Answer: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

Answer: The very light of nature in man, and the works of God, declare plainly that there is a God; but his Word and Spirit only do sufficiently and effectually reveal him unto men for their salvation.

Answer: The holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience.

Answer: The Scriptures manifest themselves to be the Word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God; by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation: but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of God.

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

Answer: The Scriptures make known what God is, the persons in the Godhead, his decrees, and the execution of his decrees.

Answer: God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, everywhere present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

Answer: There is but one only, the living and true God.

Answer: There are three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one true, eternal God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; although distinguished by their personal properties.

Answer: It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.

Answer: The Scriptures manifest that the Son and the Holy Spirit are God equal with the Father, ascribing unto them such names, attributes, works, and worship, as are proper to God only.

Answer: God's decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all eternity, he has, for his own glory, unchangeably foreordained: Whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men.

Answer: God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, has elected some angels to glory; and in Christ has chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof: and also, according to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his own will (whereby he extends or withholds favor as he pleases), has passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonor and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice.

Answer: God executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will.

Answer: The work of creation is that wherein God did in the beginning, by the word of his power, make of nothing the world, and all things therein, for himself, within the space of six days, and all very good.

Answer: God created all the angels spirits, immortal, holy, excelling in knowledge, mighty in power, to execute his commandments, and to praise his name, yet subject to change.

Answer: After God had made all other creatures, he created man male and female; formed the body of the man of the dust of the ground, and the woman of the rib of the man, endued them with living, reasonable, and immortal souls; made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it, and dominion over the creatures; yet subject to fall.

Answer: God's works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures; ordering them, and all their actions, to his own glory.

Answer: God by his providence permitted some of the angels, willfully and irrecoverably, to fall into sin and damnation, limiting and ordering that, and all their sins, to his own glory; and established the rest in holiness and happiness; employing them all, at his pleasure, in the administrations of his power, mercy, and justice.

Answer: The providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created, was the placing him in paradise, appointing him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat of the fruit of the earth; putting the creatures under his dominion, and ordaining marriage for his help; affording him communion with himself; instituting the sabbath; entering into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death.

Answer: Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, through the temptation of Satan, transgressed the commandment of God in eating the forbidden fruit; and thereby fell from the estate of innocence wherein they were created.

Answer: The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression.

Answer: The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.

Answer: Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the reasonable creature.

Answer: The sinfulness of the state into which mankind fell consists of the guilt of Adam's first sin; the lack of the righteousness in which he was created; and the corruption of our nature, by which every person is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly and continually inclined to all evil. This is commonly called original sin, and from this proceed all actual transgressions.

Answer: Original sin is conveyed from our first parents to their posterity by natural generation, so that all who proceed from them in that way are conceived and born in sin.

Answer: The fall brought on mankind the loss of communion with God and his displeasure and curse, so that we are by nature children of wrath, slaves to Satan, and justly liable to all the punishments of this world and that which is to come.

Answer: The punishments of sin in this world are either inward, as a blindness of mind, a reprobate sense, strong delusions, hardness of heart, horror of conscience, and vile affections; or outward, as the curse of God on the creatures for our sakes, and all the other evils that befall us in our bodies, names, states, relations, and employment, together with death itself.

Answer: The punishments of sin in the world to come are everlasting separation from the comforting presence of God, and very grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in the fire of hell forever.

Answer: God does not leave all people to perish in the state of sin and misery into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the covenant of works. Instead, out of his mere love and mercy, he delivers his chosen ones from sin and misery and brings them into a state of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace.

Answer: The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and with all the chosen ones in him as his seed.

Answer: The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant in that he freely provides and offers to sinners a mediator, and life and salvation by that mediator. Requiring faith as the condition to give them a legal union with him, he promises and gives his Holy Spirit to all his chosen ones to work that faith into them, along with all the other saving graces, and to enable them to all types of holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and their thankfulness to God, and as the path that he has appointed to them for salvation.

Answer: The covenant of grace was not always administered in the same manner; the administrations of it under the Old Covenant were different from those under the New.

