A26879:933
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. When we know in general all before mentioned, that we shall be in that described Blessedness with Christ and the Heavenly Society, we must implicitly trust Christ with all the rest, who knoweth for us what we know not: and stay till possession give us that clear distinct conception of the manner, and all the circumstances, which they that possess it not, can no more have, than we can conceive of the sweetness of a Meat or Drink which we never tasted of: And we should long the more for that Possession which will give us that sweet Experience.
Q. 11. Is not God the only Glory and Joy of the Blessed? Why then do you tell us so much of Angels and Saints, and the City of God?
Q. 11. Is not God the only Glory and Ioy of the Blessed? Why then do you tell us so much of Angels and Saints, and the City of God?
A. God is all in all things; of him, and through him and to him are all things, and the Glory of all is to him for ever. But God made not any single Creature to be happy in him alone as separate from the rest; but an Universe which hath its Union and communion. I told you as the Eye and Hand have no separated Life or Pleasure, but only in Communion with the whole Body, so neither shall we in Heaven. God is infinitely above us, and if you think of him alone, without mediate Objects for the ascent and access of your Thoughts, you may as well think to climb up without a Ladder: We are not the Noblest Creatures next to God, nor yet the most Innocent: We have no access to him, but by a Mediator: And that Mediator worketh and conveyeth his Grace to us by other subordinate means: He is the Saviour of his Body, which is the fullness of him that filleth all: If we think not of the Heavenly Jerusalem, the glorious City of God; the Heavenly Society and Joyful Chore that praise Jehovah and the Lamb, and live together in perfect Knowledge, Love and Concord, in whose Communion only we have all our Joy; to whom in this Unity God communicateth his Glory; and if we think not of the Glorious Head of the Church, who will then be our Mediator of Fruition, as he was of Acquisition: nay, if we think not of those loving blessed Angels that rejoiced at our Conversion, and were here the Servants, and will be for ever the Companions of our Joy: And if we think not of all our old dear Friends and Companions in the Flesh, and of all the Faithful, who since Adam's Days are gone before us, and if we think not of the attractive Love, Union and Joy of that Society and State, we shall not have sufficient Familiarity above, but make God as