The Duty of Catechesis
When the Puritans convened the Westminster Assembly in 1653, their goal was not simply to systematize Reformed doctrine. These men, many of whom were pastors, desired to establish a foundation for godly living in the entire church of England. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Thomas Manton’s “Epistle to the Reader,” which was printed alongside the Westminster Standards.
Read this powerful charge to the duty and necessity of catechesis in raising godly families:
It is impossible for Christians today, especially for those of us in the West, to be unaware that there is a general complaint about society’s lack of godliness. To be more specific, this complaint often points out that there is a great corruption of our young people. Wherever you go, you will hear people exclaiming about how bad our children and employees have become. However, the source of the trouble must be sought a little higher: it is bad parents and bad masters that make bad children and bad servants. We cannot blame their unruliness as much as our own negligence in their education.
The devil has a great hatred of the kingdom of Christ, and he knows no more efficient way than to nip it in the bud, perverting the youth and supplanting family duties. He strikes at all those duties that are public in the assemblies of the saints, but these are too well guarded - by the solemn injunctions and dying charge of Jesus Christ - that he should ever hope to totally subvert and undermine them. However, he strikes at family duties with more success because the institution is not so solemn, the duties are not regarded as seriously and conscientiously as they should be, and the omission is not so liable to notice and public censure.
Religion was first hatched in families, and the devil seeks to crush it there. The families of the Patriarchs were all the churches God had in the world for the time. Therefore, I suppose, when Cain went out from Adam’s family, he is said to go out from the face of the Lord (Gen. 4:16). Now the devil knows that this is a blow at the root and a fitting way to prevent the succession of churches. If he can subvert families, other societies and communities will not flourish long or subsist with any power and vigor since the family is the source from which they are supplied both for the present and future.
At our present time, we should see that the family is the seminary of church and state. If children are not well principled there, it all goes awry; a fault in the first institution is not mended in the second. If youth are ill-bred in the family, they prove detrimental to the Church and Commonwealth. There is the first making or marring, and this should be taken as a foreshadowing of their future lives (Prov. 20:11).
By family discipline, officers are trained up for the Church (1 Tim. 3:4 “...one that rules well his own house...”) and there are men brought up in subjection and obedience. It is noted in Acts 21:5 that the disciples brought Paul on his way with their wives and children. Their children probably are mentioned to intimate that their parents would, by their own example and affectionate farewell to Paul, bring them up to reverence and respect to the pastors of the Church.
Looking to the future, it is certainly comforting to see a thriving nursery of young plants and to have hopes that God shall have a people to serve him when we are dead and gone. We see that same vision in Ps. 102:28, where the people of God comforted themselves in the hope that “The children of thy servants shall continue...”
Considering all this, how careful should ministers and parents be to train up young ones while they are still pliable and, like wax, capable of any form and impression in the knowledge and fear of God! Parents should also be careful to instill the principles of our most holy faith as they are summarized in catechisms, which bring these truths before the conscience! Surely, if nothing else, these seeds of truth planted in the field of memory will be a great check and bridle to them. Just as throwing in cold water slows the boiling of a pot, an informed conscience should moderate the fervors of youthful lusts and passions.
Modernized and adapted from:
Westminster Assembly. The Westminster Confession of Faith: Edinburgh Edition. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1851. Print."
