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CATECHISING.

SIR,-A zeal for catechising was imbibed by me thirty years back, when my father used to take me, at the age of ten, to his Sundayschool, and make me feel proud by giving me the charge of a class. For the last fourteen years I have been a catechist, and my love for my work is not at all diminished. Under the idea (not the product of vanity, I hope,) that the plan I have formed for myself has in it some desirable points, I venture to send it you, with the double object of giving hints to some, and seeking improvement from others. That catechising is a subject of vital importance in these days I feel seriously persuaded, for knowledge without it is little better than strong drink, which intoxicates, when improperly used, instead of cheering and comforting. In proof of this, might I not point to some melancholy instances amongst men of the highest talent, who, from not having been rightly catechised in their youth, have fallen into the error that science, or some other favourite pursuit, is all in all, and religion a secondary consideration? If we witness at times that painful sight, of the most powerful and apparently amiable minds unable to discern true and saving knowledge from the want of good early impressions, how much more fearful must it be to leave weak and ill-disposed minds without a guide to the knowledge imparted to them. Though I have ventured to illustrate the importance of catechising by an allusion to those instances where we see profound knowledge unable to make up its deficiency, yet it is with the poor I have to do, and to their education alone do I presume to look. Of our national schools upon Dr. Bell's plan I am an enthusiastic admirer; I like to see the united motions of the children executed with a military precision, and I am persuaded it gives them a love of order which does not forsake them when leaving the school. The facility also with which the power of reading is acquired, together with the whole system, stands as a lasting monument to the inventor's ingenuity, and we have to rejoice that a most powerful instrument has been put into our hands of doing good. But, at the same time, we should never forget that it is no more than an instrument, and the catechist must teach how it is to be used, or otherwise scholars will be sent out into the world little better than a mob provided with arms. The practical meaning of God's Word, and an insight into its high truths, must be impressed upon the youthful mind again and again, and he must be brought to think, and that deeply, upon the vast knowledge which the Bible opens to him. My method of effecting this, which I would humbly submit to the consideration of my brother catechists, is as follows:

On Sunday morning, at 9 o'clock, I go to the boys' school, and after hearing one of the boys repeat the collect of the day, I question them thoroughly upon it, using this as my text for a catechetical discourse to them. The great object I endeavour to keep in view is the preparing their minds for rightly solemnizing that high and glorious day, the Lord's-day, and serving God truly upon its six dependent days in the ensuing week. The epistle and gospel following the collect I press into the service, if suitable to my subject, and generally tell

them to read one or both. The appointed lessons for the day I also examine, to see whether they will promote my design; as, for instance, on Trinity Sunday, when wishing to shew how far God's ancient people were enlightened with the doctrine of the Trinity, to what part of the Bible could I better refer than to the first chapter of Genesis? or, when wishing to shew them the clearer insight into this great truth afforded the Christian, how could I better accomplish such an end than by pointing to our Saviour's baptism, as related in the lesson of the day? Should I be able to illustrate my meaning by some fitting parable (such as "James on the Collects" often gives me,) I am fond of doing so; for my object is to make such an impression as may be carried away, and fit them to become instruments in lighting up a fire at home as they talk over what they have learned. Directing as our church does, the collect for the day to be used each day of the week, her design seems to be to keep alive those right feelings the season suggests, and to supply petitions suitable to the same, and this design I endeavour to give efficacy to. Having spent half an hour with the boys, I go and do the same with the girls. At 10 o'clock the boys come into the girls' school-room, and a short lesson is read to both schools by one of the boys. In leaving the girls' school-room, the boys pass individually before me, and if I see their clothes not mended, or their persons not clean, I express my displeasure, asking them if they know where they are going, &c., for outward cleanliness and neatness I esteem intimately connected with a virtuous frame of mind. On Monday morning at 11 o'clock, or 10 if it is a holy day, (for on such days, as also on Wednesdays and Fridays, there is service in the church at 11, but on other days I have the morning prayer at 10 in private, as ordered where necessity requires,) I go to the boys' school and instruct the first class in the knowledge of their Prayer-book by means of a catechetical lesson. For the want of such instruction it is lamentable to observe how many are utter strangers to the surpassing beauties of our incomparable liturgy. I have framed for myself, with much care, a series of lessons for the due execution of this part of my catechist's office, with an eye especially to the daily service of the church. In these lessons, it is my endeavour not only to give them a right understanding of the liturgy, but to point out the frame of mind which should accompany its several parts, so as to render them a worshipping of God in the beauty of holiness. Would we save our people from the immeasurable loss they must sustain from dissent, we are bound to teach them what our liturgy is; and let us only unlock the casket and shew the treasure, and I defy them to avoid gazing upon her jewels with admiration and amazement......On Tuesday, at 11, I use the same little work at the girls' school.......On Wednesday, at 10, I hear the boys read one of the lessons for the day, making them tell me what chapter it is, and hoping thereby to accustom them not entirely to frustrate the church's tender care in supplying wholesome scriptural food for the soul upon every day in the year. Having read the chapter they close their books, and I question them thoroughly as to what they have read, making them think deeply upon it, and leading them to that holy meditation hereafter, without which

