A26879:1330
The catechizing of families a teacher of householders how to teach their householdsThe catechizing of families a teacher of housholders how to teach their housholds
The catechizing of families a teacher of householders how to teach their households : useful also to school-masters and tutors of youth : for those that are past the common small catechisms [sic], and would grow to a more rooted faith, and to the fuller understanding of all that is commonly needful to a safe, holy comfortable and profitable life / written by Richard Baxter ...The catechizing of families a teacher of housholders how to teach their housholds : useful also to school-masters and tutors of youth : for those that are past the common small chatechisms [sic], and would grow to a more rooted faith, and to the fuller understanding of all that is commonly needful to a safe, holy comfortable and profitable life / written by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1683
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.
A. To make it Greater than it is, by equalling those without with the Church, or Church-hypocrites with the sincere, doth dishonour Gods Holiness, and the wonderful design of Christ in Mans Redemption, and the Grace of the Spirit, and the Church of God, and obscureth the Doctrine of Election and God's peculiar Love, and tendeth to the discomfort of the Faithful, and even to Infidelity.
And to make Christ's Kingdom less than it is, by de•ying the first Edition of the Law of Grace made to •ll, and the common Mercies given to all, (antecedently •o their rejection of them) doth obscure and wrong •he Glory of Gods Love to Man, and deny his common Grace and Law, and feigneth the World either •o be under no Law of God, or else to be all bound to ⟨p. 238⟩be perfectly Innocent at the time when they are guilty,d and either not bound at all to hope and seek for Salvation, or else to seek it on the Condition of being Innocent when they know that it is impossible, they being already guilty: And it maketh the World like the Devils almost; shut up in despair; and it leaveth them as Guiltless of all sin against Grace and the Law of Grace, as if they had none such: And it contradicteth the judgment of Abraham the Father of the Faithful, who saw Christ's day: For he thought that even the wicked City Sodom had had Fifty Persons so Righteous as that God should have spared the rest for their sakes: (to say nothing of Job, Nineveh, &c.)▪ In a word, the ungrounded extenuating the Grace o• Christ, and the Love of God, hardeneth Infidels, and tempteth Christians to perplexing Thoughts of the Gospel, and of the Infinite Goodness of God, and maketh it more difficult than indeed it is, to see hi Amiableness, and consequently to Glorify and Lo him, as the Essential Love, whose Goodness is equal to his Greatness. It is Satan as an Angel of Light and Righteousness, who pretending the defence of God's special Love to his Elect, denieth his common Mercies to Mankind, to dishonour Gods's Love, and strengthen our own Temptations, against the Joyful Love of God.