Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	apostle_n	church_n	people_n	2,810	5	4.5931	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27045	The successive visibility of the church of which the Protestants are the soundest members I. defended against the opposition of Mr. William Johnson, II. proved by many arguments / by Richard Baxter ; whereunto is added 1. an account of my judgement to Mr. J. how far hereticks are or are not in the church, 2. Mr. Js. explication of the most used terms, with my queries thereupon, and his answer and my reply, 3. an appendix about successive ordination, 4. letters between me and T.S., a papist, with a narrative of the success.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Johnson, William, 1583-1663.	1660 (1660)	Wing B1418; ESTC R17445	166,900	438

not at this day abhor the reading of the Office So that here is all invented new by Gregory which was hardly received in Spain and yet that changed since Arg. 9. If the Generality of Christians in the first ages and many if not most in the later ages have been free from the Essentials of the Papists faith ●hen 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 as I prove in some instances 1. It is an Article of their faith determined in a General Council at Laterane and Florence that the Pope is above a Council But that this hath not been successively received the Council of Basil and Constance witness making it a new Heresie 2. It is an Article of their faith that a Generall Council is above the Pope for it is so determined at Basil and Constance But that this hath had no successive duration the Council of Laterane and Florence witness 3. It is an Article of their faith that the Pope may depose Princes for denying Transubstantiation and such like Heresies and also such as will not exterminate such Hereticks from their dominions and may give their dominions to others and discharge their Subjects from their oaths and fidelity For it is determined so in a Council at Laterane But this hath not been so from the beginning Not when the 13. Chapter to the Romans was written Not till the dayes of Constantine Not till the dayes of Gregory that spake in contrary language to Princes And Goldastus his three Volumes of Antiquities shew you that there hath been many Churches still against it 4. It is an Article of their faith that the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ is truly really and substantially in the Eucharist and that there is a Change made of the whole substance of Bread into the body and of the whole substance of Wine into the blood which they call Transubstantiation So the Council of Trent But the Catholick Church hath been of a contrary judgement from age to age as among many others Edm. Albertinus de Eucharist hath plainly evinced though a quarreller hath denyed it and little more And it s proved in that successively they judged sense and Reason by it a competent discerner of Bread and Wine 5. It is now de fide that the true Sacrament is rightly taken under one kind without the cup as the Councils of Constance and Trent shew But the Catholick Church hath practised and the Apostles and the Church taught otherwise as the Council of Constance and their Writers ordinarily confess 6. It is an Article of their faith as appears in the Trent Oath that we must never take and interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers But the Catholick Church before these Fathers could not be of that mind and the Fathers themselves are of a contrary mind and so are many learned Papists 7. It is an Article of their faith that there is a Purgatory and that the souls there detained are holpen by the suffrages of the faithful But the latter was strange to all the old Catholick Church as Bishop Vsher and others have proved and the very being of Purgatory was but a new doubtfull indifferent opinion of some very few men about Augustines time 8. It is now an Article of their faith that the holy Catholick Church of Rome is the mother and mistris of all Churches But I have shewed here and elsewhere that the Catholick Church judged otherwise and so doth for the most part to this day 9. It is now an Article of their faith that their Traditions are to be received with equall pious affection and reverence as the holy Scripture But the Catholick Church did never so believe 10. The Council of Basil made it de fide that the Virgin Mary was conceived without Originall sin But the Catholick Church never judged so 11. It s determined by a Council now that the people may not read the Scripture in a known tongue without the Popes License But the Catholick Church never so thought as I have proved Disp. 3. of the safe Religion 12. The Books of Maccabees and others are now taken into the Canon of faith which the Catholick Church received not as such as Dr. Cosin and Dr. Reignolds have fully proved To this I might add the Novelty of their Worship and Discipline but it would be too tedious and I have said enough of these in other writings See Dr. Challoner pag. 88 89. In 16. points Dr. Challoner proveth your Novelty from your Confessions Indeed his Book de Eccles. Cath. though small is a full answer to your main Question Arg. 10. If Multitudes yea the far greatest part of Christians in all ages have been ignorant of Popery but not of Christianity then hath there been a succession of Visible Professors of Christianity that were no Papists but the antecedent is true therefore so is the consequent In this age it is an apparent thing that the far greatest part are ignorant of formal Popery 1. They confess themselves that the common people and