“Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.”
Ps. 34:11-14
“Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little…”
Isa. 28:9-10
“And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
Dt. 6:6-7
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Order of Contents
Articles 5
Quotes 4
Historical 1
Latin 3
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Articles
1500’s
Bucer, Martin – ch. 9, ‘The First Law: Children must be catechized and educated for God’ in On the Reign of Christ tr. Satre & Pauck in Melanchthon & Bucer in The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 19 (London: SCM Press LTD, 1969), bk. 2, p. 280
Ursinus, Zachary – What a Catechism is & of Catechizing in The Sum of Christian Religion: Delivered… in his Lectures upon the Catechism… tr. Henrie Parrie (Oxford, 1587), pp. 2-4
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1600’s
English Puritans – pt. 1, Objection 2, point 2, pp. 223-27 in A Refutation of the Errors of Separatists (1604; 1644; RBO, 2025)
The puritan ministers “also contend for the lawfulness and benefit of confessions and catechisms (which the Separatists rejected).” – p. 9
Tuckney, Anthony – ‘The Form of Sound Words’ a sermon on 2 Tim. 1:13 in A Good Day well improved, or Five Sermons upon Acts 9:31… to which is annexed a sermon on 2 Tim. 1:13... (London: 1656), pp. 244-319
Tuckney was a Westminster divine.
“2. It [the form of sound words] is our godly forefathers bequest which they have conveyed to us their posterity; should not our care be alike to transmit it to ours? Ps. 78:3-4.
3. The martyrs have sealed it with their blood, which we shall prove guilty of through our unfaithfulness, as they are accounted to tread underfoot the Son of God, and to account his blood an unholy thing who desert his truth, and despited the spirit of his grace, Heb. 10:29.
4. It will be the best part of our children’s inheritance: as the Law was Jacob’s, Dt. 33:4. Look to it therefore, that at our last reckoning our forefathers be not ashamed of us, and our posterity at the Resurrection do no not rise up, and, I say not, call us blessed, as Prov. 31:28, but curse us for betraying God’s truth, and our trust, and their and our own souls altogether.
5. And remember from this word [Greek] hold fast, that it is not the catching at what we have not, but only the holding fast what through God’s mercy we yet have; and therefore as Christ says to the Church of Philadelphia, ‘Hold fast what thou hast, let no man take away thy crown.'”
Baxter, Richard – The Catechizing of Families, a Teacher of Householders how to Teach their Households (London: Parkhurst, 1683) 439 pp. ToC
The first section of this work, ‘The Reasons & Use of this Book’, gives instructions and encouragements to catechizing one’s family, etc. The rest of the large work is an extended catechism.
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Quotes
Order of Contents
Aquinas
London Presbyterians
Baxter
Alexander
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1200’s
Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 1, ch. 11
“The foregoing opinion [that the knowledge of God is self-evident] arose from their being accustomed from the beginning to hear and call upon the name of God. Now custom, especially if it dates from our childhood, acquires the force of nature, from which it happens that the mind holds those things with which it was imbued from childhood as firmly as though they were self-evident.”
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1600’s
London Provincial Assembly
A Vindication of the Presbyterial-Government & the Ministry… (London, 1650), pp. 131-35
“For the better effecting of this, we exhort you [youth] to attend diligently to the public preaching of the Word and willingly and cheerfully to submit to be catechized and instructed by your parents, masters, and ministers.
The Scripture divides a congregation into him that catechizes and those that are catechized, saying, ‘Let them that are taught,’ or (as it is in the Greek) catechized, ‘communicate to him that teacheth’ (or catechizes) ‘them in all good things.’ (Gal. 6:6) In the primitive times, when any heathen man was converted to Christianity, he was first a catechumenus before he was admitted either to baptism or the Lord’s Supper. And Egesippus testifies (quoted by Dr. Andrewes in his Preface to the Com.) that by the diligent instruction of the Church there was no known commonwealth in any part of the world, inhabited but within forty years after Christ’s passion received a great shaking of [their] heathenish religion.
