A26879:1657
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. 31. Do you disallow of the Common Course, which is to give all that men can get to their Children, save some small droppings now and then to the Poor?
A. I take it to be the effect of that SELFISHNESS, which is the grand Enemy to the Love of God and Man. A carnal Selfish man doth live to his Flesh and Carnal Self, for which he gathers all that he can get: And when he must needs dye and can no longer enjoy it, he takes his Children to be as parts of himself, and what they have he thinks he almost hath himself: And so out of mere Self-love doth Love them and enrich them. But a Holy person thinks all is Gods, and that it is best used which is best improved to his Will and Kingdom.
A. I take it to be the effect of that SELFISHNESS, which is the grand Enemy to the Love of God and Man. A carnal Selfish man doth live to his Flesh and Carnal Self, for which he gathers all that he can get: And when he must needs dye and can no longer enjoy it, he takes his Children to be as parts of himself, and what they have he thinks he almost hath himself: And so out of meer Self-love doth Love them and enrich them. But a Holy person thinks all is Gods, and that it is best used which is best improved to his Will and Kingdom.
But Alas, what have Selfish carnal worldlings to account for? When the best they can say of the use of Gods talents, is, that they pampered the flesh with as much as it craved, and the rest they gave their Children to make them rich, that their Flesh also might be pampered, and their lust might want no fuel or provision, nor their Souls want temptation. Hundreds or Thousands given to Daughters, and ⟨p. 309⟩Lands purchased for their Sons, and now and then a Farthing or a Penny given to the Poor. And though the Hypocrites take on them to believe Christ, that it's harder for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God, than for a Camel to go through a Needle's eye, yet they live as if nothing were the desire and business of their lives, but to make their own and their Children's Salvation by Riches thus next to impossible.