most of the nobility of Habassia Armenia Greece Russia and most other Eastern Churches that are not Papists are ignorant of the Controversie 2. They use to tell us here among Protestants that there is not one of many that know what a Papist is 3. We know that of those that go under the name of Papists there is not one of a multitude knoweth We hear it from the mouths of those we speak with I have not met with one of ten of the poorer sort of them even here among us that knoweth what a Papist or Popery is but they are taught to follow their Priests and to say that theirs is the true Church and old Religion and to use their Ceremonious worship and to forbear coming to our Churches c. and this is their Religion And in Ireland they are yet far more ignorant And it s well known to be so in other parts Their Priests they know and the Pope they hear of as some person of eminent Power in the Church But whether he be the Universal Vicar of Christ and be over all others as well as them whether this be of Gods institution or by the grant of Emperours or Councils c. they know not And no wonder when the Papists think that the Council of Chalcedon spoke falsly of the humane Originall of the Primacy in the Imperiall territories And when the Councils of Basil and Constance knew not whether Pope or Council was the Head And that the people were as ignorant and much more in former ages they testifie themselves And before Gregories dayes they must needs be ignorant of that which was not then risen in the world Yea Dr. Field hath largely proved Append lib. 3. that even the many particular points in which the Papists now differ

Apostles and this is but to know their doctrine delivered in that first age which we appeal to And after he expresly saith Ad hanc it aque formam provocabantur ab illis Ecclesiis quae licet nullum ex Apostolis vel Apost●licus auctorem suum proferant ut multo posteriores quae denique quotidie institutum tamen in eadem fidem conspirantes non minus Apostolicae deputantur pro consanguinitate doctrinae The Apostles doctrine will prove an Apostolical Church when ever planted And c. 38. he draws them from disputing from the Scripture because they owned not the true Scripture but corrupted it and charged the Catholikes with corruption Sicut illis non potuit succedere corruptela doctrinae sine corruptela instrumentorum ejus Ita nobis integritaes doctrina non competisset sine integritate eorum not by real tradition alone per quae doctrina tractatur Etenim quid contrarium nobis in nostris quid de proprio intulimus ut aliquid contrarium ei in Scripturis deprehensum detractione vel adjectione vel transumtatione remediaremus Quod sumus hoc sunt Ab initio suo ex illis sumus antequam nihil aliter fuit quam sumus And cap. 36. He sends them by name to the particular Apostolical Churches and begins with Corinth then to Philippi Thessalonica Ephesus and then to Rome of whose Soveraignty he never speaks a syllable So more plainly l. 4. contr Marcion c. 5. because Marcion denied the true Scriptures he sends them to the Apostolike Churches for the true Scriptures first to the Corinthians then to the Galatians then to the Philippians Thessalonians Ephesians and last of all to Rome But it would be tedious to cite the rest of the Ancients that commonly describe the Church as we and such as we all own as members of it Arg. 3. If the Roman Church as Christian though not as Papal hath been visible ever since the daies of the Apostles then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the daies of the Apostles But the Antecedent is their own therefore they may not deny the consequent The consequence also is past denyal 1. Because the Roman as Christian is part of the universal Christian Church 2. Because they profess to believe the same holy Scriptures and Creed as we do So that though they add more and so make a new form to their Church yet do they not deny our Church which is the Christian Church as such nor our Test and Rule of faith nor any Article that we account Essential to our Religion So that themselves are our sufficient witnesses Well! but this will not satisfie the Papists unless we shew a succession of our Church as Protestant 1. This we need not any more then a sound man lately cured of the Plague doth need to prove that he hath ever been not only sanus but sanatus a cured man before he was sick How could there be a Church protesting against an universal Vicar of Christ before any claimed that Vicarship 2. And when the Vicarship was usurped those millions abroad and even within the Roman territories that let the pretended Vicar talk and followed their own business and never consented to his usurpation were of the very same Religion with those that openly protested against him And so were those that never heard of his usurpation Object But at least say they you must prove a Church that hath been without the universal Vicar negatively though not against him positively Answ. 1. In all reason he that affirmeth must prove It is not incumbent on us to prove the negative that the Church had not such a Roman head but they must prove that it had Object But they have possession and therefore you that would dispossess them must disprove their title Ans. 1. This is nothing to most of the Catholike Church where they have no possession therefore with them they confess themselves obliged to the proof 2. This is a meer fallacious diversion for we are not now upon the question of their Title but the matter of fact and history we make good the negative that they have no Title from the Laws of Christ himself and so will not dispossess them without disproving