9. A prayer for converting grace, to be used by such as are convinced of their miserable state 12. A shorter form of prayer and praise for the Lord's day.. 13. A form of prayer for the sick who are unready to die.... THE CATECHISING OF FAMILIES. A TEACHER OF HOUSEHOLDERS HOW TO TEACH THEIR HOUSEHOLDS: USEFUL ALSO TO SCHOOLMASTERS, AND TUTORS OF YOUTH. FOR THOSE THAT ARE PAST THE COMMON SMALL CATECHISMS, AND WOULD GROW TO A MORE ROOTED FAITH, AND TO THE FULLER UNDERSTANDING OF ALL THAT 18 COMMONLY NEEDFUL TO A SAFE, HOLY, COMFORTABLE AND PROFITABLE LIFE. 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 God's word, tell us the great necessity of knowledge. As the soul's 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 hypocrite's religion is but an art; the true Christian's is a habit, which is a divine nature. But yet the words are signs, by which we are helped to know the things, and must diligently be learned to that end; and though men cannot reach the heart, God hath appointed parents, and masters, and teachers, to instruct their inferiors by words, and hath written the Scripture to that use, that by them his Spirit may teach or illuminate the mind, and renew the heart: God worketh on man as man; and we must know by signs, till we know by intuition. It is a thing well known, that the church aboundeth with catechisms, and systems of divinity; and doth there yet need more? Their scope and substance is the same; they differ |