the Scriptures can but little profit. The Bible seems to me like the great ocean, fair and sparkling on the surface to excite our admiration, but we must search deep would we know all the wonders it contains.......On Friday, at 10, I employ myself similarly at the girls' school.......On Thursday, at 11, I catechise the boys, in the usual acceptation of that phrase; that is, I examine into their practical knowledge of the short catechism of the church. For the better execution of this important part of the catechist's office, I have framed forty appropriate lessons, having one lesson on each of the commandments, for instance, and twenty on the belief. By this means, as I hope, they are saved from learning their catechism by rote without understanding it, and are thus made acquainted with the fundamental truths of their religion.......On Saturday, at 11 (or 10, if the day before the monthly Sacrament, as in that case there is service in the church), I do the same at the girls' school.

Such is my every day method, and I find it work so well, that I have been induced to send you the fruit of much experience, leaving it to your own discretion to submit it to your readers, or otherwise; and I will only further add, that should you decide that the hints are not sufficiently useful to occupy a part of your Magazine, I shall not think the less highly of your sound judgment, as I have many misgivings that its being my own is its principal recommendation, and this film from my eyes I have no power myself to remove.

I am, Sir, your obliged, AN ANXIOUS CATECHIST.

ALEXANDER KNOX.

MR. EDITOR,—As one who owes many hours of delightful instruction to the pages of Alexander Knox, I have not read with indifference the letters of your correspondents, "Fidelis," "T. D. A.," and "Catholicus." The question to which they relate is in itself deeply interesting, and certainly holds a prominent place in the writings of this devout and highly gifted Christian; and it cannot but be a satisfaction to an inquirer after truth, to find it investigated in a spirit of candid disquisition. It is a pleasing contrast to the sort of rough hewing one meets with on this subject elsewhere.

Whether the following remarks have any tendency to advance the examination in the same spirit in which it has been begun, I must leave to the judgment of others:-such at least is my intention in offering them.

It is always well to start on an inquiry of this kind with our terms well defined. On referring to Mr. Knox's phrase, vol. i., p. 273, "the state of justification," it is plain that Fidelis and he are not using the term in precisely the same sense; as Fidelis appears to identify it "with pardon or absolution," the proper act of God. In this sense I suppose it also to be used by Mr. Evans, in his "Church of God," Serm. x. p. 243.

No. XLII., p. 669.

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"It is evident," he says, "that the art of justification is momentary; it is a single point in our life, on one side of which all the past is cancelled, on the other all is future in bright and brilliant hope. It is a moment of spiritual reanimation; and as when God recalls from death, he by that very act infuses a principle of life, so in this act he not only acquits us from sin, but also infuses a vivifying spirit of holiness. From this circumstance, and because it is due to the operation of the Holy Ghost, the state ensuing from this moment is called the state of sanctification, and must extend henceforward to our life's end.” From this passage I should conclude that Mr. Evans would not allow the propriety of the phrase "the state of justification ;" and in this view he would perhaps be followed by Fidelis. It appears to me that it would much contribute to a right adjustment of this difference, if the parties interested would refer to the judicious labours of Dr. Thomas Jackson, vol. i., b. iv. sect. ii. c. 6. It is impossible to do justice to the reasons of this "most learned Divine"* by nakedly abstracting his conclusions; but he shews, I think, irresistibly, that it is equally scriptural to speak of the state as of the act of justificationthat the term may be affirmed as well of the qualification of the person who receives absolution, as of the application of the sentence. He returns again to the same subject more briefly in vol. iii., b. x. c. liïï., where he lays down "two branches of justification: the one by the mere imputation of Christ's death and passion; the other by participation of his grace." And he adds, " none is so just, whether by imputation of his merits, or by increase of grace, but may and must be daily more justified. So that the Son of God doth set us free, first, by his sufferings on the cross; secondly, by the laver of baptism and by participation of his life and spirit; and, lastly, he will set us free indeed at the resurrection of the just." It does not appear, I think, that Mr. Knox was acquainted with the writings of Jackson; he might certainly have found there some support for his position, " that the reckoning us righteous always presupposes an inward reality of righteousness on which this reckoning is founded." Vol. i., p. 278-9.