their pretended Title But when the question is de facto whether they have ever had that possession from the Apostles daies they that affirm must prove when we have disabled their title from the Law 2. But what must we prove that all the Church hath been guiltless of the Papal usurpation or only some in every age of all its no more necessary to us then to prove that there have been no Heresies since the Apostles If a piece of the Church may turn Hereticks or but Schismaticks as the Novatians and African Donatists why may not another piece turn Papists 3. What will you say to a man that knoweth not a Protestant nor a Papist or believeth only Christianity it self and meddleth not with the Pope any further then to say I believe not in him Jesus I know and the Apostles and Scripture and Christianity I know but the Pope I know not and suppose he never subscribed to the Augustane English or any such confession but only to the Scripture and the Apostles and Nicene and other ancient Creeds By what shew of Justice can you require this man to prove that there hath been no Pope in every age 4. The foundation of all our controversie is doctrinal whether the Papal Soveraignty be Essential to the Church or necessary to our membership we deny it you affirm it If it be not Essential it is enough to us to prove that which is Essential to have been successive we be not bound in order to the proof of our Church it self to prove the succession of every thing that maketh but to its better being Yet professing that we do it not as necessary to our main cause we shall ex abundanti prove the negative that the Catholike Church hath not alwaies owned the Papal Soveraignty and so that there have been men that were not only Christians but as we Christians without Popery and against it and so shall both prove our Thesis and overthrow theirs Arg. 4. If there have been since the daies of Christ a Christian Church that was not subject to the Roman Pope as the Vicar of Christ and universal Head and Governour of the Church then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible both in its being and its freedom from Popery But the Antecedent is true therefore so is the consequent I shall prove the Antecedent and therein the visibility of our Church and the non-existence in those times of the Papacy Arg. 1. My first Argument shall be from the general Council of Chalcedon If the priviledges of the Roman Sea were given to it by the Bishops consequently because of the Empire of that City and therefore equal priviledges after given to Constantinople on the same

expoundeth them 5. They plead for an appeal to Councils and though we easily prove that none of them were universal yet such as they were they call them all Reprobate which were not approved by their Pope let the number of Bishops there be never so great And those that were approved if they speak against them they reject also either with lying shifts denying the approbation or saying the acts are not de fide or not conciliariter facta or the sense must be given by their present Church or one such contemptible shift or other 6. At least one would think they should stand to the judgement of the Pope which yet they will not for shame forbids them to own the Doctrine of those Popes that were Hereticks or Infidels and by Councils so judged And others they are forced to disown because they contradict their Predecessors And at Rome the Cardinals are the Pope while he that hath the name is oft made light of And how infallible he is judged by the French and the Venetians how Sixtus the fifth was valued by the Spaniards and by Bellarmine is commonly known 7. But all this is nothing to their renunciation of humanity even of the common senses and reason of the world When the matter is brought to the Decision of their eyes and taste and feeling whether Bread be Bread and Wine be Wine and yet all Italy Spain Austria Bravaria c. cannot resolve it yea generally unless some latent Protestant do pass their judgement against their senses the senses of all sound men in the World that not in a matter beyond the reach of sense as whether Christ be there spiritually but in a matter belonging to sense if any thing belong to it as whether Bread be Bread c. Kings and Nobles Prelates and Priests do all give their judgement that all their senses are deceived And is it possible for these men then to know any thing or any controversie between us and them to be decided If we say that the Sun is light or that the Pope is a man and Scripture legible or that there are the Writings of Councils and Fathers extant in the World they may as well concur in a denyal of all this or any thing else that sense should judge of If they tell us that Scripture requireth them to contradict all their senses in this point I answer 1. Not that Scripture before mentioned that calleth it Bread after the Consecration thrice in the three next Verses 2. And how know they that there is such a Scripture if all their senses be so fallible If the certainty of sense be not supposed a little learning or wit might satisfie them that Faith can have no certainty But is it not a most dreadful judgement of God that Princes and Nations Learned men and some that in their way are conscientious should be given over to so much inhumanity and to make a Religion of this brutishness and worse and to persecute those with Fire and Sword that are not so far forsaken by God and by their reason and that they should so solicitously labour the perversion of States and Kingdoms for the promoting of stupidity or stark madness 8. And if we go from their Principles to their Ends or