A26947:882
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.
3. Moreover the Nature of the thing may tell all the world, that neither you nor we can be accountable of the beginning of every error that creepeth into the Church: For 1. The distance of time is great. 2. Historians are not so exact: and what they tell us not, neither you, nor we can know. 3. Much History is perished. 4. Much is corrupted by your wicked forgeries, as hath been oft proved to you. 5. Mixtures of Fables have hindered the credit of much of it. 6. Nations are not individual persons, but consist of millions of individuals: And as it is not a whole Nation that is converted to the faith at once, so neither is it whole Nations that are perverted to Heresy at once, but one receiveth it first, and then more and more, till it over-spread the whole. Paul saith that such doctrine eateth like a Gangrene; and that is by degrees, beginning on one part, and ⟨p. 240⟩proceeding to the rest. 7. As I said before, that which is at first received but as an Opinion and an Indifferent thing, must have time to grow into a Custom; and that Custom maketh it a Law, and makes Opinions grow up to be Articles of Faith, and Ceremonies grow to be Necessary things. You know that this is the common way of propagating opinions in the world.
3. Moreover the Nature of the thing may tell all the world, that neither you nor we can be accountable of the beginning of every error that creepeth into the Church: For 1. The distance of time is great. 2. Historians are not so exact: and what they tell us not, neither you, nor we can know. 3. Much History is perished. 4. Much is corrupted by your wicked forgeries, as hath been oft proved to you. 5. Mixtures of Fables have hindred the credit of much of it. 6. Nations are not individual persons, but consist of millions of individuals: And as it is not a whole Nation that is converted to the faith at once, so neither is it whole Nations that are perverted to Heresie at once, but one receiveth it first, and then more and more, till it over-spread the whole. Paul saith that such doctrine eateth like a Gangrene; and that is by degrees, beginning on one part, and ⟨p. 240⟩proceeding to the rest. 7. As I said before, that which is at first received but as an Opinion and an Indifferent thing, must have time to grow into a Custom; and that Custom maketh it a Law, and makes Opinions grow up to be Articles of Faith, and Ceremonies grow to be Necessary things. You know that this is the common way of propagating opinions in the world.