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. If you say, they will lose the advantage of their degrees, it is an objection unfit for a Christian's mouth; will you prefer names, and airy titles, before wisdom, piety, and men's salvation, and the church's good? Must they go out of their way for a peacock's feather, when they are in a race as for life or death? If you say, they will lose their time at home, the shame then is yours, or they are like to lose it more abroad: teach them to read the Scriptures (at least the gospel) in the original tongues, and to understand and practise things necessary to salvation, which all arts and sciences must subserve, and they do not lose their time; and at ripeness of age they will get more other learning in a year, than before they will do in many; and what they learn will be their own, when boys learn words without the sense. If you say, they will want the advantage of academical disputes; I answer, if reading fill them with matter, nature and common use will teach them how to utter it: the world hath too many disputers; books may soon teach them the true order of disputing, and a few days' experience may show the rest. If you say, you have not time to teach them, I answer, you have no greater work to do, and a little time will serve with willing, teachable youth, and no other are to be intended for the ministry; what boys get by hearing their tutors they oft bestow small labour to digest, but take up with bare words, and second notions: but when they are set to get it from their books themselves, harder study better digesteth it; it is they that must bestow much time, the teacher need not bestow very much country schools may teach them Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, let them stay there till they attain it; you may then teach them the common rudiments of logic, and see them well settled in divinity and serious religion; and then, if academies prove safe and needful, they will go out better fortified against all the temptations which they must expect. It is certain, that inconveniences are not so bad as mischiefs; and it is certain that all our natures, as corrupt, are dark, carnal, and malignant, and need the sanctifying grace of Christ; and it is certain, that as grace useth all things to its increase,. so this serpentine nature will turn studies, learning, and all such things, to serve itself; and that carnal, sensual, malignant nature, cultivated by human learning, is too usually ripened and sublimated into diabolism, and maketh the most potent servants of the devil against Christ: and if this be but gilded with sacred ornaments and titles, and pretences of the church's peace and order, it is garrisoned and fortified, and a stronger hold for sin and Satan than open vice: and it is certain, that as the rage of drunkards is raised in their riotous meetings, and as conjunc tion, example, and noise put more valour into armies than separated persons have, so combined societies of learned, reverenced malignity do confirm the individuals, and raise them to the height of wickedness: so that universities are either, if holy, a copy of paradise, or, if malignant, the chief militia of the malicious enemy of man, except a malignant hierarchy or clergy, who are malignant academies grown up to maturity. If any say that there is no great and solid learning to be got elsewhere, let them think where great Augustin, and most of the great lights of the church for four hundred years, attained their knowledge; and whether the Scaligers, Salmasius, Grotius, Selden, and such others, got not more by laborious, secret reading, than by academical tutors and disputes: and whether such famous men as John Reignolds, Blondel, &c., even in the universities, got not their great learning by searching the same books which may be read in another place. If any say, that I speak against that which I want myself, I only desire that it may not be those who cast by my Catholic Theology, Methodus Theologiæ, &c., with no other accusation, but because they are too scholastical, accurate, and hard for them. I here bewail it as my great sin against God, that in the youth of my ministry, pride made me often blush with shame for want of academical degrees; but usually God will not have us bring our own human honour to his service, but fetch honour from him, in faithful serving him fringes and laces must be last set on when the garment is made, and not be the ground, or stamen, of it. There have been men that have desired their sons to learn all the oriental tongues, and the rare antiquities, and critical, applauded sort of learning, not for its own worth, but that they might preach the gospel with the advantage of a greater name and honour and this : course hath so taken up and