Wayes we shall soon see that they are also against the Unity of the Church while they pretend this as their chiefest Argugument to draw men to their way They set up a corrupted Faction and condemn the far greater part of the Church and will have no unity with any but those of their own Faction and Subjection and fix this as an essential part of their Religion creating thereby an impossibility of universal concord 9. They also contradict the Experience of many thousand Saints asserting that they are all void of the Love of God and saving Grace till they become subject to the Pope of Rome when as the Souls of these Believers have Experience of the Love of God within them and feel that Grace that proveth their Iustification I wonder what kind of thing it is that is called Love or Holiness in a Papist which Protestants and other Christians have not and what is the difference 10. They are most notorious Enemies to Charity condemning most of the Christian world to Hell for being out of their subjection 11. They are notorious Enemies to Knowledge under pretence of Obedience and Unity and avoiding Heresie They celebrate their Worship in a Language not understood by the vulgar Worshippers They hinder the People from Reading the holy Scriptures which the ancient Fathers exhorted men and women to as an ordinary thing The quality of their Priests and People testifies this 12. They oppose the Purity of divine Worship setting up a multitude of humane Inventions instead thereof and idolatrously for no less can be said of it adoring a piece of conserated Bread as their God 13. They are Opposers of Holiness both by the foresaid enmity to Knowledge Charity and purity of Worship and by many unholy Doctrines and by deluding Souls with an outside histrionicall way of Religion never required by the Lord consisting in a multitude of Ceremonies and worshipping of Angels and the Souls of Saints and Images and Crosses c. Let experience speak how much the Life of Holiness is promoted by them 14. They are Enemies to common Honesty teaching the Doctrines of Equivocations and Mental Reservations and making many hainous sins venial and many of the most odious sins to be Duties as killing Kings that are excommunicated by the Pope taking Oaths with the foresaid Reservations and breaking them c. For the Jesuits Doctrine Montaltus the Jansenist and many of the French Clergy have pretty well opened it And the Pope himself hath lately been fain to publish a condemnation of their Apology And yet the power and interest of the Jesuites and their followers among them is not altogether unknown to the World 15. They are Enemies to Civil Peace and Government if there be any such in the World as their Doctrine and Practice of killing and deposing excommunicate Princes breaking Oaths c. shews Bellarmine that will go a middle way gives the Pope power in ordine ad spiritualia and indirectly to dispose of Kingdoms and tells us that it is unlawfull to tolerate Heretical Kings that propagate their Heresie that is the ancient Faith How well Doctor Heylin hath vindicated their Council of Laterane in this whose Decrees stand as a Monument of the horrid treasonable Doctrine of the Papists I shall if God will hereafter manifest In the mean time let any man read the words of the Council and Iudge And now whether a Religion that is at such open enmity with 1. Scripture 2. The Church 3. Tradition 4. Fathers 5. Councils 6. Some Popes 7. The common senses and Reason of all the World even their own 8. Vnity of Christians 9. Knowledge 10. Experience of Believers 11. Charity 12. Purity of Worship 13. Holiness 14. Common Honesty

they reason against the knowledge and experience of my soul. Your scope is to prove me in a state of damnation You confess that if I have charity I am in a state of salvation I know and feel that I have charity Therefore I know that your Reasonings are deceit Arg. 2. The Church whose faith is contained in the holy Scriptures as its Rule in all points necessary to salvation hath been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth But the Church whose faith is contained in the holy Scriptures as its Rule in all points necessary to salvation is it of which the Protestants are Members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth That the Catholick Church which hath been Visible till now hath received the Holy Scriptures which we receive is confessed by all Papists that ever I heard or read making mention of it And no wonder for it cannot be denied That this Church hath taken these Scriptures for the Rule of faith in all points necessary to salvation allowing Church-Governours to make Canons about the circumstantials of Government and worship which in the Universal Law are not determined but left to humane prudence to determine 1. I have proved in my third Dispute of the safe Religion already 2. It is confessed by the Papists the forecited passages of Bellarmine and Costerus are sufficient But in the great Council at Basil Orat. Ragus Bin. p. 299. it is most plainly and with fuller authority asserted The holy Scripture in the Literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and Most sufficient Rule of faith See my vindication of this Testimony in my Catholick Key and the like from Card. Richlieu Gerson saith de exam doctr p. 2. cont 1. Nihil audendum dicere de divinis nisi quae nobis à sacra Scriptura tradita sunt Durandus in his Preface is wholly for the excellency and sufficiency of the Scriptures Three wayes he saith God revealeth himself and other things to man The lowest way is by the book of the creatures so heathens may know him The highest