Where Is the Moral Law Summarily Comprehended?

Answ. The moral law is summarily comprehended in the ten commandments.

Q. What do you mean by summarily comprehended? A. It means, that all the moral laws of God may be reduced to one of these commands, Matth. xxii. 37, S9.

Qj How many rules are necessary for understanding the ten commandments? A. Six.

Q. What is the first rule?

A. That every command requires many duties, and forbids many sins, which are not expressly named in it.

O. What is the second rule? A. That wherever

a duty is required, the contrary sin is forbidden; and wherever a sin is forbidden, the contrary duty is required.

(^. What is the third rule? A. That wherever a sin is forbidden, all sins of the same kind, and all occasions, causes, or appearances of these sins, are forbidden; and wherever any duty is commanded, all duties of the same kind, and all the means of performing them, are commanded.

O. What is the fourth rule?

A. That whatever we ourselves are bound to, we are ts bliged to do what in us lieth to cause others to do the same..

Q. What is the fifth rule? A, That that which is

forbidden may never be done; but actions required, are only to be performed when God giveth opportunity.

Q^What is the sixth rule?

A. That the same sin is forbidden, and the same duty required, in different respects, in many commandments.

Q. Where, and to whom, were the ten coronu nds most solemnly delivered A. To Moses, and the children

of Israel, at mount Sinai, Exod. xx.

Q. How were the commands there delivered?

A. God solemnly proclaimed and wrote them.

Q. What solemnity attended God’s proclamation of the law?

A. Terrible thunders and lightnings, Exod. xix.

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Q. What was the design of this? A-, To shew

how dangerous it is to be under the law as a covenant, or to break it as a rule of life, Gal. iii. 10. Deut. iv. 24.

Q. Whether was it the covenant of works, or of grace, “which was delivered at Sinai? A. The law simply,

as given with such awful solemnity, was the covenant of .works, published to drive Israel to Christ; but the covenant of grace was delivered in the preface and ceremonies.

Qj On what did God write the ten commands?

A. On two tables of stone, Deut. x. 4.

O. Why did God write his law on tables of etone?

A. To shew the perpetual obligation of the law*, and to represent the natural hardness of our hearts in which the Spirit writes it, Jer. xxxi. 33. Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27.

Qj Why did God write his law on two tables?

A. To distinguish our duty to God from cur duty to man.

Q. How many commandments were written in each table? A. Four in the first, and six in the second.