The Presbyterian Covenant Family and Education

Transcription

1 The Presbyterian Covenant Family and Education A presentation for the joint WRS 25 th Anniversary and the Northwest Presbytery of the Bible Presbyterian Church Seminar on Presbyterianism & Education

2 The Presbyterian Covenant Family and Education It is Children s Hour at the Executive Mansion of the President of the United States and all nonpertinent business has been suspended at Grover Cleveland s order so that he might not neglect the vital business of attending to the education of the White House children.

3 The Presbyterian Covenant Family and Education The family is a created ministry unit with specific duties, structures, and responsibilities. David Hall Care for each other Protection Education

4 The Presbyterian Covenant Family and Education...the first marriage in the law of creation. It had no other nature, use, nor end, but to be the bond of individual society of two persons, male and female, for the procreation and education of children, with all mutual assistances unto human life and conversation. JOHN OWEN

5 Christianity compacts the structure, and strengthens every wall. It adds a new cement, and makes the father more a father the husband more a husband the son more a son, so that there is a social tie which does not become more strong and endearing by means of grace. JW ALEXANDER

6 The church began at first in a family, and was preserved by the godly care of parents in instructing their children and household in the truths of God, whereby the knowledge of God was transmitted from generation to generation, and though the church is not confined to such strait limits, yet every private family is as a little nursery to the church. Wm GURNALL

7 no one is willing to see that this is the command of the Supreme Majesty, who will most strictly call us to account and punish us for it; nor that there is so great need to be so seriously concerned about the young. For if we wish to have excellent and apt persons both for civil and ecclesiastical government we must spare no diligence, time, or cost in teaching and educating our children, that they may serve God and the world, and we must not think only how we may amass money and possessions for them. MARTIN LUTHER

8 Let every one know therefore, that it is his duty, on peril of losing the divine favor, to bring up his children above all things in the fear and knowledge of God, and if they are talented, have them learn and study something, that they may be employed for whatever need there is [to have them instructed and trained in a liberal education, that men may be able to have their aid in government and in whatever is necessary].

9 Institutes, section 46 Let parents be careful to bring up, guide, and teach their children as a trust committed to them by God. Let them not exasperate or alienate them by cruelty, but cherish and embrace them with the levity and indulgence which becomes their character.

10 Within your houses, I say, in some cases, you are bishops and kings; your wife, children, servants, and family are your bishopric and charge. Of you it shall be required how carefully and diligently you have instructed them in God's true knowledge, how you have studied to plant virtue in them, and [to] repress vice. And therefore I say, you must make them partakers in reading, exhorting, and in making common prayers, which I would in every house were used once a day at least. JOHN KNOX

11 Yea, the great strictness of God, in condemning polygamy, adultery, and fornication, seems to be especially for the securing of the good education of children, for their souls and for the public good. For it is notorious, that confusion in marriages and generation would many ways tend to the depraving of human education, while mothers had not the necessary encouragement to perform their part. RICHARD BAXTER

12 TO THE CHRISTIAN READER, ESPECIALLY HEADS OF FAMILIES AS we cannot but with grief of soul lament those multitudes of errors, blasphemies, and all kinds of profaneness, which have in this last age, like a mighty deluge, overflown this nation; so, among several other sins which have helped to open the flood-gates of all these impieties, we cannot but esteem the disuse of family instruction one of the greatest. The two great pillars upon which the kingdom of Satan is erected, and by which it is upheld, are ignorance and error;... How much the serious endeavours of godly parents and masters might contribute to an early seasoning the tender years of such as are under their inspection, is abundantly evident, not only from their special influence upon them, in respect of their authority over them, interest in them, continual presence with them, and frequent opportunities of being helpful to them; but also from the sad effects which, by woeful experience, we find to be the fruit of the omission of this duty.

13 We should scarce imagine it any better than an impertinency, in this noonday of the gospel, either to inform or persuade in a duty so expressly commanded, so frequently urged, so highly encouraged, and so eminently owned by the Lord in all ages with his blessing, but that our sad experience tells us, this duty is not more needful, than it is of late neglected. For the restoring of this duty to its due observance, give us leave to suggest this double advice.

14 We know why God said that he would not conceal his secrets from Abraham, because he knew he would instruct and teach his family in the fear of God, Ge 18:19. So this may be said of every one that is an Abraham, a governor of a family. They labour to tell them all things that have done good to themselves. RICHARD SIBBES

15 Though learning be found in schools, godliness is oftener received from the education of careful parents. When children and servants come to the church with understanding, godly, prepared minds, the labours of the pastor will do them good; they will receive what they hear with faith, love, and obedience. RICHARD BAXTER

16 We will not conceal them from our posterity, implying, that what we have been taught by our ancestors we should endeavor to transmit to their children. By this means, all pretense of ignorance is removed; for it was the will of God that these things should be published from age to age without interruption; so that being transmitted from father to child in each family, they might reach even the last family of man. CALVIN'S COMMENTARY ON PSALM 78:5&6

17 during the week the people of Samuel Davies gave much time to study in preparation for the following Sunday. A mother might often be seen rocking her infant in a cradle, sewing some garment for her husband, and learning her catechism at the same time. A girl employed in spinning would place her book of questions at the head of the wheel, and catching a glance at it as she ran up her yarn on the spindle, would thus prepare for public catechising; and the boys, who were accustomed to follow the plow, were often to be seen, while their horses were feeding at mid-day, reclining under an old oak in the yard, learning the weekly task.

18 So she drew herself up, and folded her hands in front of her, like a good little girl who was going to 'say her questions,' and she said in her clear childish voice: 'Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.' 'Ah! That's the Catechism!' Moody said, 'thank God for that Catechism.' '

19 A Christian boy or girl can learn mathematics, for example, from a teacher who is not a Christian; and truth is truth however learned. But while truth is truth however learned, the bearings of truth, the meaning of truth, the purpose of truth, even in the sphere of mathematics, seem entirely different to the Christian from that which they seem to the non-christian; and that is why a truly Christian education is possible only when Christian conviction underlies not a part, but all, of the curriculum of the school. True learning and true piety go hand in hand, and Christianity embraces the whole of life -- those are great central convictions that underlie the Christian school. JG MACHEN