Why We Continue to Study the Small Catechism

(T)hey declare with a solemn oath, that nothing in the world is easier than learning the Catechism, – so easy indeed, that with a single reading, they can accurately repeat the whole. Then immediately, as if arrived at the highest proficiency and thoroughly instructed, they throw away the book into some corner, and they are ashamed to take it in their hands again.

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But I, if indeed I may speak of myself, am also a doctor and a preacher, endowed, as I believe, with no less learning as well as experience than those who presume so much on their abilities, and who have attained so high a state of confidence; yet by no means am I ashamed to imitate the young, but just as those whom we teach the Catechism, so do I, – early in the morning, or whenever I get a moment of leisure, – privately recite word by word, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Articles of Faith, the Psalms, or something of the kind. And though I have leisure every day for these lessons and studies, yet not even in this way am I able to reach the point which I am seeking, or to attain the proficiency which I desire.

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[This one is the best -]

And while these plethoric and presumptuous saints really scorn the Catechism, and esteem it far too contemptible to be read and studied every day, what else, I ask, do they do but consider themselves far more learned than God himself, than all the angels, the Patriarchs, the Apostles, and all Christians? For since God is not ashamed to teach these doctrines daily, – the very best that he has to teach, – and since he frequently repeats and inculcates them over again, – never adding any thing new or inconsistent with them; – I say further, since all the saints knew nothing either better or more useful to learn and were never able to study them too profoundly, are we not most eminent and accomplished men indeed, who, having read or heard this doctrine once, are fully persuaded that we know it all; nor is there any further necessity for us to read, as we are able to learn in one hour, what God himself has not been able to exhaust in teaching, though he has been teaching it from the creation of the world to the present time? which all the Prophets and all holy men have been ever engaged in studying, and yet of which they remain students perpetually, and necessarily must ever so remain. (Large Catechism, Preface.)