2 Chronicles 17:7-9 - Homilies By T. Whitelaw

An old Education Act.

I. ITS PROMULGATION .

1 . By whom ? Jehoshaphat, the son of Asa and King of Judah. Kings and parliaments should care for the education of the people. No better means of promoting social order.

2 . When ? In the third year of his reign. Jehoshaphat postponed not a work so excellent, but assigned it a precedence, answering to its importance. Of greater consequence was it for the prosperity of his dominions and the peace of his reign that his subjects should be instructed, than that his armies should be drilled or his garrisons strengthened.

3 . For what end ? The religious improvement of the people. Under the Old Testament economy that formed part of the duty of the Hebrew state, because state and Church were then one. Under the New Testament economy, when state and Church are not coextensive, the obligation to provide religious education for both old and young rests exclusively upon the Church; the furtherance of secular instruction being the department that properly belongs to the state. If, however, the state is not required to directly furnish teaching in religion, it is not at liberty to hinder the Church, but is bound to afford her free scope for discharging the special work committed to her care.

II. ITS CONSTITUTION .

1 . Three orders of teachers.

2 . Three kinds of instruction. This at least probable from the appointing of three classes of teachers.

III. ITS OPERATION . It was put in force:

1 . Immediately. Good resolutions cannot be too soon carried out, or good schemes too quickly set on foot. Quite as many noble projects are ruined by procrastination as by undue haste.

2 . Universally. The teaching deputies went through the land, visited the cities and villages, and left no part unblessed by their labours. 3..Earnestly. They taught the people; not simply opened schools, and read dry and uninteresting lectures on civil, ecclesiastical, and religious history, but saw that the people understood and practised what was taught.

Learn:

1 . The true glory of a king—to care for the welfare of his subjects.

2 . The value of secular, but especially of religious, instruction.

3 . The best spring of prosperity for a people-knowledge of the Law of the Lord.

4 . The true function of a teacher—to cause the people to understand.

5 . The ultimate end of education—obedience.—W.