formed such students into the quality of their studies, when their souls should have been taken up with faith and love, and heavenly desires and hopes, that it hath overthrown the end to which it was intended, and rendered such students unfit for the sacred ministry, and caused them to turn to other things: when others, who (as Usher, Bochart, Blondel, &c.) have first taken in a digested body of saving truth, have after added these critical studies at full maturity, and have become rare blessings to the church. Let those that think all this digressive, or unmeet for the preface to a catechism, pardon that which the world's miscarriages and necessities bespeak. If at least masters of families, by such helps, diligently used, will keep up knowledge and religion in their houses, it is not public failings in ministers, nor the want of what is desirable in the assemblies, that will root out religion from the land but if the faithful prove few, they must be content with their personal comforts and rewards; there is nothing amiss in the heavenly society, and the world which we are entering into. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen. London, Oct. 3, 1682. THE CATECHISING OF FAMILIES. [The Questions are the Learner's, and the Answers the Teacher's.] CHAP. I. The Introduction. Q. 1. WHAT is it which must be taught and learned? A. All must be taught, and must learn, 1. What to know and believe. 2. What to love, and choose, and hope for. 3. What they must do, or practise.a Q. 2. What is it that we must learn to know and believe? A. We must know what we are, and what condition we are in.c Q. 4. What mean you by our concerns, which we must know? A. We must know, 1. Whence we are, or who made us. 2. And whither we are going, or for what end he hath made us. 3. And which is the way, or what means must be used, to attain that end.d Q. 5. What must we learn to love, and choose, and hope for? A. We must learn to love best that which is best in itself, and best to us and others, and to choose the means by which it must be attained; which implieth hating and refusing the contraries. Q. 6. What must we learn to practise? A. We must practise the means to obtain the end of our lives, and that is our obedience to him that made us.f a Psalm xxv. 4, 5, and xxvii. 11, cix. 12, 33, 66. e Heb. vi. 1-3. d Tit. ii. 3. f 1 Kings viii. 36; Micah iv. 2. b Job xxxiv. 32. e Psalm xxxiv. 11, and xxxii. 8. Q. 7. Cannot we learn this of ourselves, without teachers? A. There is some part of this which nature itself will teach you, as soon as you come to the free use of reason, and look about you in the world. And there is some part of it that nature alone will not teach you, without a higher teaching from above. And even that which nature teacheth you, you have also need of a teacher's help to learn it speedily and truly. For nature doth not teach all things alike easily, speedily, and surely it quickly teacheth a child to suck; it quickly teacheth us to eat and drink, and to go and talk; and yet here there is need of help; children learn not to speak without teaching. It teacheth men how to do their worldly business; and yet they have need of masters to teach it them, and will serve an apprenticeship to learn some. Some things nature will teach to none but good wits, upon diligent search and study, and honest willingness to know; which dullards, and slothful, and bad men, reach not.g Q. 8. Who be they that must teach, and who must learn? A. None is able to teach more than they know themselves; and all that are ignorant have need to learn. But nature hath put all children under a necessity of learning; for, though they are born with a capacity to know, yet not with actual knowledge. And nature hath made it the duty of parents to be the teachers of their children first, and then to get the help of others.h Q. 9. May we give over learning when we are past childhood? i A. No; we must go on to learn as long as we live; for we know but in part, and therefore still have need of more. But those that have neglected to learn in their childhood, have most need of all; it being sinful and unnatural to be ignorant at full age, and signifieth great neglect.k Q. 10. Who must teach us at age? A. Parents and masters must teach their households, and public teachers are officers to teach all publicly; and all that have wisdom should take all fit opportunities, in charity, to teach and edify one another; knowledge and goodness have a communicative nature.1 Isaiah xxviii. 26; 1 Cor. xi. 14; Job xii. 7, 8; Heb. v. 12. b 2 Tim. ii. 2; Job xxxii. 17; Tit. ii. 21; Deut. vi. 7, 8, and xi. 19, 20. i Prov. i. 5; ix. 9; vi. 21, 22. * Psalm cxix. 99; Heb. v. 11, 12; Prov. v. 13. 1 Gal. vi. 6; Deut. vi. 7; 1 Tim. ii. 7; 2 Tim. i. 11; Eph. iv. 11; Tit. ii. 3. |