A26879:1592
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.
Q. 7. Are we not then guilty of disobedience?
A. No: for God never gave them power to contradict his Laws.
Q. 8. But who shall be Judge when mens Commands are contrary to Gods? Must Subjects and Children judge?
Q. 8. But who shall be Iudge when mens Commands are contrary to Gods? Must Subjects and Children judge?
A. While we are Infants naturally uncapable of judging, we are ruled as Brutes by our Parents. But when we grow up to the use of Reason, our Obligation to Govern our selves is greater than to be governed by others. dGods Government is the first in order of Nature: Self-government is the next, though we are not capable of it till we come to some ripeness: A man is nearer to himself than his Parents are, and his happiness or misery depends more on himself than on them: And indeed Children's or mens obedience to others, is but an act of self-government. It is a mans self-governing Reason and Will which causeth him to obey another: nor can a Child perform any act of proper obedience differing from a Brutes, unless by a self-governing act. But Parents Government is the next to Self-government, and the Government of Husbands, Princes and Masters which are by Contract is next to that. Every Subject therefore being first a Subject of God and next a self-governor, is to obey as a reasonable Creature, and to understand what is his duty and what not; And because all is our duty which God commandeth, but not all that man Commandeth, Gods power being Absolute, and all mens limited, therefore we have nothing to do with the Laws of God but to know them, and Love them,