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A76227
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A winding-sheet for popery. By Richard Baxter, Catholick.
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1657
(1657)
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Wing B1454; Thomason E1602_5; ESTC R208914
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13,418
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15
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his If Christ be so tender of every particular sheep in his flock that he laid down his life for them and knows them by name and none shall take them out of his hand and he that toucheth them doth touch the apple of his eye John 10.3 15 27 28. Zech. 2.8 how then will he take it at the Papists hands that would rob him of the greatest part But blessed be God that judgeth not as they Reason 3. Herein also they are guilty of most inhumane and unreasonable cruelty in presuming to damn the far greatest part of the Church of Christ If you are so straightly charged as to a particular man Judge not that you be not judged Mat. 7.1 2. And so sharply taken up Rom. 14.4 Who art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master he standeth or falleth What then are they like to hear that will judge to damnation the most and the best of the Church of God Perhaps the ignorant of them may say that All of them are not so uncharitable this is but some I answer If thou be not of this mind thou art not a Papist For this is essential to that which they call the Romm Catholick Faith to believe that the Catholick Church is only those that are subject to the Pope as the Vicar of Christ and Governor of the whole and that out of this Church thus headed by the Pope there is no salvation This is the soul of Popery even as we believe that out of the true Universal Church that 's headed by Christ only there 's no salyation And me thinks if thou have but the heart of a man much more of a Christian in thy breast thou shouldst not easily believe so bloody uncharitable a Doctrine as that all the Christian world are damned save your selves Dost thou believe this at thy heart If not thou art not of the Roman faith And if thou do thou hast little Christian Chanty and thy deceivers have almost taught thee to cast away the reason and the bowels of a man Reason 4. And what a Proud and arrogant way is this for a defiled piece of â—he Catholick Church to say We are the whole As they in Isa 65.5 Which say Stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holyer then thou To say You are all damned Hereticks save we and we only are the Church such horrible Pride doth not animate the Church and Cause of Christ Reason 5. And all this is done by them against the very tenor of the Gospel and Covenant of Christ as if it were not enough for them to contradict the Scripture in smaller matters unless they gainsay the very Promise of life and the Charter of the Saints and the foundation of our hopes For it is the scope of this Gospel that Whosoever believeth in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3.15 16 18. 1.12 John 17.20 21 22 24. Acts 8.37 13.39 16.31 Rom. 3.22 4.11 24. 10.9 Gal. 3.22 2 Thes 1.10 John 16.27 20.29 Heb. 4.3 Mar. 16.16 Acts 5.14 John 3.36 5.24 6.35 40 47. 7.38 11.25 26. 12.46 Acts 10.43 Rom. 3.26 9.33 1 Pet. 2.6 1 Joh. 5.1 5 10. John 14.21 1 John 4.7 An hundred texts might easily be cited where God doth make the most peremptory promises that all that believe in Christ and love him and hope in him shall be saved And yet as if it were in defiance of the Gospel the Papists make it an Article of their Faith that no man shall be saved that becomes not a subject of the Pope of Rome Let him believe in Christ and love Christ and hope in Christ never so much let him believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost yet can he not be saved if he believe not in the Pope No grace will save him no degree of holiness will save him that believeth not in the Pope or at least none have saving Grace that believe not in him Wonderful that it should be possible for Christians for men to be thus besotted what must become of all those Christians that live many thousand miles from him and scarce ever heard of his name and know not whether he be a man or a woman or whether there be such a place as Rome in the world Must they therefore be all damned as being out of the Church Why then would not Christ have once mentioned to us this Article of our Faith Why would he never put it in the Scripture He that obeyeth not the Pope or Roman Church shall be damned Why was it never in the Churches Creed I believe in the Pope or Church of Rome as well as I believe the Holy Catholick Church Reason 6. Moreover the Papists cause is plainly carnal being all resolved into a carnal interest and maintained by it The main question between us is Whether the Pope must govern all the Christian world and all persons must obey him upon pain of damnation And what is this but to exalt a worm and lay the Kingdom of Christ upon his shoulders If the question were Whether we should be Holy or prophane obey Christ or disobey him we would be ashamed to be behind them But when all this stir is to set up one City to be the Mistress of the world and one man to be the head of the Church and this without Christ and against him what can we think