A Brief Catechism Containing the Doctrine of Godliness

p. 3THE DOCTRINE of Godliness.

Quest. WHat is Divinity?

Answ. The Doctrine of Godliness, [Rom. 6.11.] or of living unto God.

Quest.How many parts hath it?

Answ. One.

Q. How many Persons are there?

Answ. Three.

A. 1. His Being or Essence. 2. The manner of his Being. 3. His Workes, all according to his Word, and our measure, [Ex.37.25] who here can onely see his Back-parts.

Quest. What are you to understand by his Being?

A. God himself considered absolutely or essentially.

p. 4Quest. What are you to understand by the manner of his Being?

A. God considered Relatively or Personally, viz. in the Relation of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which Relative properties are called Persons.

Qu. How do you expresse your Beliefe concerning God.

A I believe God to be Jehovah, Elohim▪ that is one absolute being, subsisting in three persons of Father, Son & Holy Ghost.

A They are either inward as his Decree, or outward as his Creation and Providence.

A. It is the first outward work of God, whereby (in six dayes) he made all things of nothing very good. [Gen. 1.26,27. Gen.5.1,2.]

Q. How did he Create man?

A. In his own Image created he him Male and Female Created he them.

Qu. Wherein did the Image of God Consist? [Eph 4.24]

A. In righteousness & true holiness

Qu. What is Providence?

p. 5A. That by which God governeth all his works, [Pro. 16.4. Ro.8.28,29] and all the actions thereof as maketh most for his glory, and the good of his elect.

Qu. What do you consider concerning Gods speciall Government of man?

A. [Deu. 26.16,17,18,19. Rom 9.19] His prescribing to him a Law and his ordering the events that were to follow thereupon.

Qu. What do you observe concerning those events? [Rom 5.19 1 Cor. 15 21.]

p. 5A. His fall and his Recovery.

Q. What do you observe in the fall of man? [Gen.3.6.]

A. The transgression or sin it selse and the Propagation of it.

A. The eating of the forbidden fruit.

Q. What followed thereupon?

A. Both guilt and punishment, [Ro. 3.9.19. Rom 5.12 Gen 2.17] viz; death, a great part of which death, is originall sin.

Qu. What is Originall sin?

A. [Rom 7.17 Heb.12.1 Gen.6.5. Rom.8.7. Jer.2.13.] The hereditary and habitual contrariety and enmity of the nature of man against the whole Law of God, consisting in an aversenesse from all good, and propensenesse unto all evill.

p. 6Q. What is the propagation of sin?

A. [•• b 14.4. Is •• • .5. Rom 5.14. Eph.2.3.] The conveyance of that actual sin of Adam [in eating the forbidden Fruit] and original sin the effect thereof with the guilt and punishment to all his posterity, proceeding from him by way of ordinary generation.

Q. How to Adams sin made ours?

A. [Rom 5.12] By participation and imputation.

Q. After what order is sin conveyed and derived unto man?

A. The actual sin of Adam in eating the forbidden fruit, is made ours by imputation, thence proceedeth original sin, as an effect from the cause, hence actual as an act from the habit.

Q. What is the way by which God reveals all this misery?

A. By the Moral Law, [Rom.7.7.] the sum of which is the Ten Commandements.

Q. What do you believe concerning man in this estate?

A. That he is wholly dead in sin, [Eph.2.1,2,7.] the child of wrath and disobedience.

A. It is the redeeming of him from the bondage of sin, the curse, and Satan, p. 7into the liberty of the grace of the Gospel.

A. Jesus Christ God-Man.

Q. What things are there chiefly to be considered in Jesus Christ?

A. His fitness to be a Redeemer, [Acts 4.22.] and the parts of his Redemption.

Q. In what doth his fitness to be a Redeemer consist?

A. In his Person and Office.

p. 7Qu. Touching the 'Person of Christ what are you to know?

A. The distinction of the two natures, [Matth. 1.23. Joh.1.16] viz. Divine and Humane, and the union of them both into one person in him.

Q. What is the union of the two Natures in one person?

A. [Joh.1.14 Col. 2 9. 1 Tim. 3.16. Heb 4.15] That whereby the second Person in the Trinity [ viz. the Divine Essence subsisting in the relation of the Son] assumed the Manhood like unto us in all things sin only excepted, & the manner of its subsistence, for the manhood ever subsisted but in the Godhead from wch union of the Divine & Humane nature, both Natures make but one Person in him.

p. 8Q. Why must Jesus Christ be Man?

Q. Why must he be God?

A. [2 Cor. 13.6 〈◊〉 .9.14 1 Pet 3. 8] That his sufferings might be overcome by him, and be made effectuall unto us.

Q. What is the Mediatorly Office of the Lord Jesus Christ?

A. [Heb.5 4, 5 6. 〈◊〉 .6.2 • Joh 10.18 Phil.2.6. 〈◊〉 .53.10] It is the work of Mediation committed to the Son by the Father, accepted readily and freely by the Son, thereby procuring the application of the grace of God unto the Elect, and uniting and reconciling the Elect unto God, and working all things parteining to their everlasting good and salvation.

Q. What are the parts of this Mediatorly Office?

2. Priestly, whence hee is a Priest.

3. Kingly, whēce he is a King

Q. What doth Christ as he is a Prophet?

A. He doth reveale unto his people the whole cousell of God, [Heb. 3. • . Ma • . 3.1.] teaching them to know the evill they are falne p. 9into, and all the good that God in him hath provided for them.

Q. What doth he as he is a Priest?

A. [Col. 1.20,22.] He by offering up himself a sacrifice upon the Crosse, took away the sin of the Elect, procured for them the mercy of God, [Heb.7.25] and now lives to make intercession for them.

Q. What doth he as he is a King?