Answer: The covenant of grace was administered under the Old Covenant by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the Passover, and other symbols and ordinances, all of which foreshadowed the Christ to come and were sufficient for that time to build up the chosen ones in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they then had full remission of sin and eternal salvation.

Answer: Under the New Covenant, when Christ was exhibited as the true substance of what had been previously foreshadowed, the same covenant of grace was and still is to be administered in the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in which grace and salvation are held forth in more fullness, evidence, and effectiveness to all nations.

Answer: The only mediator of the covenant of grace is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, of one substance and equal with the Father, became man in the fullness of time, and so was and continues to be God and man, in two wholly distinct natures and one person, forever.

Answer: Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance and born of her, yet without sin.

Answer: It was necessary that the mediator should be God so that he might sustain and keep the human nature from sinking under the infinite wrath of God and the power of death; so that he might give worth and effectiveness to his sufferings, obedience, and intercession; and so that he might satisfy God’s justice, procure his favor, purchase a special people, give his Spirit to them, conquer all their enemies, and bring them to everlasting salvation.

Answer: It was necessary that the mediator should be man so that he might represent our nature, performing obedience to the law and suffering and making intercession for us in our nature; so that he might have a fellow-feeling of our infirmities; and so that we might receive the adoption of sons and have comfort and access with boldness to the throne of grace.

Answer: It was necessary that the mediator who was to reconcile God and mankind should himself be both God and man, and this in one person, so that the proper works of each nature might be accepted by God for us, and also relied on by us as the works of the whole person.

Answer: Our mediator was called Jesus because he saves his people from their sins.

Answer: Our mediator was called Christ, because he was anointed with the Holy Spirit beyond all measure. Consequently, he was set apart and completely equipped with all authority and power to execute the offices of prophet, priest, and king of his church, in both his humiliation and his exaltation.

Answer: Christ carries out the office of a prophet in revealing to the church in all ages, by his Spirit and his Word and in diverse ways of administration, the whole will of God in all things concerning their edification and salvation.

Answer: Christ carries out the office of a priest in offering himself as a sacrifice to God one time, without spot, to be the reconciliation for the sins of his people and in making continual intercession for them.

Answer: Christ carries out the office of a king in calling a people out of the world to Himself and giving them officers, laws, and censures by which He visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace on these chosen ones, rewarding their obedience and correcting them for their sins, preserving and supporting them during all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for His own glory and for their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel.

Answer: The state of Christ's humiliation was the low condition in which, for our sakes, emptying himself of his glory, he took upon himself the form of a servant in his conception, birth, life, death, and after his death, until his resurrection.

Answer: Christ humbled himself in his conception and birth in that, being from all eternity the Son of God in the bosom of the Father, he was pleased in the fullness of time to become the son of man, made of a woman in a state of poverty, and to be born of her, with various circumstances of more than ordinary abasement.

Answer: Christ humbled himself in his life by subjecting himself to the Law, which he perfectly fulfilled, and by struggling with the indignities of the world, the temptations of Satan, and the infirmities in his flesh, whether common to the nature of mankind or particularly accompanying his low condition.

Answer: Christ humbled himself in his death in that having been betrayed by Judas, forsaken by his disciples, scorned and rejected by the world, condemned by Pilate, and tormented by his persecutors, and having also struggled with the terrors of death and the powers of darkness, he felt and bore the weight of God's wrath and laid down his life as an offering for sin, enduring the painful, shameful, and cursed death of the Cross.

Answer: Christ's humiliation after his death consisted in his being buried and continuing in the state of the dead and under the power of death until the third day, which has also been expressed in these words: "He descended into hell."

Answer: The state of Christ's exaltation includes his resurrection, his ascension, his sitting at the right of the Father, and his coming again to judge the world.

Answer: Christ was exalted in his resurrection in that, not having seen corruption in death (in which it was not possible for him to be held), and having truly the same body in which he suffered (with the essential properties of it, but without mortality and the other common infirmities belonging to this life) really united to his soul, he rose again from the dead on the third day by his own power. By this he declared himself to be the Son of God, to have satisfied divine justice, to have vanquished death and him that had the power of it, and to be lord of the living and the dead. All of this he did as a public person as the head of his church, for their justification, to enliven them in grace, to support them against their enemies, and to assure them of their resurrection from the dead at the last day.

