Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A76227
|
A winding-sheet for popery. By Richard Baxter, Catholick.
|
Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
|
1657
(1657)
|
Wing B1454; Thomason E1602_5; ESTC R208914
|
13,418
|
15
|
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
the Uniting and Ruling of them which is so much pretended to is a flat impossibility It is not morally possible to bring all the Christian world to be of the Popish opinion herein it being a point that is so void of cogent evidence from Scripture and Reason that they are both against it It is naturally impossible for the Pope of Rome to be the faithful Governor of all the world if they would consent How many years must they be travelling or sailing to Rome from the Antipodes or other remote parts of the earth Most of them that had causes of Appeal to the Pope would either be drowned at Sea or destroyed by enemies in the passages or spent with travel or Navigation or wasted with age through the length of their journey And when they come to him how insufficient would the poor man be to decide all their matters How many thousand would be waiting every hour at his Holiness doors when he hath leisure but for a few How long would it be from the beginning of a controversie to the end by that time these poor men had travelled back again so many thousand miles And when all the Princes of a great part of the world are usually in wars will they give their subjects leave to travail so far and that where the Prince is an enemy to Christianity as the Turk is Or would the Princes that he is in war with give leave to his subjects to pass through their Dominions Let us see first how well an Universal Monarch would rule the world by Civil Government though yet that is more easie before a spiritual Monarch be set up Reason 13. And worst of all this false pretended Head and Center of the Churches Unity doth make our Concord Impossible till this Head be taken down The Papists are the greatest hinderers of the Unity and Concord of Christians I am confidently perswaded in all the world And yet all this mischief is done to the Church under the pretence of Unity and Concord What if a subject should set up himself in Ireland or Scotland and say The Prince is absent and I am his Deputy and all are Rebells that unite not in me Could there be a greater hinderer of Unity then this man For all that submit to him are Rebells and all that do not he will endeavor to oppress So is it with the Pope If we unite in him we hazard a breaking off from Christ at least it is such a sin that the Christian world will never venture on and if we refuse it the Papists proclaim us Hereticks and will have no Peace with us So that the Church will never have Concord till this false Head be taken off and Christ only be our Head Reason 14. Moreover the Papists are at such difference among themselves that its little encouragement to us to joyn with them They differ in many hundred points as the writings of the Schoolmen the Thomists and Scotists and Ockamists the Dominicans Franciscans and Jesuites and other divisions among them do declare If you say This is not in points of faith I answer 1. That is as pleases the Pope or Roman Church who may make them points of faith at pleasure 2. The reason why the Pope determineth them not is much because his Disciples are disagreed about them 3. They differ in their great fundamental it self even the seat of Supremacy and Infallibility one part telling us it is the Pope and the other that it is a General Council This one difference surmounteth all the differences of the Reformed Churches if they were set togther Forsooth we cannot be Christians nor know the Scriptures to be the Word of God but on the Authority of the Church And when we come to know what the Church is in Spain and Italy its one thing and in France another Reason 15. Moreover the way of Popery is a way of meer delusion and vain ostentation They advance the Pope to be the final Judge of Controversies or a General Council as others and when they have done they are never the nearer an end of them He seeth many hundred Controversies among them and dare not speak a word to determine them The Church of Rome is the true expounder of the Scriptures and yet many hundred differences are known to be among their own Expositors and many hundred Texts that the people understand not and yet this Oracle will not speak this Judge is as dumb as a fish and leaves us all in as much doubt and ignorance and contention as if we had no Judge So that all the importunity in the world cannot open his mouth And yet he learnedly inveighs against the Protestants that have no Judge of Controversies What is it to make fools of men if this be not Reason 16. And what a cafe do the Papists put the Universal Church into when our faith and the decision of our doubts must depend upon such a man as abundance of their Popes have been Many of their own writers call them no better then Apostates Hereticks Murderers Adulterers Sodomites Conjurers and such were the Heads of the Catholick Church a long time together I know the silly people are told by their lyars that all this is lyes But let them put it to the tryal if they dare whether I will not as fully prove it out of their own writings as that ever King William was alive in England And are condemned Hereticks and devilish Murderers and Adulterers likely to be the infallible Judges of all Controversies Reason 17. And many a time they have two and there and sometune four Popes at once so that no man knew which was the Pope And when Eugenius was deposed by a General Council yet he continued in by force and from him is the succession And yet are these Saint Peters successours Reason 18. Moreover Popery is a way of darkness They flie the light like Bats and Owls and therefore it cannot be of God Their publick prayers and praises of God are performed in a tongue which the people understand not Their writers call it the Original of all Heresies to translate the Scriptures into a known tongue And now they are forced at last to do it themselves they disswade the common people from the reading of it Yea they suffer no man to read such a translated Bible but by a License from the Ordinary which any man may know is not ordinarily granted in their own Dominions Many a man have they burnt to ashes for reading the Bible in a known tongue And how much they befriend the peoples ignorance in many other waies their writings and sad experience tell us Reason 19. Yea their profession is contrary to the light They presume to contradict the very Word of God Paul hath written a whole Chapter 1 Cor. 14. against publick praying or prophecying in an unknown tongue And yet they will use it and make the silly people believe that Paul meaneth no such matter as he speaks How many