What Do the Scriptures Principally Teach?

Answ. The scriptures principally teach, what
man is to believe concerning God, and what
duty God requires of man.

O. What things do the scriptures chiefly teach?

A. Matters of faith and practice, 2 Tim. iii. 16.

Q. What doth faith or believing mean?

A. An assenting to the testimony of another.

Q. How may faith, as to the authority on which it depends, be distinguished? A. Into human and divine.

Q. Wherein do human and divine faith differ?

A. In their foundation and firmness.

Q. How do they differ as to their foundation?

A. Human faith believes a report upon the testimony of man j but divine faith believes it upon the footing of God’s testimony, Exod. iv. 30, 31. Psalm iv. 20.

Q. How do they differ in their firmness of assent?

A. Human faith admits, that the report which it credits may possibly be false; but divine doth not, Tit. i. 2.

Q^ With what faith ought we to believe the whole scriptures, and them only? A. With a divine faith.

Q^ How may faith, as to its effects, be distinguished?

A. Into historical faith; the faith of miracles; temporary faith, and saving faith.

Q^ What is historical faith?

A. The believing scripture-truths as we do historical reports, in which our own welfare is not deeply concerned, Exod. iv. 13.

Q. What is the faith of miracles?

A. The believing that God will work such a miracle upon, or for us.

Q. What is temporary faith? A. An affecting

persuasion of divine truths, and presumptuous leaning on the promises for a time, without receiving Christ as our only Saviour, Matth. xiii. 20, — 22. Acts viii. 13.

Q^ What is saving faith? A. That by which we

credit the whole word of God, and receive Christ in it, to the saving of cur souls, Horn. x. 10.

£) What call you matters of practice or duty required of man? A. Whatever man owes to God, to himself, or to others, Mic. vi. 8.

Q. Whether must duty or faith be first in order?

A. Faith: for till we believe the love of God, and receive Christ as our strength, it is impossible for us to please God, Luke i. 74, 75. Heb. xi. 6.

Q. Will true faith produce true obedience?

A. Yes: faith worketk by love, Gal. v. 6, 22, 23.

Q. Who then shine most in holy obedience?

A. Those who are strongest in faith, Rom. iv. 20.