EXTRACTS FROM CATECHISMS
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Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 1: What is the chief end of man?
Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
Question 4: What is GOD?
Answer: God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.
Question 5: Are there more Gods than one?
Answer: There is but one only, the living and true God.
Question 7: What are the decrees of God?
Answer: The decrees of God are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass.
Question 9: What is the work of creation?
Answer: The work of creation is God's making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.
Question 12: What special act of providence did God exercise towards man, in the estate wherein he was created?
Answer: When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience; forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.
Question 13: Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
Answer: Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God.
Question 14: What is sin?
Answer: Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
Question 16: Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression?
Answer: The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.
Question 17: Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
Answer: The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.
Question 18: Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
Answer: The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it.
Question 19: What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
Answer: All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.
Question 57: Which is the fourth commandment?
Answer: The fourth commandment is, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath-day and hallowed it.
Question 58: What is required in the fourth commandment?
Answer: The fourth commandment requireth the keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his Word; expressly one whole day in seven, to be a holy Sabbath to himself.
Question 59: Which day of the seven hath God appointed to be the weekly Sabbath?
Answer: From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, God appointed the seventh day of the week to be the weekly Sabbath; and the first day of the week, ever since, to continue to the end of the world, which is the Christian Sabbath.
Question 60: How is the Sabbath to be sanctified?
Answer: The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.
Question 61: What is forbidden in the fourth commandment?
Answer: The fourth commandment forbiddeth the omission, or careless performance, of the duties required, and the profaning the day by idleness, or doing that which is in itself sinful, or by unnecessary thoughts, words, or works about our worldly employments and recreations.
Question 62: What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment?
Answer: The reasons annexed to the fourth commandment are, God's allowing us six days of the week for our own employments, his challenging a special propriety in the seventh, his own example, and his blessing the Sabbath-day.
Heidelberg Catechism
LORD’S DAY 1
1.Q. What is your only comfort
in life and death?
A. That I am not my own,1
but belong with body and soul,
both in life and in death,2
to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.3
He has fully paid for all my sins
with His precious blood,4
and has set me free
from all the power of the devil.5
He also preserves me in such a way6
that without the will of my heavenly Father
not a hair can fall from my head;7
indeed, all things must work together
for my salvation.8
Therefore, by His Holy Spirit
He also assures me
of eternal life9
and makes me heartily willing and ready
from now on to live for Him.10
1 1Co 6:19-20.
2 Rom 14:7-9.
3 1Co 3:23; Tit 2:14.
4 1Pe 1:18, 1Pe 1:19; 1Jo 1:7; 1Jo 2:2.
5 Jn 8:34-36; Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15; 1Jo 3:8.
6 Jn 6:39, Jn 6:40; Jn 10:27-30; 2Th 3:3; 1Pe 1:5.
7 Mat 10:29-31; Lk 21:16-18.
8 Rom 8:28.
9 Rom 8:15-16; 2Co 1:21-22; 2Co 5:5; Eph 1:13-14.
10 Rom 8:14.
LORD’S DAY 2
3. Q. From where do you know
your sins and misery?
A. From the law of God.1
1 Rom 3:20; Rom 7:7-25.
5. Q. Can you keep all this perfectly?
A. No,1 I am inclined by nature
to hate God and my neighbour.2
1 Rom 3:10, Rom 3:23; 1Jo 1:8, 1Jo 1:10.
2 Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; Jer 17:9; Rom 7:23; Rom 8:7; Eph 2:3; Tit 3:3.
LORD’S DAY 3
6. Q. Did God, then, create man
so wicked and perverse?
A. No, on the contrary,
God created man good1 and in His image,2
that is, in true righteousness and holiness,3
so that he might rightly know God his Creator,4
heartily love Him,
and live with Him in eternal blessedness
to praise and glorify Him.5
1 Gen 1:31.
2 Gen 1:26-27.
3 Eph 4:24.
4 Col 3:10.
5 Psa 8 (Psa 8:1-9).
7. Q. From where, then, did man’s depraved nature come?
A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,
Adam and Eve, in Paradise,1
for there our nature became so corrupt2
that we are all conceived and born in sin.3
1 Gen 3.
2 Rom 5:12, Rom 5:18-19.
3 Psa 51:5.
8. Q. But are we so corrupt
that we are totally unable to do any good
and inclined to all evil?
A. Yes,1 unless we are regenerated
by the Spirit of God.2
1 Gen 6:5; Gen 8:21; Job 14:4; Isa 53:6.
2 Jn 3:3-5.
LORD’S DAY 4
10. Q. Will God allow such disobedience and apostasy
to go unpunished?
