A27001:32
The Quakers catechism, or, The Quakers questioned, their questions answered, and both published for…
The Quakers catechism, or, The Quakers questioned, their questions answered, and both published for the sake of those of them that have not yet sinned unto death and of those ungrounded novices that are most in danger of their seduction / by R[i]chard Baxter.
London: printed by A.M. for Thomas Underhill and Francis Tyton, 1655
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
and then persuading them that these are glorious Truths of God, which their former Teachers are unable ⟨image 10⟩to receive, and that they are but a blind, self-seeking, proud sort of men that would enthral all men to their judgements, when they are in utter darkness themselves: When they have gotten them but thus far once, to despise their guides, then do they proceed further with them, and persuade them that they that were blind in the points of Baptism and Church-order, are so in other things as well as that, and that this light which they have seen already, is but a spark, and that these being days of glorious discoveries, there are yet more and greater matters to be revealed. Hereupon they put a handsome dress upon many of the grossest points of Popery, and recommend these as the new and rare discoveries. But this they do not in the Name and garb of Papists, but (as the Popish Jew at New-castle) they turn Anabaptists, and then rise a step higher, and lead others after them; so that the silly people shall never know that it is Papists that are their Leaders; yea, they will cry out of the Pope, and call all that differs from them Antichristian purposely to divert suspicions, and blind mens eyes. Thus these Papists have begotten this present Sect of Quakers; first pretending to strange Revelations, Visions and Trances, such as are commonly mentioned in the lives of their Saints in the Legends: And so you have here and there a Papist lurking to be the chief Speaker among them, and these have fashioned many others to their turns, to supply their rooms, who yet know not their own Fathers.
and then perswading them that these are glorious Truths of God, which their former Teachers are unable ⟨image 10⟩to receive, and that they are but a blinde, self-seeking, proud sort of men that would enthrall all men to their judgements, when they are in utter darkness themselves: When they have gotten them but thus farre once, to despise their guides, then do they proceed further with them, and perswade them that they that were blinde in the points of Baptism and Church-order, are so in other things as well as that, and that this light which they have seen already, is but a spark, and that these being daies of glorious discoveries, there are yet more and greater matters to be revealed. Hereupon they put a handsome dresse upon many of the grossest points of Popery, and recommend these as the new and rare discoveries. But this they do not in the Name and garb of Papists, but (as the Popish Jew at New-castle) they turn Anabaptists, and then rise a step higher, and leade others after them; so that the silly people shall never know that it is Papists that are their Leaders; yea, they will cry out of the Pope, and call all that differs from them Antichristian purposly to divert suspicions, and blinde mens eyes. Thus these Papists have begotten this present Sect of Quakers; first pretending to strange Revelations, Visions and Trances, such as are commonly mentioned in the lives of their Saints in the Legends: And so you have here and there a Papist lurking to be the chief Speaker among them, and these have fashioned many others to their turns, to supplie their rooms, who yet know not their own Fathers.