Is it not a little remarkable, as a proof how much we are the dupes of names, that the two leaders, under whom disputants on these points are usually classed, were nearly agreed on the question of justification? "Paratus sum," says Arminius, " quicquid Calvinus, Instit. lib. 3o, de hac re statuit, amplecti, eique subscribere." Oper. Arm., Leyden, 1629, p. 127. He elsewhere lays down his own positions, which appear orthodox enough, and the first such as Fidelis and Mr. Evans would approve. "Justificatio est actio Dei judicis, qua de throno gratiæ et misericordiæ hominem peccatorem sed fidelem, propter Christum Christique obedientiam et justitiam a peccatis absolvit et justum censet: . . . justitiam tamen suam demonstravit, primò, quod nonnisi præeunte reconciliatione per Christum, secundò, quod nonnisi peccata sua agnoscentes et in Christum credentes justificare voluit.' And yet he would probably have agreed with Mr. Knox in allowing" the state of justification;" for he adds, " Hanc vero justifi

Chillingworth, Sermon ii., §. 28.

cationem considerare habemus, tum circa initium conversionis, quando omnia peccata antecedentia condonantur, tum per totam vitam, proptereà quod Deus pollicitus est remissionem peccatorum fidelibus, quoties resipiscunt et vera fide ad Christum propitiatorem confugiunt : finis vero et complementum erit sub exitum vitæ, (this is the same with Jackson's "final justification;"*) quum misericordiam dabit vitam in fide Christi finientibus; declaratio vero et manifestatio erit in futuro judicio universali." Ib. p. 399.

It may perhaps appear that Mr. Knox's views bear a closer resemblance to the doctrine of Osiander, as stated by Calvin, who impugns it with his characteristic stiffness, Instit. lib. iii., cxi. 6. Osiander, according to Calvin, extended the sense of justification to two parts, "ut justificari sit non solùm reconciliari Deo gratuitâ veniâ, sed etiam justos esse; ut justitia non sit gratuita imputatio, sed sanctitas et integritas quam Dei essentia in nobis residens + inspirat." To prove this, he asks, " An Deus, quos justificat, relinquat quales erant naturâ, nihil ex vitiis mutando ?"

Calvin's reply to this is, "Responsio perquam facilis est: sicut non potest discerpi Christus in partes, ita inseparabilia esse hæc duo, quæ simul et conjunctim in ipso percipimus, justitiam et sanctificationem. Quoscunque ergo in gratiam recipit Deus, simul spiritu adoptionis donat, cujus virtute cos reformat ad suam imaginem. Verùm si solis charitas non potest a calore separari, an ideo dicemus luce calefieri terram, calore illustrari? Hac similitudine," he adds, "nihil ad rem præsentem magis accommodum: sol calore suo terram fæcundat, radiis illuminat; hic mutua est atque individua connexio : transferri tamen quod unius peculiare est ad alterum ratio ipsa prohibet."

From these words might we not infer, that if Calvin's illustration (which seems to have pleased him so well) be worth any thing, the blunder of those who confound justification with sanctification is no more than a verbal inaccuracy, if so much? For if we can think of the sun's light at all apart from its heat, (especially in the present. month of August,) it must be by mental or metaphysical distinction, since in their own nature they are never divided. And so the Psalmist, Ps. xix. 6" nothing is hid from the heat thereof."

For my own part I fervently indulge the anticipation expressed by Alexander Knox, that a time is coming when the application of a sounder philosophy will dissipate much of the inisapprehensions which divide the heirs of one common hope. When Calvin allows, " Nunquam a gratuitâ justitiæ imputatione separatur realis sanctitas," (Instit. iii., c. iii. 1,) and even the ultra-Calvinistic Ames, "Vitam non esse ex justificatione sperandam, cum bonorum operum neglectu, (Bellarminus Enervatus, iii., p. 132,) who does not see that much of the contest lies in metaphysical distinctions, and that we may be at peace if we will rest in a simpler proposition and forbear the use of a dis

* Vol. i., p. 745.

+ This alludes to another somewhat obscure tenet of Osiander previously mentioned by Calvin.

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