Answer: Christ was exalted in his ascension in that, having often appeared to and conversed with his apostles after his resurrection, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God and giving them commission to preach the gospel to all nations, he visibly went up into the highest heavens forty days after his resurrection, in our nature and as our head, triumphing over his enemies. He went there to receive gifts for men, to raise up our affections to heaven, and to prepare a place for us, where he himself is and will continue until his second coming at the end of the world.

Answer: Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God in that, as the God-man, he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fullness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth. He gathers and defends his church and subdues their enemies, furnishes his servants and people with gifts and graces, and makes intercession for them.

Answer: Christ makes intercession by appearing in our nature continually before the Father in heaven in the merit of his obedience and his sacrifice on earth, declaring his will to have it applied to all believers, answering all accusations against them, and procuring for them quiet of conscience despite their daily failings, access with boldness to the throne of grace, and acceptance of their selves and their acts of service.

Answer: Christ is to be exalted in his coming again to judge the world in that he, who was unjustly judged and condemned by wicked men, will come again at the last day in great power and in the full manifestation of his own glory and his Father’s glory, with all his holy angels, with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, to judge the world in righteousness.

Answer: Christ, by his mediation, has procured redemption, with all other benefits of the covenant of grace.

Answer: We are made partakers of the benefits that Christ has procured by the application of them to us, which is the work especially of God the Holy Spirit.

Answer: Redemption is certainly applied and effectually communicated to all those for whom Christ has purchased it, who are enabled by the Holy Spirit in time to believe in Christ according to the Gospel.

Answer: Those who have never heard the Gospel, and do not know Jesus Christ or believe in him, cannot be saved by any degree of being diligent to orient their lives according to the light of nature or the laws of that religion which they profess. Nor is there salvation in any other, but in Christ alone, who is the only Savior of his body the church.

Answer: Not everyone who hears the Gospel and lives in the visible church is saved, but only those who are true members of the invisible church.

Answer: The visible church is a society made up of all people in all ages and places of the world who profess the true religion, and their children.

Answer: The visible church has the privileges of being under God’s special care and government; of being protected and preserved in all ages, despite the opposition of all enemies; and of enjoying the communion of saints, the ordinary means of salvation, and the offers of grace by Christ to all the members of the visible church in the ministry of the Gospel, testifying that whoever believes in him will be saved, and excluding none who are willing come to him.

Answer: The invisible church is the whole number of the chosen ones who have been, are, or will be gathered into one body under Christ the head.

Answer: By Christ, the members of the invisible church enjoy union and communion with him in grace and glory.

Answer: The union that God’s chosen ones have with Christ is the work of God’s grace by which they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband; this is done in their effectual calling.

Answer: Effectual calling is the work of God’s almighty power and grace, by which he invites his chosen ones and draws them to Jesus Christ by his Word and Spirit in his accepted time (out of his free and special love to them, and from nothing in them moving him to it), enlightening their minds so that they are saved, and renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so that they (although dead in sin in themselves) are thus made willing and freely able to answer his call and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.

Answer: All of God’s chosen ones, and only they, are effectually called, although others may be (and often are) outwardly called by the ministry of the Word and have some operations of the Spirit in common with God’s chosen ones. For their willful neglect and contempt of the grace offered to them, these others are justly left in their unbelief, and never do truly come to Jesus Christ.

Answer: The communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ is their partaking of the virtue of his mediation, in their justification, adoption, sanctification, and whatever else in this life manifests their union with him.

Answer: Justification is an act of God's free grace to sinners, in which he pardons all their sins and accepts and accounts their whole persons as righteous in his sight, not for anything worked into them or done by them, but only because of the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ imputed to them by God, received by faith alone.

Answer: Although Christ, by his obedience and death, made a proper, real, and full satisfaction to God’s justice on behalf of those who are justified, yet because God accepts this satisfaction for a payment which he might have demanded of them; provided this payment himself, through his only Son imputing his righteousness to them; and requires nothing from them for their justification except faith, which is also his gift; therefore their justification is of free grace.

