The commandments recited, the child is asked--"What dost thou chiefly
learn by these commandments?" and he answers that--"I learn two things:
my duty towards God and my duty towards my neighbour." We would urge
here that man's duty to man should be the point most pressed upon
the young. Supposing that any "duty to God" were possible--a question
outside the present subject--it is clear that the duty to man is the
nearest, the most obvious, the easiest to understand, and therefore the
first to be inculcated. Surely, it is only by discharge of the immediate
and the plain duty that any discharge becomes possible of one less near
and less plain. Besides, the duty to God taught in the Catechism is of
so wide and engrossing a nature that to discharge it fully would take up
the whole time and thoughts. For in answer to the question, "What is thy
duty towards God?" the child says:--"My duty towards God is to believe
in him, to fear him, and to love him with all my heart, with all my
mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength; to worship him, to
give him thanks, to put my whole trust in him, to call upon him, to
honour his holy name and his word, and to serve him truly all the days
of my life." First, "to believe in him;" but how can the child believe
in him until evidence be offered of his existence? But to examine such
evidence is beyond the still weak intellectual powers of the child, and
therefore belief in God is beyond him, for belief based on authority is
utterly valueless. Besides, it can never be a "duty" to believe; if the
evidence of a fact be convincing, belief in that fact naturally follows,
and non-belief would be very stupid; but the word "duty" is out of place
in connection with belief. "To fear him:" that the child will naturally
do, after learning that God was angry with him for being born, and that
another God, Jesus Christ, was obliged to die to save him from the angry
God. "To love him;" not so easy, under the circumstances, nor is love
compatible with fear; "perfect love casteth out fear... he that feareth
is not made perfect in love." "With all my heart, with all my mind, with
all my soul, and with all my strength." Four different things the
child is to love God with: What does each mean? How is heart to be
distinguished from mind, soul, and strength? In human love, love of the
heart might, perhaps, be distinguished from love of the mind, if by love
of the heart alone a purely physical passion were intended; but this
cannot explain any sort of love to God, to whom such love would be
clearly impossible. Once more, we say that the Church of England should
publish an explanation of the Catechism, so that we may know what we
ought to do and believe for our soul's health. Bentham urges that to put
the "whole trust" in God would prevent the child from putting "any part
of his trust" in second causes, and that disregard of these would not be
compatible with personal safety and with the preservation of health and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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