THE

HISTORICAL CATECHISM

FOR

CHILDREN AND YOUTH.

1. Quest. WHO was the Maker of the world? Ans. The Almighty God made the heavens and the earth, and all things that are in them.

2. Q. How long was God in making the world?

A. He made it by his word in the space of six days, and he rested on the seventh, and called that day holy. 3. Q. Who were the first man and woman that God made?

A. Adam and Eve.

4. Q. In what state did God make them?

A. God made them in his own likeness, in a holy and happy state.

5. Q. How did they behave themselves? did they continue in this state?

A. No: they sinned against God by eating of the fruit of a certain tree, which God had forbidden them upon pain of death.

6. Q. How came they to eat of this fruit?

A. The evil spirit that lay hid in the serpent persuaded Eve to eat of it, and she persuaded Adam.

7. Q. What mischief followed from hence?

A. Sin and death were brought into this world by Adam's disobedience, and spread among all his children.

8. Q. Were Adam's children all sinners?

A. All of them were born in sin, but there were some in those early times, who learnt to know and worship the Lord, and were called the sons of God.

9. Q. Did the knowledge and worship of God abide long in their families?

A. In following ages all mankind grew so bad, that God drowned the world by a flood of water.

10. Q. Who was saved when the world was drowned? A. Noah, the righteous man, was saved, with all his family, and a few living creatures of every kind.

11. Q. How was Noah saved?

A. In an ark, or great vessel of wood, which God taught him to build.

12. Q. Who were the sons of Noah?

A. Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and by them the world was peopled after the flood.

13. Q. What crime was Ham guilty of?

A. He made sport with his father, and he was cursed.

14. Q. What did Shem and Japheth do.

A. They concealed their father's shame, and they were blessed.

15. Q. Who was God's special favourite in the family of Shem?

A. Abraham, who was called the father of believers and the friend of God

16. Q. Why was he called the father, that is, the pattern of believers?

A. Because he believed some strange promises of God, contrary to the present appearances of things. 17. Q. What were those promises?

A. 1. That he should have a son when he was an

hundred years old. 2. That his children should pos

sess the land of Canaan, wherein he had not a foot of ground. And 3. That all nations should be blessed by his offspring, that is Christ.

18. Q. Why was Abraham called the friend of God? A. Because God made many visits to him, and he was very obedient to God.

19. Q. What was the first great instance of Abraham's obedience?

A. He left his own country at God's command, not knowing whither he was to go.

20. Q. What was another great instance of Abraham's obedience?

A. He was ready to offer up in sacrifice his beloved son Isaac at the command of God.

21. Q. Was Isaac a good man?

A. Yes, he feared the God of his father Abraham, and he went out to pray or meditate in the fields. 22. Q. Who were Isaac's two sons?

A. Esau the eldest, and Jacob the youngest. 23. Q. What is remarkable concerning Esau ? A. He despised the privilege of being the first born, and sold it to Jacob for a mess of pottage.

24. Q. What is written concerning Jacob?

A. He obtained his father's blessing by deceit, as well as his brother's birth-right by craft.

25. Q. Why was his name called Israel?

A. Because be afterwards became a very good man, and prayed and prevailed for a blessing from God. 26. Q. How many sons had Jacob or Israel?

A. Twelve, who were called the twelve patriarchs, or fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel.

27. Q. Who was the most famous af Israel's sons?

A. Joseph, whom his brethren sold into Egypt, and he afterwards became the ruler of the land under Pharaoh the king.

28. Q. Did not he then revenge himself upon his brethren?

A. No, he sent for them and their families, together with his father in the time of famine, and fed them all in the land of Egypt.

29. Q. Did the families of Israel continue to dwell in Egypt?

A. Yes, till another Pharaoh king of Egypt made slaves of them, and drowned their children, and then God delivered them by the hand of Moses.

30. Q. What was this Moses?

A. He was one of the children of Israel, who was wonderfully saved from drowning by Pharaoh's own daughter when he was a child.

31. Q. How did God appoint him to deliver Israel?

A. God appeared to him in a burning bush as he was keeping sheep, and sent him to Pharaoh to bid him let Israel go.

32. Q. What did Moses do to prove that God had sent him?

A. He wrought several miracles or signs and wonders in the sight of Pharaoh.

33. Q. How did Moses at last deliver the people from their slavery?

A. When Pharaoh refused to let the people go, God gave him power to smite Egypt with many plagues.

34. Q. What was the last of these plagues, which procured the release of Israel?

A. An angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians in one night, but he passed over and did not hurt any of the families of Israel.

35. Q. How was this deliverance of Israel kept in remembrance to following ages?

A. God appointed the yearly sacrifice of a lamb in every family, wich was called "the feast of the passover."

36. Q. When Pharaoh let Israel go out of Egypt, how did they get over the Red Sea?

A. Moses with his rod divided the waters of the sea asunder, and the people went through on dry ground. 37. Q. What became of the Egyptians that followed them?

A. When Moses stretched his hand over the sea, the waters returned upon the Egyptians, and they were all drowned.

38. Q. Whither did the children of Israel go then? A. They went through the wilderness, wheresoever God guided them, by a pillar of cloud in the day time, and a pillar of fire in the night.

39. Q. How long was it before they came to the land of Canaan, which God promised?

A. They wandered forty years in the wilderness for their sins.

40. Q. What did they eat all that time?

A. God fed them with manna, or bread that came down every night from heaven.

41. Q. What did they drink in the wilderness? A. Moses smote the rock with his rod, and waters gushed out in a river that followed them.

42. Q. What did they do for clothes during these forty years?

A. Their garments waxed not old, nor did their shoes wear out.

43. Q. What were the laws, which God gave the Israelites when he chose them for his own people?

A. Some general laws, that related to their beha viour as men, some special rules relating to their re ligion as a church, and others about their government as a nation.*

44. Q. What were the general laws, which related to their behaviour as men?

A. Those laws, which are commonly called moral, and which belong to all mankind: These are chiefly contained in the ten commandments.

45. Q. In what manner was this moral law, or ten commandments, given them?

A. God first spoke it to them from Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning, and then wrote it for them on two tables of stone.

46. Q. What were the special laws, which God gave them relating to their religion as a church?

A. Many rules about their worship of God, their priests and sacrifices,† about sprinkling of blood and

*The laws of the Jews, which relate to their behaviour as men, to their religion as a church, and to their government as a nation, are all intermingled in such a manner, that it is hard to say under which head some of them must be ranked: even in the ten commandments, which are usually called the moral law, there is something ceremonial and peculiar to the Jews: And indeed they are all properly but one body of laws given to that people, whom God chose for his own; yet for distinction sake they may be distributed into three kinds, as in this catechism.

The doctrine of the priesthood and sacrifices had large room in this catechism, but I was contrained to cut this matter short, as well as many others, lest it should be thought tedious to children.

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