Exposition Upon the Church Catechism, Title page – Dedication 2
A Plain and Profitable EXPOSITION Of, and ENLARGEMENT upon, the CHURCH-CATECHISM:
By way of Questions and Answers.
FOR THE More ample Instruction of the more adult Children, and other Elderly Persons that need it.
AND Divided into so many Parts, as there are Lords-Days in each Year; that it may be gone through yearly, either publickly, in the Church, or privately, in Families.
TOGETHER With the Scheme of a shorter Catechism annexed, for the benefit of the Younger sort of Catechumens.
By SIMON FORD D. D. and Rector of Old-Swinford in Worcestershire.
The second Edition more Correct.
LONDON, Printed by T. B. for T. Sawbridge, at the Bible on Ludgate-Hill. 1686.
IMPRIMATUR.
Z. Isham, R. P. D. Henrico Episc. Lond. à Sacris. 7. Cal. Apr. 1686.
TO THE Right Reverend FATHER in GOD, WILLIAM Lord Bishop of WORCESTER, My Most Honoured DIOCESAN.
May it please your Lordship,
THE Acceptance which this Catechistical Exposition of mine, found with your Lordship in Manuscript, when I submitted it to your Examination a while since; and the encouragement I then received from you to Print it: have emboldened me, now it is Printed, to prefix your Name to it in this Dedication. Wherein I once more lay it at your Lordships Feet, as the Person to whom I am most properly accountable for all the Doctrine which I Preach, or Publish within your Diocesse: as also, the most proper Judg, how far it is fit, if not to be encourag'd, yet to be tolerated, (as to publick use) in those Parts to which your Jurisdiction extends.
I humbly beg your Lordship's Pardon for this boldness: which I do in no sort doubt to obtain, when I consider with what a degree of conscientious Zeal your Lordship endeavours the Edification of the remotest parts of your Diocesse, by your Personal Visitation of particular Churches each Lords Day, and Exemplary Preaching and Administring Confirmation to them: Together with that eminent goodness, candor, and humble Condescension, which so highly recommends your Lordships Government to all your Inferiour Clergy, and in particular to my self, who am, affectionately
(My Lord) Your Lordship's in all Duty to be Commanded, SIMON FORD.
A Prefatory EPISTLE, TO THE Christian READER.
Christian Reader,
THIS Catechism being drawn up by me, only for the use of a Private Parish; I thought it convenient to Print, for the more easy distribution of Copies to every Family. But, being so resolved, it came withal into my mind, that probably one Parish would not take off an whole Impression; and therefore, when it was once extant, it was likely it should come into many more Hands, than it was at first intended for. To whom, therefore, I think my self obliged by way of Preface, to give a short account, of the Reasons that induced me to the undertaking thereof; of what I have done in it; and the uses it is, in my Judgment, applicable unto.
The Reasons of my undertaking, were briefly, these. Finding my self obliged, by the Laws of this Church, to Catechize my Parishioners in the Church Catechism, contained in the Book of Common-Prayers: I did accordingly set about that Work, with the best Contrivance I could think of, to answer the end of those Laws, and discharge my own Duty.
But, when I had entred upon it, I soon perceived that my Endeavours in that Work, were like to turn to a very poor Account, if I confined my self wholly to the bare words of the Catechism it self. For the Prejudices that the late Times had disseminated every where (even among the most ordinary sort of People) against it, as too short and defective in many particulars, to furnish the grown Youth with such a proportion of Knowledg, as was then thought necessary; made the greatest part of such Persons of both Sexes too much to slight it. And even those of them that did not so, yet were easily perswaded to think it too much beneath them, to be Catechized only by a Form, designed to fit Children for Conformation; and therefore generally forbore coming to that necessary Ordinance, so managed, altogether. Yea, and many Parents and Masters of Families, possessed with those Prejudices, bred their Children and Servants to the Learning of other Catechisms at home, to the disparagement of the publick Form, and to the great hinderance of the publick Ordinance Administred according thereto.
To remedy which Inconveniences, I first took up the way of the lesser Catechism hereunto annexed; and broke every Answer of the Church Catechism into divers little Questions: whereby I gave the riper sort of the Children Catechised a little larger scope to exercise their thoughts upon; and then took hints from their Answers to expatiate farther in the explication of them, as I saw occasion.
This course, when I had some years taken, I was sollicited to Pen those Enlargements, and communicate them to the Neighbourhood for their farther Instruction. Which notwithstanding, I forbore to do, for some Time, till I had enquired, as well as I could, what Books of this nature were extant already; that if I lighted on any such, conformable to my design, I might save my self the labour of framing an entire Catechism of my own, by recommending that to my Neighbours, Catechising out of it my self, and making it the standing ground-work of my future endeavours in this kind. But upon the best enquiry I could make, I could not satisfy my self in all the particulars which I had in Project, with any one of those which came to my hands, relating to this subject. Which I speak, not by way of disparagement to the Labours of any extant, as to the substance of them: only, I thought them in some Circumstantials less useful to me in the way wherein my designed walk lay.
