Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A39501
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An Earnest call to family-catechising and reformation by a reverend divine.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing E95; ESTC R31403
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30,606
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74
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primarily directed to Parents and Governours of Families who are responsible for themselves and those under them 7. See to it that as you profess your selves a Christian Family so you maintain Universal Holiness of Conversation Let no duty be omitted or Sin committed with thy connivance Look strictly to it that all relative Duty be duely discharged in which much of your Religion consists and on which the Credit of Religion and our own Comfort very much depends Make a compassionate but faithfull use of that Authority which God has committed to thee and withall see to it that thou behave thy self wisely in a perfect way and walk within thy house with a perfect heart setting no wicked thing before thee Psal 101. 2 3. Else thy Endeavours for the Good of others are like to be both heartless and fruitless 8. This one thing I would add which I would have by no means forgotten That you do not confine your selves only to those of your own Family but invite and encourage any other Families that have not or cannot have those Advantages to come in among you which will be a great piece of Soul-charity This I now mention is not invading the Ministers Office or Work any more than it is to admit the Members of some poor prayerless Family to partake of your Family-Devotions Yea this being well regulated may be made greatly subservient to more publick Catechising performed by the Minister and I have experimentally found it so 9. Let me superadd this If at any time you slip into Neglects of or Remisness in your Family-Duties and our deceitfull Hearts a subtle Devil an insnaring world will be apt to give us too many Avocations see that you carefully re-assume your Duty again and endeavour to recover your Zeal and Warmth therein And in case there be any extraordinary cause either from Omissions of Duty or Commissions of Sin solemnly humble your selves as a family with fasting and prayer Zech. 12. 12 13 14. To implore God's Pardon and Favour and let this be followed with as solemn Reformation Thus I have according to the measure of my Ability given you Directions for the profitable managing this great Duty of Family-Catechising and Reformation Now the Lord himself direct you both to and in the Performance hereof CHAP. IV. Some Motives offered to Family-Governours in behalf of Family-Catechising IF it can be needfull to add Motives for the further inforcing that Advice I have given I would offer such as these which I shall for brevity sake deliver more promiscuously and not stand to draw out under particular Heads Catechising is a Duty yea an advantagious Duty and being well managed may meet with those who reap little or no benefit by Sermons or continued Discourses For this is more suited to the Capacities of youth it doth more necessitate their Attention and put them upon the Exercise both of Memory and Judgment It is a proper Means of begetting and increasing Knowledge and that not only in regard of its familiar Condescension but also as in a little compass it takes in the whole Body and System of Divinity and Divine knowledge is of all most excellent It further tends to settle and confirm the Judgment in the great Truths to be believed and Duties to be practised Many let go Truth because they never had fast hold of it Catechising is a great means of Prevention of Apostasy and had we retained more of the former we had seen less of the latter It may also be a happy means of preventing many yea and great Sins or speedy convincing the Conscience where Sin hath prevailed How many from mere Ignorance of the Extent of God's Commands have not only fallen into great Sins but continued in them without repentance to whom good Instruction might have been a Means of Prevention or Recovery This may be a Means of working and promoting Faith and Holiness of Heart and Conversation yea all Good here and hereafter By Catechising those under your charge you may mend your own Head and Heart Family-Catechising will be mainly subservient to that great Duty of Publick Catechising And who knows but that between the one and the other the Enemy Sin may be be-set before and behind and fall in battel These two may be like the former and latter rain promoting all Spirituall fruitfulness Sure if as children are solemnly dedicated to God in Baptism so parents did conscienciously endeavour to bring them up for God and care were further taken by publick Catechising and Instructions to fit them for and transmit them to a compleat state of Church-Communion Churches would by the blessing of God be more plentifully stockt from Christian Families beside the children of the Stranger that might be joined to the Lord. By working on the Young Ones of the present Age an Earnest may be laid for the good of succeeding Generations Yea a Seed of your own may be raised up to praise the Lord and bear up his Name in the World Thus may your own Gardens flourish the tender grapes appear and your Pomgranats bud forth Song 7. 12. Your Sons thus manured may be as plants growing up in their youth and your daughters thus squared may be as corner-stones polished after the Similitude of a palace Psal 144. 12. And you may at the last day give up your account with joy and say Here am I Lord and the children that thou hast given me and then shall you and they be for ever together with the Lord be pillars in the heavenly Temple and never be removed thence Thus have I finished what I intend for the Governing part of Families I shall now address my self to the Governed CHAP. V. Advice to the Governed part of Families THE former part more-especially relates unto Parents of Children and Governours of Families It may I conceive be needful to subjoyn some particular Advice to Children and Servants or any other who may be the governed part of Families For if Means of Reformation be used by Family-Governours yet if it have not a due influence upon the Family under their Charge it doth not reach its End but is like Water spilt upon the Ground And I am the rather induced to apply my self particularly unto you because the Governed is usually the most numerous part of the Family And tho' you are at present in regard of some external Circumstances the inferiour part of it yet you have as precious Souls as your Parent and Governours God is equally concerned for you and has commanded Ministers to feed his Lambs as well as Sheep Joh. 21. 15 16 17. And we do profess our Selves the Servants of all yea and your selves have as much reason to be concerned for your own Souls as your Parents and Governours have for theirs In this sence our Salvation is common Salvation Jude v. 3. and there is no distinction of bond or free Gal. 3. 28. Yea if God lengthen out your Days and Obedience is the way to long Life you