is by manifest Vision as in heaven and the middle way is in the Book of holy Scripture without which there is no coming to the highest way And going on to extoll the Scripture he citeth Ieromes words ad Paulinum Let us learn on earth the knowledge of those things which will abide with us in heaven But this is only saith he in the holy Scripture And after ex Hierom ad Marcell If Reason be brought against the authority of the Scriptures how acute soever it is it cannot be true And after We must speak of the mysterie of Christ and universally of those things that meerly concern faith conformably to what the holy Scripture delivereth So Christ Iohn 5. Search the Scriptures It is they that testifie of me If any observe not this he speaks not of the mysterie of Christ and of other things directly touching faith as he ought but falls into that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 8. If any man think he knoweth any thing he yet knoweth nothing as he ought to know For the measure is not to exceed the measure of faith of which the Apostle bids us Rom. 12. Not to be wiser then we ought to be but to be wise to sobriety and as God hath divided to every man the measure of faith Which Measure consisteth in two things to wit that we subtract not from faith that which is of faith nor N.B. attribute that to faith which is not of faith For by either of these wayes the measure of faith is exceeded and men deviate from the continence of the sacred Scripture which expresseth the measure of faith That is from the full sufficiency of the Scripture measure And this measure by Gods assistance we will hold that we may write or teach nothing dissonant to the holy Scripture But if by ignorance or inadvertency we should write any thing dissonant let it be taken ipso facto as not written This is a confession of the Religion of the Protestants And though he adjoyn a submission to the Roman Church because he was bred in it it is only as to an interpreter of doubtfull Texts of Scripture So that the sufficiency of our Rule and measure of faith is granted by him and zealously asserted and that without Bellarmine and Costerus limitation to points necessary to the salvation of all he extendeth it to all the faith Aquin. 22. q. 1. a. 10. ad 1. saith That in the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles the truth of the faith is sufficiently explicated even when he is pleading for the Popes power to make new Creeds to obviate errours And in his sum de Verit. disp de fide q. 10. ad 11. he saith That all the means by which the faith cometh to us are free from suspicion The Prophets and Apostles we believe for this reason because God bore them witness by working Miracles as Mar. 16. confirming their speech with following signs But their successors we believe not but so far as they declare to us those things which they have left us in the Scripture This is the Religion of the Protestants Scotus in Prolog in sent 1. makes it his second Question Whether supernaturall knowledge necessary to us in the Way be sufficiently delivered in the holy Sc●ipture which he proveth having first given ten arguments to prove the Truth of Scripture And first he shews it containeth the Doctrine of the End and 2. of the things necessary to that end and the sufficiency of them summarily in the Decalogue explained in the other Scriptures as to matter of faith hope and practice and so concludes that the holy Scripture sufficiently containeth the doctrine necessary viatori to us in the way And he answereth the objection of Difficulties in it without flying to the Church that no science explaineth all things to be known but those things from which the rest may conveniently be gathered and so many needfull truths are not expressed in Scripture though they are virtually there contained as conclusions in the Principles about the investigation whereof the labour of Expositors and Doctors hath been profitable This is his doctrine out of Origen Gregor Ariminensis in Prol. q. 1. act 2. Resp. ad act fol. 3. 4. saith A discourse properly Theologicall is that which consisteth of words or propositions contained in the holy Scripture or of those that are deduced from them or at least from one of these This is proved 1. by the forealledged authority of Dionys. For he will have it that there can be no leading of that man to Theologicall science that assenteth not to the sayings of the holy Scripture It follows therefore that no discourse that proceedeth not from the words of holy Scripture or of that which is deduced from them is Theologicall 2. The same is proved from the common conception of all men For

jure divino you confess you are but a humane policy or society and therefore that no man need to fear the loss of his salvation by renouncing you R. B. Qu. 2. How shall we know who hath this power what Election or Consecration is necessary thereto If I know not who hath it I am never the better Mr. J. Answ. As you know who hath Temporal Power by an universal or most common consent of the people The Election is different according to different times places and other circumstances Episcopal Consecration is not absolutely necessary R. B. Reply Qu. 2. Repl. 1. How now Are all the mysteries of your succession and mission resolved into Popular Consent Is no one way of Election necessary Do you leave that to be varied as a thing indifferent And is Episcopal Consecration also unnecessary I pray you here again remember then that none of our Churches are disabled from the plea of a continued succession for want of Episcopal Consecration or any way of Election If our Pastors have had