Answer: Justifying faith is a saving grace, worked in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, by which the sinner, being convinced of his sin and misery and of the inability of himself and all other creatures to save him out of his lost condition, not only assents to the truth of the promise of the Gospel, but also receives and rests on Christ and his righteousness, held forth in the Gospel, for the pardon of his sin and for the acceptance and accounting of his self as righteous in the sight of God, for his salvation.

Answer: Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which always accompany it, nor because of the good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act flowing from it, were imputed to him for his justification, but only because it is an instrument by which he receives and applies Christ and his righteousness.

Answer: Adoption is an act of the free grace of God, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, by which all those who are justified are received into the number of his children; have his name put on them; have the Spirit of his Son given to them; are under his fatherly care and dispensations; are admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God; and are made heirs of all the promises and fellow heirs with Christ in glory.

Answer: Sanctification is a work of God’s grace by which those whom God has chosen to be holy before the foundation of the world are in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit applying the death and resurrection of Christ to them, are renewed in their whole person after the image of God. The seeds of repentance that leads to life and all the other saving graces are put into their hearts, and those graces are stirred up, increased, and strengthened, so that they more and more die to sin, and rise to newness of life.

Answer: Repentance that leads to life is a saving grace, worked in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and the Word of God, by which, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, and awareness of God’s mercy in Christ to those who are penitent, the sinner so grieves for and hates his sins that he turns away from them all to God, purposing and working constantly to walk with God in all the ways of new obedience.

Answer: Although sanctification is inseparably joined with justification, yet they differ in the following ways: in justification God imputes the righteousness of Christ; in the sanctification of his Spirit, God infuses grace and enables it to be put into action. In the former, sin is pardoned; in the latter, it is subdued. The first frees all believers equally from the revenging wrath of God perfectly in this life, so that they never fall into condemnation; the second is not equal in all people, nor is it ever perfect in anyone in this life, but grows toward perfection.

Answer: The imperfection of sanctification in believers comes from the remnants of sin remaining in every part of them and the perpetual lusts of the flesh against the spirit. By these, believers are often foiled with temptations, fall into many sins, and are hindered in all their spiritual services, and their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.

Answer: Because of the unchangeable love of God, his decree and covenant to give them perseverance, their inseparable union with Christ, his continual intercession for them, and the Spirit and seed of God abiding in them, true believers can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but are kept by the power of God through faith to salvation.

Answer: Those who truly believe in Christ, and who endeavor to walk in all good conscience before him, may be rightly confident that they are in the state of grace and that they will persevere in that state until their salvation. They can know this without extraordinary revelation, by faith grounded on the truth of God’s promises and by the Spirit enabling them to discern in themselves those graces to which the promises of life are made, bearing witness with their spirits that they are the children of God.

Answer: Because confidence of grace and salvation are not the essence of faith, true believers may wait a long time before they obtain it, and after the enjoyment of it they may have it weakened and discontinued through many types of disorders, sins, temptations, and times of feeling deserted by God. Yet they are never left without such presence and support of the Spirit of God as keeps them from sinking into utter despair.

Answer: The communion in glory that the members of the invisible church have with Christ occurs in this life, immediately after death, and when at last perfected at the resurrection and day of judgment.

Answer: The members of the invisible church have communicated to them in this life the first fruits of glory with Christ, because they are members of him their head, and therefore in him they have a legitimate claim to that glory which he is fully possessed of. As a down payment of this, they enjoy the sense of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Spirit, and the hope of glory. On the contrary, a sense of God’s revenging wrath, a horror of conscience, and a fearful expectation of judgment are just the beginning of the torments that the wicked will endure after death.

Answer: Because death is threatened as the wages of sin, it is appointed to all people to die once, because all have sinned.

Answer: The righteous will be delivered from death itself at the last day, and even in death they are delivered from the sting and curse of it, so that, although they die, yet in God’s love he frees them perfectly from sin and misery and makes them capable of further communion with Christ in glory, which they then enter.

Answer: The communion in glory with Christ that the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death is that their souls are made perfect in holiness and received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies, which even in death continue united to Christ and rest in their graves as in their beds, until they are again united to their souls at the last day. On the other hand, the souls of the wicked are cast into hell at their death, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies are kept in their graves, as in prisons, until the resurrection and judgment of the great day.

