A27001:6
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.
TO THE READER.
READER,
I Suppose thou wilt marvel that I trouble my self with so wild a Generation as the People called Quakers are; or that I trouble thee with a few hasty lines which I wrote on such an Occasion; I'll truly tell thee the cause of both: 1. They sent me five several Papers, one of them containing the Queries which I answer, and others of them almost nothing but a bundle of filthy railing words, [Thou Serpent, thou Liar, thou deceiver, thou child of the devil, thou cursed hypocrite, thou dumb dog] with much more of the like. They chose out one day, when it pleased God to confine me to my Chamber by sickness, to come into our Assembly, and after Morning Sermon to fall a questioning the Preacher, my assistant; and because he avoided public disputing with them at that season, as not taking it for a profitable spending of the Lords day, they call him the hireling that flieth, it seems referring to Joh. 10. 12. ⟨image 3⟩and so confessing themselves to be the Wolves. I find that they do so challenge, and brag, and triumph, if we say nothing to them, and that too many simple people expect that we should answer them, that (after an unprofitable verbal discourse with an unreasonable railing fellow) I resolved to send them this brief answer to their Questions: And because they abhor Syllogisms and disputings, I was fain to deal further with them in their own questioning way: I had before offered to come and answer all their Queries in their Assembly, if they would consent that I might do it without disturbance; But instead of permitting that, they denied it, and sent me a Letter of Reviling, calling me ever and over Serpent and Hypocrite, and the like Names, and commanding me in the Name of the most High God to answer their Questions in writing, that they might print them with their reply; so that if I say nothing they will insult; If I write to them they will print it: Being therefore so far called to speak, I chose rather to print my own Papers, how mean soever, then let them do it.