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CONFESSION OF FAITH;

THE

LARGER AND SHORTER CATECHISMS,

WITH THE

Scripture-Proofs at Large:

TOGETHER WITH

THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE,

(CONTAINED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AND HELD FORTH IN THE SAID
CONFESSION AND CATECHISMS,) AND PRACTICAL USE THEREOF;

COVENANTS, NATIONAL AND SOLEMN LEAGUE;
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SINS, AND ENGAGE-
MENT TO DUTIES;

DIRECTORIES FOR PUBLICK AND FAMILY WOR-
SHIP;

FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT, ETC.

OF PUBLICK AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH OF
SCOTLAND;

WITH ACTS OF ASSEMBLY AND PARLIAMENT, RE-
LATIVE TO, AND APPROBATIVE OF, THE SAME.

Deut. vi. 6, 7.-And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

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LICENCE.

In terms of Her Majesty's Letters Patent to her Printers for Scotland, and of the Instructions issued by her Majesty in Council, dated eleventh July Eighteen hundred and thirty nine years, I hereby License and Authorize Messrs Johnstone and Hunter, Printers and Publishers in Edinburgh, to print within the premises situated in Strichen's Close, number One hundred and four High Street, Edinburgh, and to publish, as by the Authority of her Majesty, an Edition of the Confession of Faith in Bourgeois and Minion type, duodecimo size, to consist of Five Thousand Copies, as proposed in their declaration, dated twenty-fourth March Eighteen hundred and fifty-three years; the terms and conditions of the said Instructions being always, and in all points, fully complied with and observed by the said Messrs Johnstone and Hunter.

LONDON, 26th April 1853.

J. MONCREIFF.

CHRISTIAN READER,

ESPECIALLY

HEADS OF FAMILIES.

AS

S 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; the first step of our manumission from this spiritual thraldom consists in having our eyes opened, and being turned from darkness to light, Acts xxvi. 18. 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. It were easy to set before you a cloud of witnesses, the language of whose practice hath been not only an eminent commendation of this duty, but also a serious exhortation to it. As Abel, though dead, yet speaks by his example to us for imitation of his faith, &c., Heb. xi. 4; so do the examples of Abraham, of Joshua, of the parents of Solomon, of the grandmother and mother of Timothy, the mother of Augustine, whose care was as well to nurse up the souls as the bodies of their little ones; and as their pains herein was great, so was their success no way unanswerable.

We should scarce imagine it any better than an impertinency, in this noon-day 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.

The first concerns heads of families in respect of themselves; That as the Lord hath set them in place above the rest of their family, they would labour in all wisdom and spiritual understanding to be above them also. It is an uncomely sight to behold men in years babes in knowledge; and how unmeet are they to instruct others, who need themselves to be taught which be the first principles of the oracles of God, Heb. v. 12. Knowledge is an accomplishment so desirable, that the devils themselves knew not a more taking bait by which to tempt our first parents, than by the fruit of the tree of knowledge; So shall you be as gods, knowing good and evil. When Solomon had that fa

vour shewed him of the Lord, that he was made his own chuser what to ask, he knew no greater mercy to beg than wisdom, 1 Kings iii. 5, 9. The understanding is the guide and pilot of the whole man, that faculty which sits at the stern of the soul: but as the most expert guide may mistake in the dark, so may the understanding, when it wants the light of knowledge: Without knowledge the mind cannot be good, Prov. xix. 2; nor the life good, nor the eternal condition safe, Eph. iv. 18. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, Hos. iv. 6. It is ordinary in scripture to set profaneness, and all kind of miscarriages, upon the score of ignorance. Diseases in the body have many times their rise from distempers in the head, and exorbitancies in practice from errors in judgment: and indeed in every sin there is something both of ignorance and error at the bottom: for, did sinners truly know what they do in sinning, we might say of every sin what the Apostle speaks concerning that great sin, Had they known him, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; did they truly know that every sin is a provoking the Lord to jealousy, a proclaiming war against Heaven, a crucifying the Lord Jesus afresh, a treasuring up wrath unto themselves against the day of wrath; and that, if ever they be pardoned, it must be at no lower a rate than the price of his blood; it were scarce possible but sin, instead of alluring, should affright, and instead of tempting, scare. It is one of the arch devices and principal methods of Satan to deceive men into sin: thus he prevailed against our first parents, not as a lion, but as a serpent, acting his enmity under a pretence of friendship, and tempting them to evil under an appearance of good; and thus hath he all along carried on his designs of darkness, by transforming himself into an angel of light, making poor deceived men in love with their miseries, and hug their own destruction. A most sovereign antidote against all kind of errors, is to be grounded and settled in the faith: persons unfixed in the true religion, are very receptive of a false; and they who are nothing in spiritual knowledge, are easily made any thing. Clouds without water are driven to and fro with every wind, and ships without ballast liable to the violence of every tempest. But yet the knowledge we especially commend, is not a brainknowledge, a mere speculation; this may be in the worst of men, nay, in the worst of creatures, the devils themselves, and that in such an eminency, as the best of saints cannot attain to in this life of imperfection; but an inward, a savoury, an heart knowledge, such as was in that martyr, who, though she could not dispute for Christ, could die for him. This is that spiritual sense and feeling of divine truths the Apostle speaks of, Heb. v. 14. Having your senses exercised, &c.

But, alas, we may say of most men's religion what learned Rivet* speaks concerning the errors of the fathers, "They were not so much their own errors, as the errors of the times wherein they lived." Thus do most men take up their religion upon no better an account than Turks and Papists take up theirs, because it is the religion of the times and places wherein they live; and what they take up thus slightly, they lay down as easily. Whereas an inward taste and relish of the things of God, is an excellent preservative to keep us settled in the most unsettled times. Corrupt and unsavoury principles have great advan

*Rivet. Crit. Sacr.

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