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A27069
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Which is the true church? the whole Christian world, as headed only by Christ ... or, the Pope of Rome and his subjects as such? : in three parts ... / by Richard Baxter ...
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1679
(1679)
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Wing B1453; ESTC R1003
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229,673
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156
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it was at once specially when Binnius said that at Eph. 2. Concil Only Peter's Ship escaped drowning As to his Cavil at my Translation Whether Ab aliis plerisque totius orbis Episcopis be not to be Translated if not almost all the rest at least most of the rest of the Bishops of the whole World rather than very many others I leave to the ordinary Readers Judgment And as for either Canus or his own saying that all these the Greeks and most of the Bishops of the whole World the greater number of Churches and the Armed Emperours were all Schismaticks Hereticks and no Christians but Equivocally it is no weak proof of the falseness of their Cause and Tyranny that cannot stand without unchristening most of the Bishops and Churches in the World with such Emperours Canus his confession of the Historical Truth may be pleaded by me while I hate their Robbing Christ of the greatest part of his Church because they are not the Popes § 38. My Eighth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was from Historical Testimony that the Papal sovereignty was no part of the Churches Faith nor owned by the Ancients This is done at large by Bloudel de Primatu and Pet. Moulin de Novitate Papismi usher Field of the Church lib. 5. Chaucer Whittaker Io. White and many other I instanced only in many Historians Regino Herman Contract Marian Scotus Beneventus de Rambaldis and others that say Phocas first constituted saith one or Boniface obtained of Phocas say others that the Church of Rome should be the Head of all Churches To this 1. He thinks I have forgot my first Thesis because he forgot that when I had proved by three Arguments my Thesis in the fourth to satisfie their importunity I proved it with the Addition that there hath been a Christian Church still visible that Obeyed not the Pope and so added ten more Arguments to prove this Negative or Exclusive part After he cometh to this again and would have ut Caput esset to be no more than an acknowledgment of a controverted Title But at least the Primus constituit confuteth that and it is not ut diceretur haberetur or denuò esset He citeth Platina as if it were a wonder for the Popes Houshold Servant to say that it was his Right 2. But I specially note that both what is said of Phocas and by him of Iustinian Gratian c. who constitute and command this Primacy and Subjection to it shew that it was but Imperial as to bounds and Authority I before mentioned Suarez himself in his Excellent Book De Legibus saying That God hath made no Laws of Church-policy And if so not of the Papacy § 39. I noted their Novelty out of Platina in Gregor saying What should I say more of this Holy Man whose whole Institution of the Church-Office specially the Old one was Invented and Approved by him which Order I would we did follow then Learned Men would not at this day abhor the reading of the Office Hence I Note 1. That all their Church-Office was new being Gregory's Invention though no doubt much of the Matter had been in use before that form 2. Therefore the maintainers of Tradition cannot prove that because they thus Worship God now therefore they always did so 3. Gregory's Invented Office hardly received in Spain was so altered in Platina's time that Learned Men abhorred the Reading of it 4. Why might they not corrupt Church-Government where Ambition had a thousand times greater baits as well as Church-Offices This is their Antiquity and constancy This W. I. thought meet in silence to pass by § 40. My Ninth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was If the Generality of Christians in the first Ages and many if not most in the latter Ages have been free from the Essentials of the Papists Faith then their Faith hath had no Successive Visible Church professing it in all Ages but the Christians that are against it have been Visible But the Antecedent is true The Antecedent I proved in twelve Instances To this he saith It followeth not that though our Church as Papal had no Successive Visibility the Church whereof the Protestants are Members had ever since Christs time on Earth a Successive Visibility When you have proved this Consequence I Oblige my self to answer your Instances and so he durst not meddle with that matter but puts it off Answ. Reader see here what an Issue our Dispute is brought to Can you wish a plainer I proved that our Religion being nothing else but Christianity our Church hath been still Visible because it is confessed that the Christian Church hath been still Visible But the Papists must have us prove also that our Church-hath been still Visible as without Popery I now prove Popery a Novelty and doth not that then fully prove my Consequence that the Christian Church was Visible without it And I prove that this Novelty of Popery is yet received but by the third part of Christians of whom I am perswaded ten to one are either compelled to profess what they believe not or understand it not Therefore the Christian Church was once wholly and is yet mostly without Popery I know not when a Cause is given up if here he give not up his Cause § 41. Twelve new Articles of the Papal Faith I named 1. That the Pope is above aâ—… General Council Decreed at Later and Florence 2. Contrarily That the Council is above the Pope and may Iudge him c. Decreed at Basil and Constance True before as a point of Humane Order but not made ever an Article of Faith 3. That the Pope may Depose Princes and give their Dominions to others if they exterminate not all their Subjects that deny Transubstantiation Decreed at Later sub Innoc. 3. 4. That the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Iesus Christ is truly and really and substantially in the Eucharist and that there is a change of the whole substance of Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which they call Transubstantiation Decreed at Trent and proved new by Ed. Albertinus Bishop Cousin's History of Trans and by my self 5. That the Eucharist is rightly given and taken under one kind without the Cup Decreed at Constance and Trent 6. That we must never take and Interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers See the Trent-Oath whereas 1. We have no certainty whom to take for Fathers a great part being called both Fathers and Hereticks by the Papists 2. And they greatly disagree among themselves 3. And have not unanimously given us any sence at all of a quarter of the Bible if of the hundredth part 7. That there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are holpen by the Suffrages of the Faithful 8. That the Holy Catholick Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and