AN EARNEST CALL TO Family-Catechising AND REFORMATION By a Reverend Divine The Father to the Children shall make known thy truth Isai 38. 19. Children obey your Parents in the Lord for this is right And ye fathers bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Eph. 6. 1 4. Woe unto thee O Jerusalem England wilt thou not be made clean when shall it once be Jer. 13. 27. LONDON Printed by J. W. for John Dunton at the Raven in the Poultrey 1693. THE PREFACE WHoever thou art that wilt condescend to read this little Piece I think fit to acquaint thee with whatever relates thereunto from its first conception to its coming thus into the World How the poor Thing will thrive now and what Service this Stripling of which I must say Is it not a little One is born for God alone knows to whose Guardianship and Disposal I entirely submit it If thou art inquisitive of its Parentage know it proceeds from a Stock Spiritually very mean and in that respect springs as a Root out of dry Ground Yet he that made Aaron's dry Rod to bud and blossom and bring forth Fruit can do so by this The Author remembers somewhat of those former Times when the Reins of Government were not so slack in Families professing Christanity and when there was a more strict and conscientious Education of Children than in these licentious Days in which many Parents out-do the Ostrich in Cruelty and are Spiritually hardened against their young Ones as though they were not theirs Job 39. 16. When the Foundation of the Second Temple was laid the young Men shouted for Joy but the ancient Men wept because the Foundations of the New Temple came so much short of the former which they had known in its Glory Ezra 3. 12 13. Methinks I find a mixture of both these Affections in my own Soul with respect to the private Families of Christians which should be little Churches I heartily rejoyce to see or hear even that little Measure of good Order and Government that is in any of them and verily unless the Lord of Hosts had left among us a very small remnant we had been as Sodom and as Gomorrha Isa 1. 9. But I see abundantly more cause of Mourning in that the present Glory on Christian Families comes so much short of the Glory of the former How deplorable is the personal Ruine of Multitudes who should be Governours and governed in Families For by reason of these Neglects Satan hath made a great Harvest of Souls and Hell hath inlarged it self beyond Measure But besides personal Considerations how great Disadvantages have hereby redounded to the Publick There are little visible Accessions to the Church from Christian Families God's Orchard of Pomgranats is meanly Stock'd from these Nurseries And whence should the Churches Increases be primarily expected but from those on whom God hath laid such special Obligations and to whom he has given so great Advantages Moreover much from the same Cause it is that the present Age is so generally and fearfully Debauched that we may truly say The whole World lyeth in Wickedness and all Flesh have corrupted their ways and take up the Prophet Isaiah's upbraiding Complaint over Judah Ah sinful nation a people laden with iniquity a seed of evil doers children that are corrupters They have forsaken the Lord they have provoked the holy one of Israel to anger they are gone away backward The whole head is sick the whole heart saint from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores Isa 1. 4 5 6. So that both Church and State are sick at Heart and utter dying Groans under this deadly Malady the Neglects of Family-Government It has been oft and much upon my Thoughts that as the present decays of Religion and increases of Wickedness have in a great measure come in upon us at this breach the neglect of Family-Order and particularly as to Catechising so it is some effectual revival of that Ordinance that must lead the way to a thorough Reformation But I have withal experienced That there is a sort of Catechising which is next to nothing that is to teach a Catechism meerly by rote without a familiar Explication and home Application of it We have Instances left us upon Record in History of the Churches exemplary Care of her Catechumens in former Ages And blessed be God who hath raised up many worthy Ministers who have in this our degenerate Age born a great Testimony unto this Ordinance tho' they did not live to see it grow so as they desired That Man of an Apostolick Spirit that underwent such Labours and had such Success in carrying the Gospel among the American Indians Mr. John Eliot of New-England see his Printed Life and was Instrumental of those Stones to raise up so many Children unto Abraham has this remorable Notion on those Words of our Lord. Feed my Lambs feed my Sheep feed my Sheep Joh. 21. 15 16 17. That the Care of the Lambs is one Third Part of the Charge over the Church of God A worthy and most intimate Friend who did both expend a good In-come and spend himself in the Works of the Lord and is now taken unto his Reward I have heard declare That if he could not Preach and Mr. Tho. Brand. Catechise too he would rather omit the former than the latter Such a Sense he had both of the need and benefit of Catechising Yea and in his lingering Sickness he continued Catechising after he had laid down preaching A great Master-Builder in his most excellent Sermon on this Mr. Lye Sermon 2 l. in the Supplement to the Morning-Lectures at Cripplegate Subject which I remember not that I ever read till some considerable time after I had finished the following Tract gives in this great Testimony Those Catechisms that were compos'd by the late Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster I have made use of both in my Congregation and Family now near Thirty years and I desire to speak it with all humility and thankfulness if ever the Lord smiled on my poor Labours it hath been while I have been busied in this great usefull necessary work of Catechising and that out of these Catechisms As God hath in our time raised up many worthy Men who have laid to heart this Duty and born their Testimony unto it so they have likewise laboured abundantly for the promoting of it and some have left their worthy Labours in Print as a Legacy behind them insomuch that perhaps there never was an Age that had so many great and advantagious Helps for Catechising as this of ours And tho' neither the Practice nor Success has yet been answerable yet sure it is not for nothing that God has put it into the Hearts of his Servants to prepare such stores of rich Materials I hope it is a good Omen that this Work and