A26947:694
A key for Catholics, to open the juggling of the Jesuits, and satisfy all…A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all…
A key for Catholics, to open the juggling of the Jesuits, and satisfy all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part showeth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholic Church is not united in any merely humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholic Christian and Pastor of a church ...A key for Catholicks, to open the jugling of the Jesuits, and satisfie all that are but truly willing to understand, whether the cause of the Roman or reformed churches be of God ... containing some arguments by which the meanest may see the vanity of popery, and 40 detections of their fraud, with directions, and materials sufficient for the confutation of their voluminous deceits ... : the second part sheweth (especially against the French and Grotians) that the Catholick Church is not united in any meerly humane head, either Pope or council / by Richard Baxter, a Catholick Christian and Pastor of a church ...
London: printed by R.W. for Nevil Simmons, 1659
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Of their abominable Legends I shall say nothing, but that the wiser sort of themselves are ashamed of them. And if any Ancients have abused the Church by shameless forgeries, the Papists make use of such as confidently as if they were the word of God. ⟨p. 179⟩For instance, Let any man but read over the Books of Basil Bishop of Seleucia (if it be his indeed) of the life & Miracles of Thecla, and try his faith upon it, whether he be able to believe that Thecla stood so long at the window to hear Paul while all those daily applications and orations were made to her? that Demas and Hermogenes were there to stir up the people against Paul as a deceiver, under the cloak of being his companions; that any of those Orations recited are true, when the Author like a professed fabler useth to say [I suppose thus or thus they said:] that her Mother Theoclaea, and her lover Thamiris were on the sudden so cruel as to burn her, while they are said so much to burn in Love to her; that when Thecla had formed her body like a Cross, and cast her self into the flaming pile, the flames in reverence of the Cross, became as a Chamber to her, covering her like a vault from the peoples sight, and not approaching her; and that the earth making a grievous noise, the showers and hail destroyed the people, and Thecla went her way without observance, finding Paul and Onesiphorus hid in a Sepulchre at prayer for her: that Paul permitted her to cut her hair, and change her habit, and become his fellow traveller; that Alexander the Governor was so inflamed with her beauty at Antioch, even before she came in full sight of the people in the City Gate, that he could not forbear, but presently must leap upon her like a mad dog; that she tore his Cloak, and threw off his Crown, and so saved her Virginity; that for this she was cast and tied to wild beasts, and the Lyons couched to her, and one Lioness fought for her, and killed the rest that assaulted her; that yet they turned more upon her: that she leaped into the Fish pond among the devouring Sea Callus; and that fire from Heaven came down into the Water, and there made her a chamber, and saved her from those Sea-beasts; that Falconilla's soul appeared to her Mother Tryphaena to beg Thecla's prayers that she might be admitted into heaven, telling her how much Thecla was admired in Heaven.
Of their abominable Legends I shall say nothing, but that the wiser sort of themselves are ashamed of them. And if any Ancients have abused the Church by shameless forgeries, the Papists make use of such as confidently as if they were the word of God.