Delineation of Roman Catholicism Author:Charles Elliott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: others. And since no man can know that the pope is not Simoniacalr no man can safely rely on him as a true pope. (10.) A pope can be deposed by the church, an... more »d yet the unity of the church may remain, as is taught by Gerson in his book De Aufcribili- tate Papa, Of the Deposition of a Pope. This is proved from the frequent vacancies of the Roman see, and from the schismatic dissensions of the Roman popes, which are numbered at twenty or upward; and sometimes there were two or three popes. Either, therefore, union with the pope is not necessary for the unity of the Catholic Church, or at the time in which there is no pope, or an uncertain one, the unity of the Catholic Church ceases. From the above we may justly infer, that union to the pope cannot be a true mark of Christian unity. In behalf of their unity Romanists use several arguments, which we will distinctly consider. They maintain that they have the consent of the Scriptures, the agreement of their councils and popes, and the agreement of Catholics in doctrine throughout the whole world. 5. They adduce the agreement among the writers of the Bible as a proof of the unity existing among themselves. But what applies to the writers of Scripture will by no means apply to them ; because their doctrines, in many points, disagree with the unanimous decisions of Scripture, as has been shown in the discussion of the several controverted points. Besides, they refuse to deduce their doctrines and rules of faith from Scripture alone, adding thereto tradition and several other additions. The agreement of the sacred writers among themselves has no affinity with the unscriptural unity of the Church of Rome. 6. They say that all the decrees of their popes and general councils are in all matters of failh in entire agreement, and the...« less