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The Westminster Shorter Catechism A.D. 1647

Questions 1-21

Question 1. What is the chief end of man?

Answer. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

Question 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?

Answer. The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

Question 3. What do the Scriptures principally teach?

Answer. The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

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 6. How many persons are there in the Godhead?

Answer. There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

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 foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Question 8. How doth God execute his decrees?

Answer. God executeth his decrees in the works of creation and providence.

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 10. How did God create man?

Answer. God created man, male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.

Question 11. What are God’s works of providence?

Answer. God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.

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 15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?

Answer. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit.

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 20. Did God leave all mankind to perish the estate of sin and misery?

Answer. God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.

Question 21. Who is the Redeemer of God’s elect?

Answer. The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who being the eternal Son of God became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man, in two distinct natures, and one person forever.

Questions 22-38