A26879:7
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.
The Reasons and Use of this BOOK.
MAN is born without Knowledge, but not without a Capacity and faculty of Knowing, this is his Excellency and Essence: Nature, Experience, and Gods Word tell us the great necessity of Knowledge. As the Souls essential form is the virtue of vital Action, Understanding and Will conjunct, so Holiness is Holy Life, Light and Love conjunct. The wisest men are the best, and the best the wisest, but a Counterfeit of Knowledge is the great deceiver of the World. Millions take the Knowledge of bare Words, with the Grammatical and Logical sense, instead of the Knowledge of the things themselves which by these are signified; as if the Glass would nourish without the Wine, or the Dish without the Meat, or the Clothing or Skin were all the man; God and Holiness and Heaven are better known by many serious unlearned Christians that cannot accurately dispute about them, than by many Learned men, who can excellently speak of that which their Souls are unacquainted with: The Hypocrites Religion is but an Art, the true Christians is a Habit, which is a Divine Nature.
MAN is born without Knowledge, but not without a Capacity and faculty of Knowing, this is his Excellency and Essence: Nature, Experience, and Gods Word tell us the great necessity of Knowledge. As the Souls essential form is the virtue of vital Action, Understanding and Will conjunct, so Holiness is Holy Life, Light and Love conjunct. The wisest men are the best, and the best the wisest, but a Counterfeit of Knowledge is the great deceiver of the World. Millions take the Knowledge of bare Words, with the Gramatical and Logical sence, instead of the Knowledge of the things themselves which by these are signified; as if the Glass would nourish without the Wine, or the Dish without the Meat, or the Cloathing or Skin were all the man; God and Holiness and Heaven are better known by many serious unlearned Christians that cannot accurately dispute about them, than by many Learned men, who can excellently speak of that which their Souls are unacquainted with: The Hipocrites Religion is but an Art, the true Christians is a Habit, which is a Divine Nature.