but that Ambition makes this Lucifer mad Reason 7. Moreover the way of Popery is against Christianity and shaketh the very foundation of it and tempteth the world to infidelity by building their faith upon an uncertain ground yea on a ground that is certainly false For according to the Papists we cannot know the Christian Doctrine to be true nor Scripture to be the Word of God but on the authority of the Pope or Church And it s as clear as the light that no man can know that the Pope or Roman Church hath any such authority till they know the Doctrine of Christ to be true by which they claim it nor then neither Who can tell that the Pope or Church of Rome is to be credited more then any other Church or person till he find some such thing in the Word of God which is not there And if they do find it there they cannot believe it because they receive it not on the authority of the Church So that if you will be a Papist you must hold that the Doctrine of Faith is not to be received but on the authority of the Roman Church and yet that the authority of the Roman Church cannot be known but by the Doctrine of Faith as some say Or else we must stay till they prove it by Miracles as the Apostles did as others say Reason 8. Moreover this Cause and this Church is a novelty and late invention a thing unknown to the Primitive Church and therefore it cannot be of God And yet they are so shameless as to
and many times is the worshipping use of Images forbidden And yet they will use them say God what he will How plainly hath Christ instituted the Lords Supper in both kinds and how oft is it recited and they confess it was so used by the antient Church for many an hundred years And yet they will presume to alter all and to forbid the Cup even because they will do it Abundance of such instances may be given of their contradicting Scriptures Reason 20. Yea Popery fighteth with sense and reason and would make men not only mad but sensless For upon pain of damnation we must believe that the Bread in the Sacrament is no Bread and that the Wine is no Wine My eyes and my taste and my feeling tell me that it is Bread and Wine and if I know not Bread and Wine when I see it and touch it and taste it then I must be mad or sensless And then how can I tell that I know any thing at all And yet must I be here burnt at the stake and hereafter burnt in Hell for ever if Papists be my Judges unless I will believe that the substance of the Bread and Wine is turned into the substance of the body and blood of Christ and that there is now the colour and smell and taste and quantity of Bread and Wine without Bread and Wine The colour which I see and the taste which I relish are the colour and taste Of what Of nothing Nor of Bread and Wine For now there 's no such thing Not of the Body and Blood of Christ for that they deny and well they may So that if I know bread and wine when I see and feel and taste them then do I know that Popery is a deceit And if I do not then I know nothing For if sense deceive us all deceives us Moreover it is against the knowledge and experience of our own hearts Popery tells you that none are saved or have Charity but Papists because forsooth they are all out of the Church Here then is an Argument which Christians have in their breasts that all the Papists on earth cannot answer Look what degree of assurance you have that you have Charity or any special Grace and so much assurance you have that Popery is a meer chear which would perswade you that none have Charity but Papists If any stand not to this censure he is no Papist For if a Protestant may have Charity and be saved then the Church of Rome is not the whole Catholick Church Yea if you know any Protestant on earth that you are perswaded is a true Christian you must needs be as much perswaded that Popery is false In the mean time remember this to their credit that by their own confession never did a godly honest man turn Papist nor can they desire any such to turn So that every man that hath saving grace is sure Reason 21. Popery doth too much befriend ungodliness to be the way of God It is fitted to build up the Kingdom of darkness 1. How it befriendeth Ignorance and fighteth against the means of Knowledge I have toucht before 2. They make people believe that many of their sins are but venial and properly no sins against no Law and do not so much as deserve damnation and therefore they need no Saviour nor pardon of that punishment 3. Concupiscence which inclineth men to all actual sin they tell them is no sin in the Baptized but before it is 4. Their very frame and course of devotion is so formal that a man would wonder that rational men could approve of it Such a multitude of ceremonies and histrionical actions and inventions of men do they think to serve God with that one would think they could not make themselves believe that the most wise and holy God will regard them See my Book against Popery pag. 162 163. It is against the nature of a spiritual man to think such a service suitable to God which is liker a Stage-play or a Morrice-dance But the Mass bites not the profane are well enough pleased with this We find the worse our people are the proner are they to such formalities Reason 22. And indeed the issue of their way doth frighten me from it I find none of ours so prone to turn to them as the most ungodly I hope well of many among them