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A39501 An Earnest call to family-catechising and reformation by a reverend divine. 1693 (1693) Wing E95; ESTC R31403 30,606 74

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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