There are in Christian religion fundamentals and superstructions. The fundamentals are the vitals of Christianity: These are comprised in many of our English catechisms. Amongst all others we do more especially commend the greater and lesser catechisms made by the reverend [Westminster] Assembly of Divines and published to be used in all Churches in England and Wales by authority of parliament. These we exhort you not only to read, but to learn. And to invite you thereunto, we further declare:
That the study of the catechism is a singular help for the right understanding of the Scriptures (for the catechism is nothing else but a methodical extract out of the Bible of the fundamentals of Christian Religion); and it is also very useful to make you understand what your ministers preach to you; And to keep you from the errors and heresies of these times to prepare you to give a distinct and perfect account of your Faith to the minister and elders. For one great reason why men do so pervert the Scriptures to their own destruction and run wild into so many errors and heresies, and are so unable to give a particular and distinct account to the minister and elders, is for want of the study of the catechism.
As a ship without ballast is tossed about with every wave and wind, so is a man without the study of the catechism carried about with every wind of vain doctrine. As a house without a foundation will quickly fall, so will a Christian that is not well versed in the fundamentals of religion. As children grow crooked that are not well looked to at first, so many run into crooked opinions because not well catechized.
And therefore we earnestly beseech and entreat all parents and masters of families that they would make conscience of this great duty of catechizing their children and servants. And oh that the Lord would make our words to take impression upon your hearts. In the Old Testament God commands parents to teach diligently their children (Dt. 6:7). The word in the Hebrew (ושננתם) is, ‘to whet’ the Law upon their children.
The Fourth Commandment is directed not to children and servants, but to parents and masters; and they are there commanded not only in their own persons to keep the Sabbath, but to see that their children and servants do it also. It is not, ‘thou, or thy son, or thy daughter,’ but ‘thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter.’ It does not say (as Zanchi well observes, on the 4th Commandment), ‘Remember thou to keep holy the Sabbath day, and to persuade thy children and servants to keep it holy,’ but ‘remember thou to keep it holy, and thy son, and thy servant,’ implying thereby, that it is the duty of the master and father, to compel his servant and children to the keeping of the Sabbath day.
For doing of this, God exceedingly extols Abraham, Gen. 18:19, ‘I know that he will command his children, and his household after him, that they keep the ways of the Lord:’ upon which words a learned divine (Mr. [Francis] Cheynell in a sermon before the House of Commons) wrote thus:
‘Abraham did not leave his children and servants to their own genius, their own counsels, their own lusts, though it is certain, diverse of them would have thanked him for such a liberty; for they had been nursed up in superstition and idolatry, as Abraham was, and might have pretended that they were not satisfied in point of conscience. But Abraham knew how to distinguish between liberty of conscience and liberty of lust, and therefore would not allow them such a liberty as would have enticed them into the worst kind of bondage.’
The New Testament also calls upon parents, not only to bring up their children, but to nurture them up in instruction and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6, εκτρεφειν). Old Eli was grievously punished for neglect of this duty: and let his severe chastisement be as a warning-piece to all fathers and masters; And let them know that if their children and servants perish for want of instruction through their negligence, their blood will be required at their hands.
And if parents and masters, much more ought ministers to be very conscientious in the diligent discharge of this duty. Our Saviour Christ lays an express command upon them, not only to feed the sheep, but also the lambs of Christ. It is no disparagement to a Peter to be a feeder of Christ’s lambs. Oh that ministers would unanimously and universally set to this duty! We commend it to them as a most sovereign antidote to preserve their congregations from the errors of these times.
It is reported of Julian that amongst other subtle plots he used for the rooting out of Christian religion, one was the suppression of all Christian schools and places of catechizing. And as one says (Dr. Andrewes in the forementioned Preface),
‘If he had not been as a cloud that soon passes away, it had been to be feared, lest within a short time he had overshadowed all religion. For when catechizing was taken from the Church, it was presently all overspread with ignorance.’
And it is further added by the same author:
‘That the Papists themselves acknowledge that all the advantage the Protestants got of them in the beginning of Reformation was by their catechizing; because they began sooner to catechize than they did. And it is to be feared,’ says he, ‘if ever the Papists get once again advantage of us, it will be by their exacter catechizing than ours.’
