A27058:785
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.
§ 4. And here he that dreamed I accused Athanasius, really accuseth Constantine as imposed on by a Counterfeit Repentance and restoring the incendiary to opportunities of doing mischief, and being against the means that might have ended that fatal mischief. But I confess Constantine was no Bishop, and therefore this is not an accusation of Bishops or a railing at them.
§ 5. Next when I had fully opened the Case of the Mel•tians out of Epiphanius on pretence of abbreviating, he leaves out that which he likes not, and tells us how the Nonconformists have advantaged the Papists: If I thought the man believed himself I would try to undeceive him▪ In the mean time I desire him to think again which party most befriends the Papists; They that are for a reconciliation with them on these terms, that there may be acknowledged an Universal supreme human Power over all the Church on Earth, and the Pope to be Principium Unitatis and Patriarch of the West, and he shall abate us the last 400 years Impositions, and all be accounted Schismatics that unite not into this Church; and that all the Preachers in England shall be silenced that will not swear, promise, profess, and practise all that which is here imposed on them, though they think it heinous sin, and others think it but matter indifferent, and all the people shall be prosecuted that hear them; and that this Division shall rather weaken the Kingdom, and advantage the Papists, than the Consciences ⟨p. 130⟩of men, as wise and faithful as themselves shall be eased of such Impositions, or they suffered to Preach the Gospel of Christ: Or those that being condemned to such Silence, Prisons and Ruin, had rather be delivered, though a Papist be delivered with them, than be destroyed.] Methinks we are used by these Church-Fathers, as if they should determine that a great part of the Protestants who are most against Popery, shall be hanged, unless the Papists will beg their pardon, or cut the Rope; which if these Protestants accept, they shall be said to be the Promoters of the Papists.