A. Certainly not.
He is terribly displeased
with our original sin
as well as our actual sins.
Therefore He will punish them
by a just judgment
both now and eternally,1
as He has declared:2
Cursed is everyone
who does not continue to do everything
written in the Book of the Law (Gal 3:10).
1 Gen 2:17; Exo 34:7; Psa 5:4-6; Psa 7:11; Nah 1:2; Rom 1:18; Rom 5:12; Eph 5:6; Heb 9:27.
2 Deut 27:26.
LORD’S DAY 8
24. Q. How are these articles divided?
A. Into three parts:
the first is about God the Father and our creation;
the second about God the Son and our redemption;
the third about God the Holy Spirit
and our sanctification.
25. Q. Since there is only one God,1
why do you speak of three persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
A. Because God has so revealed Himself in His Word2
that these three distinct persons
are the one, true, eternal God.
1 Deut 6:4; Isa 44:6; Isa 45:5; 1Co 8:4, 1Co 8:6.
2 Gen 1:2-3; Isa 61:1; Isa 63:8-10; Mat 3:16-17; Mat 28:18-19; Lk 4:18; Jn 14:26; Jn 15:26; 2Co 13:14; Gal 4:6; Tit 3:5-6.
LORD’S DAY 9
26. Q. What do you believe when you say:
I believe in God the Father almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth?
A. That the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who out of nothing created heaven and earth
and all that is in them,1
and who still upholds and governs them
by His eternal counsel and providence,2
is, for the sake of Christ His Son,
my God and my Father.3
In Him I trust so completely
as to have no doubt
that He will provide me
with all things necessary for body and soul,4
and will also turn to my good
whatever adversity He sends me
in this life of sorrow.5
He is able to do so as almighty God,6
and willing also as a faithful Father.7
1 Gen 1 and 2; Exo 20:11; Job 38 and 39; Psa 33:6; Isa 44:24; Ac 4:24; Ac 14:15.
2 Psa 104:27-30; Mat 6:30; Mat 10:29; Eph 1:11.
3 Joh 1:12-13; Rom 8:15-16; Gal 4:4-7; Eph 1:5.
4 Psa 55:22; Mat 6:25-26; Lk 12:22-31.
5 Rom 8:28.
6 Gen 18:14; Rom 8:31-39.
7 Mat 6:32-33; Mat 7:9-11.
LORD’S DAY 10
27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?
A. God’s providence is
His almighty and ever present power,1
whereby, as with His hand, He still upholds
heaven and earth and all creatures,2
and so governs them that
leaf and blade,
rain and drought,
fruitful and barren years,
food and drink,
health and sickness,
riches and poverty,3
indeed, all things,
come to us not by chance4
but by His fatherly hand.5
1 Jer 23:23-24; Ac 17:24-28.
2 Heb 1:3.
3 Jer 5:24; Ac 14:15-17; Jn 9:3; Prov 22:2.
4 Prov 16:33.
5 Mat 10:29.
28. Q. What does it benefit us to know
that God has created all things
and still upholds them by His providence?
A. We can be patient in adversity,1
thankful in prosperity,2
and with a view to the future
we can have a firm confidence
in our faithful God and Father
that no creature shall separate us
from His love;3
for all creatures are so completely in His hand
that without His will
they cannot so much as move.4
1 Job 1:21, Job 1:22; Psa 39:10; James 1:3.
2 Deut 8:10; 1Th 5:18.
3 Psa 55:22; Rom 5:3-5; Rom 8:38-39.
4 Job 1:12; Job 2:6; Prov 21:1; Ac 17:24-28.
LORD’S DAY 38
103.Q. What does God require
in the fourth commandment?
A. First,
that the ministry of the gospel and the schools
be maintained1
and that, especially on the day of rest,
I diligently attend the church of God2
to hear God’s Word,3
to use the sacraments,4
to call publicly upon the Lord,5
and to give Christian offerings for the poor.6
Second,
that all the days of my life
I rest from my evil works,
let the Lord work in me through His Holy Spirit,
and so begin in this life
the eternal Sabbath.7
1 Deut 6:4-9; 6:20-25; 1Co 9:13-14; 2Ti 2:2; 3:13-17; Tit 1:5.
2 Deut 12:5-12; Psa 40:9-10; 68:26; Ac 2:42-47; Heb 10:23-25.
3 Rom 10:14-17; 1Co 14:26-33; 1Ti 4:13.
4 1Co 11:23-24.
5 Col 3:16; 1Ti 2:1.
6 Psa 50:14; 1Co 16:2; 2 Cor 8 and 9.
7 Isa 66:23; Heb 4:9-11.