Two Authors there were I confess, that I had more than ordinary Reverence for: The one, the Right Reverend Father in God, William, late Lord Bishop of Gloucester; and the other, the Reverend Rector of Lincoln College in Oxford, and now Dean of the same Church Dr. Marshall. Whose Books therefore, I read over again and again, with great satisfaction: especially that of the later, Printed at Oxford, 1679: With whose judicious and comprehensive brevity, I could willingly have satisfied my self, in the use of it, had it been adapted to the Capacity of a Country Congregation, by way of Question and Answer; and divided into such Portions as I desired, for the more fixed and certain continuation of that exercise, through some fix'd and successive Periods of Time.
I therefore thought fit to do something at last, my self, in that form and method, for more general use; as I have herein attempted, partly, by turning much of the substance of both those and other Catechistical Discourses into Questions and Answers; and partly, by such Additions of mine own, as I found my thoughts leading me to, in the composure of the work: and grafting them all into the Stock of the Church Catechism, to carry on one continued sense with it.
And, to render the whole more compleat for use, I judged it convenient, to break it into so many parts, as there are Lords Days in the Year. Which I did, for two Reasons.
1. Partly, for the more effectual carrying on the work of publick Catechizing by it my self; whilst, by dividing a large Parish into convenient parts, and going through them in order, I thought it useful to give each Family therein, thereby, notice, what part, upon each of the successive Lords Days, they were to be most ready in, some time before hand, that they might be the better provided.
2. And, partly, that such Parents, and Masters of Families, as are willing and desirous to instruct those that are under them every Lord's Day, might (having such furniture at hand) task those under them herein, from week to week; and examine their proficiency, at spare hours on that day, in subservience to the better carrying on the Publique Catechizing, when their turns came to be called thereto.
Some of the Answers of this Catechism, I confess, are long. But, as that could not be well avoided by me, in the composing thereof, upon divers points handled therein: so will it, in the issue, prove no disadvantage to the Teacher or Learner. For ordinarily, where the Answers are large in any part, they are but few: and withal, most of them are so composed, that the Catechist, in the use of them, may, for the trial of the Learners understanding, subdivide them easily into several Questions and Answers of a lesser size.
I have added Scripture-Proofs to all the Answers, where they were proper and requisite; and directed by Letters, to what branches of them such Proofs are assigned: which accordingly, are either found expresly in such Scriptures, or deducible by easy consequence from them.
This addition, if it seem to make any Days task too long at the first, for the Learners to get without Book: it may be easily remedyed, by beginning, for the first turn, only with the bare Answers without the Proofs, and for those following, when the Persons Catechized are perfect in them, to require an account of these also.
I have in all the Explicatery Questions and Answers, endeavoured to superstruct nothing upon my Foundation (the Church Catechism,) but what evidently sutes the scope and design thereof: and what, in my best Judgment, is agreeable to the Doctrine of this Church, expressed in the Form of Common Prayers, the Articles of Religion, and the Book of Homilies: avoiding purposely the medling with, and much more determining, any nice Scholastical Controversies, wherein good and learned Men among our selves are divided in their Judgments; and using those Terms, wherein generally all agree in the explication of those Points; as not designing to sow the seeds of Faction, but only of large and comprehensive Christianity in the minds of the younger sort, to whose Instruction these endeavours of mine are particularly directed. Only, against the Anabaptists, and Romanists, where the Catechism it self takes notice of them, (in the Doctrin of the Sacraments especially) I have taken more liberty, to put into the mouths of our youth those Arguments and Answers, by which they may be fortifyed against their Seduction.
And now having given this account of my undertaking herein; I do humbly submit the whole thereof to the censure of the Governours of this Church, and the Judgment of the rest of my Reverend Brethren in the Ministry: being ready, if these endeavours of mine (for the main) please them, to make such additions, substractions, alterations, or explications, in any particulars, as any of them, shall shew me to be needful. Or if any of them, according to this, or a better model of their own, shall think fit to attempt any thing of like nature, which may be more publickly beneficial, than this herein laid before them: I shall not only not think my labours disparag'd thereby; but also give God and them my thanks for it: and be ready to lay by the use hereof my self, and assume that in the place of it, as being willing to be taught by any one, how to do my Masters work more compleatly. In the mean time, if any one shall receive any such help as I intend him from this Essay, it will be some cause of rejoycing to
(Christian Reader) Thy Servant in the work of the Lord Jesus, SIMON FORD.