A26879:20
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.
I am no undervaluer of any Academical advantages: when the Stream of Academies runs pure and holy, they are blessed helps to mens Salvation; when their Stream is SENSUAL, WORLDLY, CORRUPT and MALIGNANT, they are Seminaries for Hell, and the Devils Schools to train up his most powerful Soldiers, to fight against serious ⟨image 5⟩Godliness in Christs own Livery and Name, and to send Youth thither, is worse than to send them to a Brothel-House, or a Pest-house.
I am no undervaluer of any Academical advantages: when the Stream of Academies runs pure and holy, they are blessed helps to mens Salvation; when their Stream is SENSUAL, WORLDLY, CORRUPT and MALIGNANT, they are Seminaries for Hell, and the Devils Schools to train up his most powerful Souldiers, to fight against serious ⟨image 5⟩Godliness in Christs own Livery and Name, and to send Youth thither, is worse than to send them to a Brothel-House, or a Pest-house.
4. Are there not fewer Temptations in your own Houses, than they are like to find abroad in the World? you can keep them from the company of sensual voluptuous Lads, and of Learned Reverend Enemies of serious Christianity, and of worldly men whose Godliness is gain, and would draw them ambitiously to Study Preferment, and espouse them to the World, which in Baptism they renounced; if you cannot keep them from such Snares, how shall they be kept where such abound?
5. And one of the greatest motives of all, for your keeping them long enough at home, is, that you will thereby have time to judge whether they are like to become fit for the Ministry or not: Oh, how many good men send Plagues into the Church, by devoting unproved Lads to the Ministry, hoping that God will hereafter give them Grace, and make them fit, who never promised it? When you send them at fifteen or sixteen years of Age to the University, from under your own eye, you are unlikely to know what they will prove, unless it be some few that are very early sanctified by Grace; and when they have been a few years at the University, be they never so unmeet, they will thrust themselves into the Ministry, and (miserable men) for a Benefice take the charge of Souls; whereas if you will keep them with you till twenty years of Age, you may see what they are like to prove, and dispose of them accordingly.