that believeth only that there is a God that rewardeth and believeth not in Christ or the Holy Ghost be a member of the Christian Church or should be baptized My third Question about his definition of the Church was Is it any lawful Pastors or all that must necessarily be depended on by every member who are those Pastors To this he said Of all respectively to each subject that is that the authority of none of them mediate or immediate be rejected or contemned I shewed him how he contradicteth himself for dependance is more than non-rejection and Millions of Heathens neither depend on the Pope or reject him that never heard of him To this he rejoineth that he spake of subjects only and not of others Ans. 1. But we are never the nearer knowing their Church by this while we are not told who the subjects are and what maketh a visible subject 2. Do not they take all Infidels and Heathens and the Christian Abassines Armenians Greeks Protestants c. to be subjects of the Pope as to obligation and right though not consent yet the Abassines neither obeyed the Pope nor rejected him till Oviedo was sent to them 3. For about forty or fifty years one part of Europe took one man for Pope and the rest took another man for Pope and men were uncertain which was the right or whether either of them and so of the Clergy authorized by them Which was the Church then and who were the members when Millions received one and Millions rejected him and many neither received nor rejected but remained in suspense 4. And if all the Priests should desert a Country as Ireland Meâ—…co or our Wales or Highlands are all the people thereby unchristened or unchurched while they have no Priest either to receive or reject and perhaps hear not of a Pope But I specially answered him That this maketh every Priest so essential to that Church that a man is unchurched that rejecteth or contemneth any one of them though he should â—…onour the Pope Councils and thousands others If a man take a Priest in such a crime as Watson Montaltus and others tell us of is contemning him an unchristening of us Yea if it be done causelessly upon a quarrel This is a notable advancement of the Clergy If contempt of one Priest be damnation or unchristening us he that can make Priests for all the world may well be Lord of all the world even of Princes as well as other men To this he rejoineth that by the word respectively he did not mean all Priests but all that are Pastors to that man for there are some Priests that have no care or cure of souls committed to them but a private Christian rejecting the authority of his Parish-Priest Bishop Archbishop Metropolitan Primate Patriarch or supreme Bishop becomes a Schismatick and casts himself out of the Church Ans. 1. He is a strange Priest that hath no Cure of Souls what then is his office If he be not affixed to a particular charge sure he hath an indefinite cure of Souls in the Church Universal 2. Then one of the next Parish may take our Parish-Priest and all the Parish-Priests in the Country save his own for Hereticks Fornicators Traytors and such as must be rejected and yet be no Schismatick but a Church-member But if I reverence all other Priests and take our own Parish-Priest for an ignorant sot or a knave or a wicked man and contemâ—… him I am cut off from the Church This tells us more reason than I knew of before for our Canon against going from our own Parish-Churches when we have no Preacher there And this ells me how great the power of Patrons is who can make an ignorant wicked man so absolute a Lord of all his Parishioners though they be the greatest Lords that to contemn him shall cost them their damnation And this tells me more than I knew before that the Roman Clergy do not plead for the Pope for his sake only but for their own if all men be in as much danger of damnation or unchurching for rejecting any Parish-Priest as for rejecting the Pope And this tells me more than I knew before of the great Pre-eminence of the Secular Clergy as they call them above the Regulars and how low comparatively the Jesuits and Friers are when it will cut a man off from the Church to contemn one sottish drunken Curate or Parish-Priest that can but read Mass and to contemn ten thousand Friers and Jesuits will not do so And this tells us of how great concernment Parish-bounds are and what a priviledg it is to remove ones dwelling For if I will but remove my dwelling one yard out of the Parish I may then contemn the Parish-Priest without being unchurched which on the other side the way I could not do And this 〈◊〉 us why the Clergy are exempt so much from Princes and Magistrates judgment It may cut off a Prince from the Church to contemn his Priest whether to hang him if he prove a Traytor be contempt I know not Many such lessons may be hence learnt 3. But how came Cyprian then so much mistaken that said Plebs maximam â—…abet potestatem sacerdotes indignos recusandi And how came all the ancient Churches to use that freedom in consenting or diâ—…enting electing or rejecting their Bishops and Priests which Blondeâ—… hath copiously proved pro sentent Hiâ—…ron de jure plebis in regim Eccles. 4. And what a priviledg hath the Pope or a Patriarch above an inferiour Christian when he may reject a â—…housand Priests or Interdict whole Kingdoms or reject most Christian Churches and Pastors in the world as being none of Christs and yet not be himself cut off for so doing whereas one that falls out with his Pâ—…rish-priest and rejecteth him alone is presenâ—…ly â—…o member of the Universal Church It seems that God punisheth not men according to the greatness of their sin for sure it is a greater sin unjustly to reject ten thousand Priests than one Or to contemn all other Priests in the Country mistaking them all for Hereticks Usurpers or inâ—…ollerable than so to do by one Parish-priest only 5. How many Millions then that seem to be of the Church of Rome are not so because they contemn the authority of their Parish-priest 6. But what is the proof of this assertion None at all In other Societies no Union is essential to a member but that which is with the Pars Imperans or supreme power and with the body A man that rejecteth a Justice or the Mayor of a City or the Master of a Colledg or School c. may be yet a subject and a member of the Kingdom while he rejecteth not the King though he be faulty and be cut off from the City Colledg or School And I think that to reject a Parish-priest that ought to be so rejected is well done and if he ought not it 's ill done And that he that