A27058:117
The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended…
The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to show their dangerous error, who think that a general council, or college of bishops, is a supreme governor of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entitled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to shew their dangerous errour, who think that a general council, or colledge of bishops, is a supream governour of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entituled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...
London: printed for Tho. Parkhurst, 1682
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.
6. I found that there is not so much as a Natural Capacity in any one, or many, for an Universal Government: Church-Government being of such a nature as maketh it far more impossible, than for one Monarch or Aristocracy to Govern all the Earth: And to do it by a truly General Council, or by the Diffused Bishops of all the World is further from possibility than to do it by a Pope.
7. I searched the Councils pretended to be General, to see whether they had made any better Laws than Christ's, or made any desirable addition. And I found 1. That while they were not wholly Papists, they never pretended to make Canons for any Christians, but only those in the Roman Empire. 2. And that it had been much happier for the Churches if they had made no more Laws than Christ had made them, for holy Doctrine, Worship, and Church-Discipline, and had only as Teachers expounded and applied the Laws of Christ.
7. I searcht the Councils pretended to be General, to see whether they had made any better Laws than Christ's, or made any desirable addition. And I found 1. That while they were not wholly Papists, they never pretended to make Canons for any Christians, but only those in the Roman Empire. 2. And that it had been much happier for the Churches if they had made no more Laws than Christ had made them, for holy Doctrine, Worship, and Church-Discipline, and had only as Teachers expounded and applied the Laws of Christ.
8. I considered the Present State of the Church Universal, and I find it such as no Party of Christians in the World doth own. The Pope pleadeth for an Universal Sovereignty, and all his Clergy do the same; some saying it is in Councils, some in the Pope, and most in both together, or Councils approved by the Pope: And Protestants, Greeks, Nestorians, Jacobites, and almost all other Christians in the World, accuse this Roman Church and Claim.