Answer: We are to believe that at the last day there will be a general resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust. At that time those who are found alive will be changed in a moment, and the same bodies of the dead that were laid in the grave will then be united to their souls again forever, raised up by the power of Christ. The bodies of the just, by the Spirit of Christ and by virtue of his resurrection as their head, will be raised in power, and will be spiritual, incorruptible, and made like his glorious body; and the bodies of the wicked will be raised up in dishonor by him, as an offended judge.

Answer: The general and final judgment of angels and men will follow immediately after the resurrection, the day and hour of which no one knows, so that all may watch and pray, and always be ready for the coming of the Lord.

Answer: At the day of judgment, the wicked will be set on Christ’s left hand, and, upon clear evidence and the full conviction of their own consciences, they will have the fearful but just sentence of condemnation pronounced against them. Then they will be cast out from the favoring presence of God and the glorious fellowship with Christ, his saints, and all his holy angels, and they will go into hell, to be punished with unspeakable torments both of body and soul, with the devil and his angels, forever.

Answer: At the day of judgment, the righteous, being caught up to Christ in the clouds, will be set on his right hand, and having been openly acknowledged and acquitted, they will join with him in judging reprobate angels and people. They will be received into heaven, where they will be fully and forever freed from all sin and misery, filled with inconceivable joys, made perfectly holy and happy both in body and soul, in the company of innumerable saints and holy angels, but especially in the immediate vision and presence of God the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, to all eternity. This is the perfect and full communion that the members of the invisible church will enjoy with Christ in glory at the resurrection and day of judgment.

Answer: The duty that God requires of mankind is obedience to his revealed will.

Answer: The rule of obedience revealed to Adam in his state of innocence, and to all mankind in him, was the moral law, in addition to the special command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Answer: The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding every person to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience to it, in the orientation and disposition of the whole person, soul and body, along with the performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness that each person owes to God and other people. It is accompanied by the promise of life if they fulfill it and the threat of death if they break it.

Answer: Although no person, since the fall, can attain to righteousness and life by the moral law, yet there is great use of it, in a way common to all people, and also as it particularly applies either to the unregenerate or the regenerate.

Answer: The moral law is of use to all people to inform them of the holy nature and the will of God and of their duty, binding them to walk accordingly; and to convince them of their inability to keep it and of the sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives. This can humble them in the sense of their sin and misery and thus help them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and of the perfection of his obedience.

Answer: The moral law is of use to unregenerate people to awaken their consciences to flee from wrath to come and to drive them to Christ. Alternatively, if they continue in their state and way of sin, it leaves them inexcusable and under the curse of the law.

Answer: Although those who are regenerate and believe in Christ are delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so that they are neither justified nor condemned by it, yet besides the general uses of the law common to them with all people, it is of special use to show them how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it and his enduring the curse of it in their place and for their good. By this they are provoked to more thankfulness and to express it in their greater care to conform themselves to the moral law as the rule of their obedience.

Answer: The moral law is given in summary form in the Ten Commandments, which were delivered by the voice of God on Mount Sinai and written by him in two tables of stone. They are recorded in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. The four first commandments contain our duty to God, and the other six our duty to mankind.

Answer: For the right understanding of the Ten Commandments, these rules are to be observed:
1. That the law is perfect, and it binds everyone to full conformity in the whole person to the righteousness of it and to entire obedience forever, so as to require the utmost perfection of every duty, and to forbid the least degree of every sin.
2. That it is spiritual, and therefore reaches the understanding, will, affections, and all other powers of the soul, in addition to words, works, and gestures.
3. That the same thing, in various aspects, can be required or forbidden in several commandments.
4. That when a duty is commanded, the contrary sin is forbidden, and when a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is commanded. In the same way, when a promise is added, the contrary threat is implied, and when a threat is added, the contrary promise is implied.
5. That what God forbids is never to be done; what he commands is always our duty, but not every particular duty is to be done at all times.
6. That under one sin or duty, all of the same kind are forbidden or commanded, together with all the causes, means, occasions, appearances of it, and provocations to it.
7. That if something is forbidden or commanded to ourselves, we are bound, in accord with our roles in life, to work so that it may be avoided or performed by others, in accord with the duties of their roles in life.
8. That in what is commanded to others, we are bound, in accord with our roles and callings, to help them to do; we are also to beware of partaking with others in what is forbidden them.

