A26947:96
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.
CHAP. II.
Before I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain, I must premise this Advice to the Common People.
BEfore I mention the Grounds or Cause that you must maintain, I must premise this Advice to the Common People.
1. Wrong not the Truth and your selves by an unequal conflict. Enter not rashly upon Disputes with those that are Learned and of nimble tongues, if you be ignorant, or of weak capacities your selves. Though I shall here show you that Scripture, Church, Tradition, Reason and Sense are on your side, yet experience tells us how the words of Jugglers have made millions of men deny belief to their eyes, their taste and other senses. An ignorant man is soon silenced by a subtle wit; and many think that when they cannot answer, they must yield, though they deny both Sense and Reason by it. If any of them secretly entice you, desire them to debate the case with some able, learned, experienced Minister in your hearing. It is the office of your Pastors to defend you from the wolves: If you once despise them or straggle from them and the Flocks, and trust to your own Reason that is unfurnished and unprepared for such work, you may take that you get by it, if you be undone. You need the help of Pastors for your souls, as well as of Physicians for your Bodies, and Lawyers for your Estates: or else God would never have set them over you in his Church. Let them but come on equal terms, and you shall see what Truth can do. In this way we will not avoid a Conference with any of them. But alas! with ignorant unlearned people, what may not such Deceivers do? that can persuade so many thousand souls to give no Credit to their own eyes, or taste, or feeling, but to believe a Priest, that Bread is not Bread, and Wine is not Wine.