the peoples consent they have been true Pastors according to this reckoning And if they have now their consent they are true Pastors But we have more 2. By this rule we cannot know of one Bishop of an hundred whether he be a Bishop or no for we cannot know that he hath the Common consent of the people yea we know that abundance of your Bishops have no such consent yea we know that your Pope hath none of the Consent of most of the Christians in the world nor for ought you or any man knows of most in Europe It s few of your own party that know who is Pope much less are called to Consent till after he is settled in possession 3. According to this rule your successions have been frequently interrupted when against the will of general Councils and of the far greatest part of Christians your Popes have kept the seat by force 4. In temporals your rule is not universally true What if the people be engaged to one Prince and afterward break their vow and consent to a Usurper Though in this ease a particular person may be obliged to submission and obedience in judicial administrations yet the usurper cannot thereby defend his Right and justifie his possession nor the people justifie their adhesion to him while they lye under an obligation to disclaim him because of their preengagement to another Though some part of the truth be found in your assertion R. B. Qu. 3. Will any Diocess serve ad esse what if it be but in particular Assemblies Mr. J. Answ. It must be more then a Parish or then one single Congregation which hath not different inferiour Pastors and one who is their superior R. B. Reply Qu. 3. Repl. This is but your naked affirmation I have proved the contrary from Scriptures Fathers and Councils in my disputation of Episcopacy viz. that a Bishop may be and of old ordinarily was over the Presbyters only of one Parish or single Congregation or a people no more numerous then our Parishes You must shew us some Scripture or general Council for the contrary before we can be sure you here speak truth Was Gregory Thaumaturgus no Bishop because when he came first to Neocaesarea he had but seventeen souls in his charge The like I may say of many more Mr. J. Tradition I understand by Tradition the visible delivery from hand to hand in all ages of the revealed Word of God either written or unwritten R. B. Of Tradition Qu. 1. But all the doubt is by whom this Tradition that 's valid must be By your Pastors or people or both By Pope or Councils or Bishops disjunct By the Major part of the Church or Bishops or Presbyters or the Minor and by how many Mr. J. Answ. By such and so many proportionably as suffice in a Kingdom to certifie the people which are the Ancient universally received customs in that Kingdom which is to be morally considered R. B. Reply Of Tradition Qu. 1. Repl. I consent to this general But then 1. How certainly is Tradition against you when most of the Christian world yea all except an interessed party do deny your Soveraignty and plead Tradition against it And how lame is your Tradition when it s carried on your private affirmations and is nothing but the unproved sayings of a Sect R. B. Qu. 2. What proof or notice of it must satisfie me in particular that it so past Mr. J. Answ. Such as with proportion is a sufficient proof or notice of the Laws and customs of temporal Kingdoms R. B. Reply Qu. 2. Repl. But is it necessary for every Christian to be able to weigh the credit of contradicting parties when one half of the world faith one thing and the other another thing what opportunity have ordinary Christians to compare them and discern the moral advantages on each side As in the case of the Popes Soveraignty when two or three parts of the Christian world is against it and the rest for it can private Christians try which party is the more credible Or is it necessary to their salvation If so they are cast upon unavoidable despair If not must they all take the words of their present Teachers Then most of the world must believe against you because most of the Teachers are against you And then it seems mens faith is resolved into the authority of the Parish-Priest or their Confessors The Laws of a Kingdom may be easier known then Christian doctrines can be known especially such as are controverted among us by meer unwritten Tradition Kingdoms are of narrower compass then the world And though the sense of Laws is oft in question yet the being of them is seldom matter of controversie because men conversing constantly and familiarly with each other may plainly and fully reveal their minds when God that condescendeth not to such a familiarity hath delivered his mind by inspired persons long ago with much less sensible advantages because it is a life of faith that he directeth us to live Mr. J. General Council A general Council I take to be an assembly of Bishops and other chief Prelates called convened and confirmed by those who have sufficient Spiritual authority to call convene and confirme R. B. Of a General Council Qu. 1. Who is it ad esse that must call convene confirm it till I know that I am never the nearer knowing what a Council is and which is one indeed Mr. J. Answ. Definitions abstract from inferior subdivisions For your satisfaction I affirm it belongs to the Bishop of Rome R. B. Reply Qu. 1. Repl. 1. If it be necessary to the being or validity of a Council that it be called or confirmed by the Pope then your definition signifieth nothing if you abstract from that which is so necessary an ingredient unless it were presupposed to be understood 2. If it belong to the Bishop of Rome to call a Council as necessary to its being