Introduction:
I am persuaded that the use of a good Catechism in all our families
will be a great safeguard against the increasing errors of the times, and therefore I have compiled this little manual from the Westminster Assembly's and Baptist Catechisms, for the use of my own church and congregation. Those who use it in their families or classes must labour to explain the sense; but the words should be carefully learned by heart, for they will be understood better as years pass.
May the Lord bless my dear friends and their families evermore, is the prayer of their loving Pastor.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15
The London Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Westminster Shorter Catechism had fallen into disuse among the Particular Baptists in England. The causes for this shift in historical moorings from the Westminster family of confessions and catechisms are many and varied. The primary cause for their disuse was an emerging High or Hyper Calvinism that looked to the Standards for historical legitimacy while augmenting its theology with writers who held to a loose subscriptionist position as regards the 1689 Confession. Spurgeon sought to recover and reclaim the middle ground, or biblical path, between a man-centered Arminianism on the one side and a deistic Hyper-Calvinism on the other. The Prince of Preachers believed this catechism walked in that narrow way.
Spurgeon saw that this document was placed back in print somewhere about October 14, 1855. In that year Spurgeon turned 21 years young. On that day Spurgeon preached to a large audience at the New Park Street Church from Psalm 90:1, The text that morning was, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations";. The sermon is found as number 46 in those volumes. When the sermon was prepared for the press it contained an announcement of the impending publication.
Mike Renihan
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