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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

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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 ●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
call their opinions the old Religion and to perswade the simple that we are an upstart generation and that our Church is but of two or three hundred years standing because we have forsaken the Roman novelties and are turned back to the Primitive Antiquity For our parts we say and say again Let him be the scorn of the Churches that believeth any Catholick Church that is less then sixteen hundred years of continuance And Let him be counted a man of no Religion that is of a Religion that is less then sixteen hundred years old And what can he expect but to be accurst of God that believeth any Gospel of less then sixteen hundred years continuance Gal. 1.8 9. Let us go to the Gospel the Records of Antiquity and see there whether our Religion or their opinion be the elder and let the oldest carry it without contradiction Where find you that Jerusalem Corinth Galatia Philippi and all or any Church in the world was then commanded to obey the Church of Rome or that ever she was called the Mistress of all Churches or the Universal Church Then Rome was but a particular Church like the rest and now forsooth it is become the Mistress and Catholick Church without obedience to which there is no salvation if the Pope must save us Where read you that any Apostle did direct men to receive the Christian Faith upon the Credit of the Church of Rome Or When did Paul or Barnabas or any Preacher tell the people You must believe in Peter or in the Church of Rome before you can believe in Christ Or You must believe the Christian Doctrine on the Credit of the Church Or That Church is made the judge of all Controversies O how many Sermons have we of the Apostles and the Fathers for many hundred years after and never such a word in them How many Nations and souls converted and never such an argument used with them How many controversies hotly debated and never such a remedy propounded The Romish Dominion was then unknown Reason 9. Moreover their Profession is much made up of meer contradictions and the subjects of the Pope are sworn to these contradictions at least those in Orders By the Trent Confession they are to swear that They will never take and interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers And yet they swear in the same Oath to many particulars which the Fathers were against and many which they never unanimously consented in They either know not what the Fathers hold or else they know that there 's but a small part of the Scripture or at least far from all that the Fathers do interpret with unanimous consent And there is not one of an hundred or a thousand of them that knows what the Fathers do unanimously consent in and what not their volumns being so many and so great and time so short and most so idle or necessarily diverted In abundance of Texts the Fathers differ among themselves And here the swearers do bind themselves never to interpret those Scriptures at all till a Messenger from heaven shall tell them what the Fathers are agreed on since their death They are sworn also to embrace the sense of their Church whereas the Fathers and their Church do frequently disagree They are sworn to all things delivered defined and declared by the Canons and Occumenical Councils and this without doubting O strong faith when even mens faith in Christ himself is oft mixt with such doubting that we must pray Lord encrease our Faith I believe help my unbelief Yea there is not one of a multitude of them that knows what all these Canons or Councils do contain Yea when these Canons and Councils do frequently contradict each other and yet they are sworn to believe them all The Council at Constance decree that a General Council is above the Pope and the Council of Basil did second them but the Council of the Laterane under Julius 2. and Leo 10. decree that the Pope is above a General Council The Council of Trent doth add to the Canon of Scripture contrary to the Council of Laodicea and Carthage 3. and the Papists at this day go contrary to the current judgement of the Church in adding the Apocryphal Books to the Canon Abundance more of their contradictions may be shown Reason 10. Moreover Popery is an uncertain Profession both for the foundation and the matter of it the sense and the perfection No man can fully tell what it is or when he hath it and when he hath it not For the foundation of it their Councils and Nations are yet disagreed whether the Pope or General Council be the chief and which must be followed when they disagree and which is the infallible Judge of Controversies And for the matter how few in the world can tell what is in all the Canons and Councils and Fathers and what is their sense and abundance other uncertainties I have fully manifested in my Book against Popery Disp. 2. 3. And for the very Articles of Faith I have there shewed that they are still to them uncertain whether they have yet all or not because that the Pope may make those to be points of faith as to the people that were not so before and so he may encrease them who knows how much Every time that the Pope determines a Controversie he makes us a new Article of faith As he lately did against the Jansenians And how many hundred controversies are yet to be determined and consequently so many Articles to be added Reason 11. Moreover Popery is a humane Faith and not a Divine It leadeth us but to man and bottometh us on man and therefore leaveth us short of God They must first believe the Christian Doctrine and truth of Scripture on the authority of the Pope or Church and then they must take the meaning of every word of Scripture upon the credit of the Roman Church and Fathers So that the very upshot of all their Religion is They believe the Scripture to be the Word of God and Christ to be the Son of God because the Church of Rome doth tell them so And how know they that this Church is Infallible Because they say so themselves or because the Scripture saith they are infallible but who knows where But which is the infallible Church of Rome The Pope saith one A Council saith another A Council confirmed by a Pope saith a third And how knows the world that these are the acts of the Pope and that he confirmed the Council Because such a Cardinal or our Parish Priest or a Jesuit saith so And here it is that the people are left Reason 12. Popery fets up a Head for the Universal Church that cannot possibly govern it and a Center for the Church in which it cannot possibly unite And so it is but a titular Head and a name and shadow good for nothing but to divide and vex the servants of God but