1. Prudential expedient
1. Prudential expedient And 1st, prudence will direct us, to lay a good foundation of knowledge in our people's souls, by catechizing and instructing them in the principles of Christianity, without which we labour in vain.
Except you have a knowing people, you are not like to have a gracious people. St. Paul's prudentials lay much in this, 1 Cor. 3:10. 'As a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation.' And indeed this is the master-piece of a master-builder. All your excellent sermons will be dashed to pieces, upon the rock of your people's ignorance. You can never pitch upon a better project, to promote and secure the success of your labours, than catechizing.
What age of Christianity ever produced more lively and stedfast Christians, than the first ages? And then the care of this duty most eminently flourished in the churches. Clemens Alexandrianus,
Origen, Optatus, Basil, Austin, and Ambrose, were all catechists: And it is the opinion, both of Chemnitius and Zanchy, that that exercise, which Christ honoured with his presence in his youth, was a catechetical exercise.
We that live in this age, have as much obligation as they, and God hath furnished to our hands the best help for it, that ever any age since Christ enjoyed. As chemists extract the spirits of herbs and minerals into some rare elixir, so have our venerable assembly (lately sitting at Westminster, now in glory) composed for us the most judicious and compendious system, that ever blessed this age. And to make it yet more useful, divers worthy hands have been employed, some in one method, some in another, to make those compendious answers more intelligible to the people. And yet I am of opinion, somewhat may be further done to advance that great design, in a third