And therefore if ever you would prevent the further corruption of men’s judgments and secure them from the infection of error, and preserve religion from ruin. We exhort you in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ to practice this duty and entreat our people with all readiness and constancy to submit unto this ordinance of God which, with so much public prejudice, has been so long neglected. And to persuade people thereunto, let them consider further:
1. If ministers are bound to catechize, then people are bound to be catechized.
2. That they are baptized, and thereby consecrated unto Christ, and obliged by promise to give up themselves unto instruction.
3. That ignorance, though it be not the greatest, yet it is a most dangerous sin: All sin is wrapped up in ignorance, as a child in swaddling clouts. The Scripture says that Christ will come in flaming fire to render vengeance upon all those that know Him not, etc. (2 Thess. 1:8) It makes the ignorance of God to be the cause of all sin, 1 Sam. 2:12; 1 Jn. 2:4; Eph. 4:19. And David prays unto God to pour out his wrath upon the heathen that know Him not (Ps. 79:6); how much more upon the Christians that know Him not? As toads and serpents grow in dark and dirty cellars, so [does] all sin and wickedness in an ignorant and blind soul. Now there is no ordinary way for young people to gain the knowledge of God but by catechizing.
4. That the time of youth is the golden age, the seasoning age and a time in which men are apt to receive abiding impressions of evil or good. And if they can learn to say to Elisha, ‘Bald-pate,’ why should they be unwilling to learn to sing to Christ, ‘Hosanna’?
5. That it is not so great a shame for young people to be ignorant as to be willful and obstinate in ignorance. And if they refuse to be catechized, they shall perish in their ignorance, but the minister is free from the blood of their souls.”
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Richard Baxter
The Cure of Church Divisions… (London, 1670), pt. 1, Direction 32, p. 182
“Christ has given to all his members such gifts as are suitable to their places… And the place of a master of a family requires the gift of catechizing and instructing the family? And they are as truly obliged to use their gifts… And yet who doubts but it is lawful for parents to teach and catechize their children by such books and forms of catechisms as are composed by the gifts of abler men?”
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1800’s
Archibald A. Alexander
Thoughts on Religious Experience (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841), ch. 1, p. 13
“From this cause [native depravity] it proceeds, that many children, who have the opportunity of a good religious education, learn scarcely any thing of the most important truths of Christianity. If they are compelled to commit the Catechism to memory, they are wont to do this without ever thinking of the doctrines contained in the words which they recite; so that, when the attention is at any time awakened to the subject of religion, as a personal concern, they feel themselves to be completely ignorant of the system of divine truth taught in the Bible.
Yet even to these, the truths committed to memory are now of great utility. They are like a treasure which has been hidden, but is now discovered. Of two persons under conviction of sin, one of whom has had sound religious instruction, and the other none, the former will have an unspeakable advantage over the latter in many respects.”
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Historical
On the Post-Reformation
Article
Sinnema, Donald – ‘The Second Sunday Service in the Early Dutch Reformed Tradition’ Calvin Theological Journal, 32 (1997), pp. 298-333
As the second service often included preaching from a catechism (such as the Heidelberg Catechism) and catechizing the children, so this article is very relevant on the topic. Sinnema also includes a brief survey of the early and Medieval Church, and the Post-Refomation Churches across Europe on these topics as well.
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – Ecclesiastical Politics (Amsterdam: Waesberge, 1663)
vol. 1, pt. 1, bk. 2, tract 3
1. ‘On Catechizing’, pp. 834-73
vol. 3, pt. 2
bk. 2, ‘Of Ministers & the Ecclesiastical Ministry’, Tract 4, Of Assisting Helpers to the Sacred Minister & Ministers
2. Of the Visitors of the Sick, Announcers [Proponentibus], Catechists, Readers, Precentors, Custodians, Porters or Messengers 514
bk.4, tract 3, Of Ecclesiastical Assistants
3. Of the Preacher, Disputator, Catechizer and Ecclesiastical Scholar 923
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“But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; and that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
2 Tim. 3:14-15
“…the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.”
Heb. 6:1-2
“And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, ‘This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt…’ …And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, ‘What is this?’ that thou shalt say unto him, ‘By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage…'”
Ex. 13:8-14
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Related Pages
Commentaries on the Apostles’ Creed
Commentaries on the Heidelberg Catechism
Commentaries on the Westminster Standards