A26879:447
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.
2. And in God who is an Infinite undivided Spirit, little can we conceive what Personality Signifieth; and how far those Schoolmen are right or wrong who say, That Gods Essential SELF-LIVING, SELF-KNOWING and SELF-LOVING, are the Trinity of the Persons as in Eternal Existence; and that the Operations and Appearances in POWER, WISDOM and LOVE in CREATION, INCARNATION for REDEMPTION, and Renovation in NATURE, GRACE and Initial GLORY or Communion, are the Three Persons in the Second Notion as outwardly Operative. And how much more than this soever there is, it is no wonder that we comprehend it not: Yea, I believe there is yet more in the Mystery of the Trinity, because this much is so intelligible.
2. And in God who is an Infinite undivided Spirit, little can we conceive what Personality Signifieth; and how far those Schoolmen are right or wrong who say, That Gods Essential SELF-LIVING, SELF-KNOWING and SELF-LOING, are the Trinity of the Persons as in Eternal Existence; and that the Operations and Appearances in POWER, WISDOM and LOVE in CREATION, INCARNATION for REDEMPTION, and Renovation in NATURE, GRACE and Initial GLORY or Communion, are the Three Persons in the Second Notion as outwardly Operative. And how much more than this soever there is, it is no wonder that we comprehend it not: Yea, I believe there is yet more in the Mystery of the Trinity, because this much is so intelligible.
Q. 10. But is it not strange that God will lay our Salvation on the belief of that which we cannot understand? Yea, is it not on the bare saying of a Word, whose meaning none can know?
A. The Doctrine of the Trinity in Unity is the very Sum of all the Christian Religion, as the ⟨p. 86⟩Baptismal Covenant assureth us: And can we think that Christianity saveth Men as a Charm, by words not understood? No, the belief of the Trinity is a Practical Belief: far be it from us to think that every plain Christian shall be damned, who knoweth not what a PERSON in the Trinity, is as Eternally inexistent, when all the Divines and School Wits as good as confess, after tedious disputes with unintelligible words, that they know not: It is the Trinity as related to us, and Operative, and therein Notified, that We must necessarily understand and believe, even as Our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, that the Love of God the Father, and the Grace of the Son, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost, may be believed, received, and enjoyed: As there are diversities of Gifts, but the same Spirit, and differences of Administrations, but the same Lord, and diversities of Operations, but the same God which worketh all in all,