Answer: We are to consider in the Ten Commandments the preface, the substance of the commandments themselves, and the various reasons added to some of them to reinforce them.

Answer: The preface to the Ten Commandments is, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In this, God manifests his sovereignty as being I AM, the eternal, immutable, and almighty God, having his being in and of himself and giving being to all his words and works, and manifests that he is a God in covenant, as with Israel of old, and so with all his people. As he brought them out of their slavery in Egypt, so he delivers us from our spiritual slavery, and therefore we are bound to take him as our God alone and to keep all his commandments.

Answer: The summary of the four commandments containing our duty to God is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength, and with all our mind.

Answer: The first commandment is, "You shall have no other gods before me."

Answer: The duties required in the first commandment are the following: knowing and acknowledging God to be the only true God, and our God; worshipping and glorifying him accordingly, by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, and fearing him; believing him; trusting, hoping, delighting, and rejoicing in him; being zealous for him; calling on him; giving all praise and thanks and yielding all obedience and submission to him with our whole person; being careful to please him in all things and being sorrowful when he is offended in anything; and walking humbly with him.

Answer: The sins forbidden in the first commandment are the following:
• atheism, in denying or not having a God;
• idolatry, in having or worshiping more gods than one, or any god along with or instead of the true God;
• not having and recognizing him as God, and as our God;
• the omission or neglect of anything due to him required in this commandment;
• ignorance, forgetfulness, misapprehensions, false opinions, or unworthy and wicked thoughts of him;
• irreverent curiosity about and inquiry into his secrets;
• all profaneness and hatred of God;
• self-love, self-seeking, and all other inordinate and immoderate setting of our mind, will, or desires on other things and off of him, in whole or in part;
• vain credulity, unbelief, heresy, misbelief, distrust, despair, incorrigibleness, insensibleness under judgments, hardness of heart, pride, presumption, fleshly security, and tempting of God;
• using unlawful means to an end and trusting even in lawful means of grace rather than God;
• fleshly delights and joys;
• corrupt, blind, and indiscreet zeal;
• lukewarmness and deadness in the things of God;
• deserting and forsaking God;
• praying or giving any religious worship to saints, angels, or any other creatures;
• making an agreement with, consulting, or following the suggestions of the devil;
• making people the lords of our faith and conscience;
• making light of and despising God and his commands;
• resisting and grieving his Spirit;
• discontent and impatience at his dispensations, charging him foolishly for the evils he inflicts on us;
• and ascribing the praise of any good in us, any good that we have, or any good that we can do, to fortune, to idols, to ourselves, or to any other creature.

Answer: The words, "before me," (or, before my face) in the first commandment teach us that God, who sees all things, takes special notice of and is very displeased with the sin of having any other God. This is an argument to dissuade us from it and to increase its weight as a most impudent provocation, and also to persuade us to do whatever we do in his service as though we are in his sight.

Answer: The second commandment is, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Answer: The duties required in the second commandment are the following:
• receiving, observing, and preserving completely and purely all such religious worship and ordinances as God has instituted in his Word, particularly prayer and thanksgiving in the name of Christ;
• reading, preaching, and hearing the Word;
• the administration and receiving of the sacraments;
• church government and discipline, Christian ministry, and the support of it;
• religious fasting;
• swearing by the name of God and making vows to him;
• disapproving, detesting, and opposing of all false worship and, in accord with one’s role in this life and calling, removing false worship and all monuments of idolatry.

Answer: The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and any wise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of image or likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed.

Answer: The reasons annexed to the second commandment, the more to enforce it, contained in these words, 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; are, besides God’s sovereignty over us, and propriety in us, his fervent zeal for his own worship, and his revengeful indignation against all false worship, as being a spiritual whoredom; accounting the breakers of this commandment such as hate him, and threatening to punish them unto divers generations; and esteeming the observers of it such as love him and keep his commandments, and promising mercy to them unto many generations.