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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

Exod. xx.

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OD spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee Tout of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

I. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

IV. Remember the sabbath-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, 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.

V. Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

VI. Thou shalt not kill.

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

THE LORD'S PRAYER.

Matt. vi.

UR Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy

day and

give us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

THE CREED.

I

i. e. Continued

BELIEVE in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaver and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, which was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried: he descended into hell; the third day he arose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholick church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the Amen.

in the state of the dead, and under the power of death till the third day.

life everlasting.

So much of every question, both in the Larger and Shorter Catechism, is repeated in

the answer, as maketh every answer an entire proposition or sentence in itself; to the end the learner may further improve it upon all occasions, for his increase in knowledge and piety, even out of the course of catechising, as well as in it.

And albeit the substance of the doctrine comprised in that abridgment, commonly called The Apostles' Creed, be fully set forth in each of the Catechisms, so as there is no necessity of inserting the Creed itself; yet it is here annexed, not as though it were composed by the Apostles, or ought to be esteemed canonical scripture, as the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, (much less a prayer, as ignorant people have been apt to make both it and the Decalogue,) but because it is a brief sum of the Christian faith, agreeable to the word of God, and anciently received in the churches of Christ.

THE

SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE:

OR,

A BRIEF SUM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE,

CONTAINED IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, AND HOLDEN FORTH IN THE FORESAID CONFESSION OF FAITH

AND CATECHISMS;

TOGETHER WITH

THE PRACTICAL USE THEREOF.

JOHN vi. 37.-All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

THE CONTENTS

OF

THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE.

HEADS.

I. Our woeful condition by nature.

2. His earnest request to be recon

ciled.

II. The remedy provided in Christ 3. His command, charging all to be

Jesus.

III. The means provided in the cove-4.

nant of grace.

IV. The blessings conveyed by these

means.

The Use of Saving Knowledge. 1. For convincing of sin by the law. 2. Of righteousness by the law. 3. Of judgment by the law. 4. For convincing of sin, righteousness, and judgment by the gospel. Of righteousness to be had only by 4. faith in Christ.

For strengthening a man's faith, &c.

Warrants and Motives to Believe.

1. God's hearty invitation.

lieve.

Much assurance of life given to believers, &c.

Evidences of true Faith.

1. Conviction of the believer's obliga-
tion to keep the moral law.
2. That the believer practise the rules
of godliness and righteousness.
3. That obedience to the law run in
the right channel of faith in
Christ.
The keeping of strait communion
with Christ the fountain of all
grace and good works.

For strengthening the believer in
faith and obedience, by these evi-
dences.

THE

SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE, &c.

The Sum of Saving Knowledge may be taken up in these four heads: 1. The woeful condition wherein all men are by nature, through breaking of the covenant of works. 2. The remedy provided for the elect in Jesus Christ by the covenant of grace. 3. The means appointed to make them partakers of this covenant. 4. The blessings which are effectually conveyed unto the elect by these means.-Which four heads are set down each of them in some few propositions.

HEAD I.

Our woeful condition by nature, through breaking the covenant of works. Hos. xiii. 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.

I.

THE the one and the same undivided Godhead, HE almighty and eternal God, the Father. the Son, and the Holy Ghost, equally infinite in all perfections, did, before time, most wisely decree, for his own glory, whatsoever cometh to pass in time: and doth most holily and infallibly execute all his decrees, without being partaker of the sin of any creature.

II. This God, in six days, made all things of nothing, very good in their own kind: in special, he made all the angels holy; and he made our first parents, Adam and Eve, the root of mankind, both upright and able to keep the law written in their heart. Which law they were naturally bound to obey under pain of death; but God was not bound to reward their service, till he entered into a covenant or contract with them, and their posterity in them, to give them eternal life, upon condition of perfect personal obedience; withal threatening death in case they should fail. This is the covenant of works.

III. Both angels and men were subject to the change of their own freewill, as experience proved, (God having reserved to himself the incommunicable property of being naturally unchangeable:) for many angels of their own accord fell by sin from their first estate, and became devils. Our first parents, being enticed by Satan, one of these devils speaking in a serpent, did break the covenant of works, in eating the forbidden fruit; whereby they, and their posterity, being in their loins, as branches in the root, and comprehended in the same covenant with them, became not only liable to eternal death, but also lost all ability to please God; yea, did become by nature enemies to God, and to all spiritual good, and inclined only to evil continually. This is our original sin, the bitter root of all our actual transgressions, in thought, word, and deed.

HEAD II.

The remedy provided in Jesus Christ for the elect by the covenant of grace. Hos. xiii. 9. Ŏ Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. I. ALBEIT man, having brought himself into this woeful condition, be

neither able to help himself, nor willing to be helped by God out of it, but rather inclined to lie still, insensible of it, till he perish; yet God, for the glory of his rich grace, hath revealed in his word a way to save sinners, viz. by faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, by virtue of, and according to the tenor of the covenant of redemption, made and agreed upon between God the Father and God the Son, in the council of the Trinity, before the world began.

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