth call it Bread after the Consecration, no less than three times in the three next Verses, and then Scripture is non-sense to them till the Pope make sense of it. It is one of their principal labours against us, to argue against the Scriptures sufficiency to this use. By no means can we prevail with them to stand to the Decision of the Scripture.
2. They excessively cry up the Church, and appeal to its Decision: and therefore we might ⟨p. 17⟩hope, that here if anywhere, we might have some hold of them. But when it comes to the Point, they not only disown the judgement of the Church, but impudently call Christ's Spouse a Strumpet, and cut off (in their uncharitable imagination) two or three parts of the universal Church as Heretics or Schismatics. The judgement of the Churches in Armenia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Syria, the Greeks, and many more besides the Reformed Churches in the West, is against their Popes universal Vicarship or Sovereignty, and many of their Errors that depend thereon: And yet their judgement is not regarded by this Faction. And if a third or fourth part (such as it is) of the Universal Church, may cry up themselves as the Church to be appealed to, and condemn the far greater part, why may not a tenth or a twentieth part do the like? Why may not the Donatists, the Novatians, or the Greeks (much more) do so as well as Papists?