but I never had the happiness to meet with a heavenly experienced Christian that would speak feelingly of the work of the Spirit upon their souls among them all And almost all that ever I was acquainted with were exceeding ignorant Many of them of no Religion at all not knowing who Christ is nor very little that a Christian should know And many of those few that are among us are of scandalous careless lives and few have any better then a formal wordy kind of Religiousness to say so many prayers and observe such hours and daies and the like Look among the common sort of the Papists and impartially compare their Churches with ours and see whether there be any comparison to be made in the holiness of the professors At Rome it self the seat of his Holiness they have large revenues to the Church for the licensing or permitting of whore-houses Reason 23. And I confess I see not how they can be excused from Idolatry in worshipping the creature with a Divine worship They first call the consecrated Bread the very flesh of Christ it self and their Lord God and then they worship it as God and carry it abroad in procession to that end and command all to worship it with Divine worship on pain of Damnation To pass by their praying to Saints and Angels and the Idolatrous expressions that many of their writers do use of the Virgin Mary and their setting one Saint or other to almost all the offices in the world and filling the world with most ridiculous lying stories in their Legends even to the reproach and dishonour of Christianity it self Reason 24. And it is not likely their way should be of God which must be carried on by such ungodly means as it is O the cruelty that they have exercised in the world the streams of precious blood that they have shed the bone-fires that they have made of holy persons when they had first perswaded the world that they were the servants of the Devil and continue to slander and blaspheme them when they are dead And when we discover to the people the most palpable of their misdoings they make them believe that all that we say are lies If their cause were Gods it needed not such supports as these Reason 25. And their Doctrine leadeth not to settle the soul in a durable well-grounded peace for they lead men so much to their own works and make so light of pardon and reconciliation by the blood of Christ and lead men so much to ceremonies and deny them assurance of Justification or Salvation when they have done all and then design them to the flames of Purgatory when they die unless the Pone will be so charitable as to ease them that there is little setled Peace of Conscience to be hoped for that way Reason 26. And though their errours are so many and so great that most Protestants take the Pope to be the Antichrist yet are they so arrogant as to pretend to Perfection as the Quakers do Yea to a double perfection Not only to be perfect without any sin but venial which is none but also to be perfect by works of supererogation and better then ever God Commanded them to be Reason 27. And to make all remediless their Church is said to be Infallible and so we must never hope that they should repent of any errour that ever they incurr for then they should give away their Infallibility So that there is no other cure for them but by ceasing to be Papists as there is no Peace to be expected from them to the Church but by the deposing their pretended Universal Head the Roman Pope Reason 28. And to make all desperate and open the door to other errours they have added all the Apocryphal Books to the Canon of the Holy Scriptures contrary to the Council of Laodicea and the consent of many ages of the antient Church as Doctor Cosin hath fully shewed and Dr. Reynolds and many others before him Reason 29. Yea they have added Tradition it self to be received with equal pious affection and reverence with the holy Scriptures Concil Trident. Sess 2. And this Tradition must remain unknown to others and unproved and we must take their words for it when they have thus equalled it with the Word of God corrupting thus the fountain of faith Reason 30. And when the Pope hath done this mischief to the world they say that no power on earth can judge him Though General Councils have deposed many and Bellarmine confesseth in the case of Marcellinus that they may declare an Infidel Pope to be out of the Church and that the Church may bear arms against the Pope when he would oppress it and in Schisms may see that the Church be provided yet for all this none may judge the Pope Reconcile these if you can But herein they are disagreed among themselves In this one sheet of paper I have not room to mention their many other errors nor to annex the proofs of all these charges But I offer my self to make them good to the face of any Papist living And now I leave it to the judgement of those that are not willing to be deceived Whether the Roman or the Reformed be the truer Catholick and which of them is liker to be saved and in the safer way I doubt not but this Paper will be answered by some body It s a bad Cause indeed that a man of learning can say nothing in But if the silly people will be satisfied that it s answered without understanding any thing in the answer that should satisfie a reasonable man let them even be deceived seeing they choose deceit and let them take what they get by it July 25. 1657. FINIS