Also called the Method of Instruction in the Christian Religion. Composed at Heidelberg in 1563 by Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus at the request of Elector Frederick III of the Palatinate, and adopted by the Synod of Dort (1619) as one of the Three Forms of Unity. Its 129 questions and answers are arranged in three parts — of Man’s Misery, of Man’s Deliverance, and of Thankfulness — and divided into 52 Lord’s Days for weekly instruction. The original Scripture-proof letters have been omitted for readability.
1. Lord’s Day
Question 1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer. That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
Question 2. How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou, enjoying this comfort, mayest live and die happily?
Answer. Three; the first, how great my sins and miseries are; the second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries; the third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.
The First Part - Of The Misery Of Man
2. Lord’s Day
Question 3. Whence knowest thou thy misery?
Answer. Out of the law of God.
Question 4. What does the law of God require of us?
Answer. Christ teaches us that briefly, Matt. 22:37-40, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first and the great commandment; and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Question 5. Canst thou keep all these things perfectly?
Answer. In no wise; for I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbour.
3. Lord’s Day
Question 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?
Answer. By no means; but God created man good, and after his own image, in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him.
Question 7. Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?
Answer. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise; hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin.
Question 8. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness?
Answer. Indeed we are; except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.
4. Lord’s Day
Question 9. Does not God then do injustice to man, by requiring from him in his law, that which he cannot perform?
Answer. Not at all; for God made man capable of performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own wilful disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.
Question 10. Will God suffer such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished?
Answer. By no means; but is terribly displeased with our original as well as actual sins; and will punish them in his just judgment temporally and eternally, as he has declared, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”
Question 11. Is not God then also merciful?
Answer. God is indeed merciful, but also just; therefore his justice requires, that sin which is committed against the most high majesty of God, be also punished with extreme, that is, with everlasting punishment of body and soul.