THE SHORTER CATECHISM.

INTRODUCTION.

QUEST. 1. What is the chief end of man?

ANS. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for

ever.

1 Cor. x. 31. Whether therefore ye eat, | my heart faileth: but God is the strength or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

1 COR. vi. 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Ps. lxxiii. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. Ver. 26. My flesh and

of my heart, and my portion for ever.

ISA. xliii. 21. This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth my praise.

ROM. xiv. 8. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.

1. Man's chief end is the fulfilment of God's design in his creation.-There is design in a watch: its end is to fulfil that design. This is so in all the works of God, but especially in man. Man is a creature, and adapted to the design of his Creator.

II. Man's chief end is to glorify God.-This is in reference to God-the claim of duty.

1. What is it to glorify God? His essential glory cannot be increased, but his glory may be declared. This is done by all creation, animate and inanimate, rational and irrational: Ps. xix. The heavens declare his glory, and all his works praise him: Ps. cxlv. 10. Man is to glorify God intelligently and actively.

2. How is God to be glorified by man? By knowing and loving him; and by serving him in heart, word, and deed.

III. Man's chief end is to enjoy God for ever.-This is in reference to himself -the experience of advantage.

1. What is it to enjoy God? It is love and happiness in the knowledge and love of God. It is to rest in him, Ps. cxvi. 7, and to be in union with him.

2. How are we to enjoy God? By the means which he has appointed. By the study of his Word, the exercise of prayer, and by faith and love.

3. Where are we to enjoy God? It can be done here in this life partially, when he is known by his forgiving love and quickening grace. It will be done fully hereafter.

LESSONS.

1. Sinners cannot glorify or enjoy God except through Christ. He is the only Mediator and Saviour: 1 Tim. ii. 5.

They are in

2. Believers in Christ are bound to glorify and enjoy God. the light, and must shine; are planted, and must bear fruit; are God's children, and are to be like him and with him.

3. Heaven may be really begun on earth: Col. iii. 1, 2.

ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

George Herbert has illustrated this subject in the following quaint verse :— "O that I were an orange tree,

That busy plant!

Then I would always laden be,
And never want

Some fruit for Him that dresseth me."

Lady Glenorchy in her diary relates that she was being seized with a fever which threatened her life, during the course of which," she says, "the first question of the Assembly's Catechism was brought to my mind, 'What is the chief end of man?' as if some one had asked it. When I considered the answer to it, 'To glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever,' I was struck with shame and confusion. I found I had never sought to glorify God in my life; nor had any idea of what was meant by enjoying him for ever. Death and judgment were set before me; my past sins came to my remembrance; I saw no way to escape the punishment due unto them, nor had I the least glimmering hope of obtaining the pardon of them through the righteousness of another." From this unhappy state she was shortly after delivered by believing in the Lord Jesus as the only Saviour of the guilty. She employed her subsequent life in the service of God, and had her happiness in God.

An eminent minister, after having been silent in company for a considerable time, on being asked the reason, signified that the powers of his mind had been solemnly absorbed with the thought of eternal happiness. "Oh, my friends," said he, with an energy that surprised all present, "consider what it is to be for ever with the Lord-for ever, for ever, for ever!" The Rev. Dr. James Hamilton said: "At present Jesus is constantly near his but his own do not constantly desire to be near to him. Here, it is only by faith that believers enjoy his presence; there, they shall see him as he is. Now, the Lord Jesus follows his own whithersoever they go, but they do not always follow him. Then, it will be different, for they will follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. And all that is wanting to complete the promise is what death's twinkling will supply. Now, it is, 'Lo, I am with

own,

you alway;' and then, it is, 'And so shall we be ever with the Lord.' 'Ever with the Lord.' At once, and for ever. At once! for absent from the body we are present with him. So near is Jesus now that--like the infant waking from its dream, it looks up, and lo! she sits beside it-waking up from this life-dream, the first sight is Jesus as he is. At once! no flight through immensity, no pilgrimage of the spheres; for the everlasting arms are the first resting-place of the disembodied soul. It will be in the bosom of Immanuel that the emancipated spirit will inquire, 'Where am I?' and read in the face of Jesus the answer, 'For ever with the Lord.' For ever! To be with him for a few years, as one way with another John and Peter were; to be with him one Lord's day, as the beloved disciple subsequently was; to be with him a few moments, as Paul caught up into the third heaven was-how blessed! But to be ever with the Lord!-not to-day only, but to-morrow, -nay, neither to-day nor to-morrow, but now, now, one everlasting now." For ever with the Lord!'

666

Amen-so let it be !

Life from the dead is in that word;
'Tis immortality.

Here, in the body pent,

Absent from him I roam,

Yet nightly pitch my moving tent

A day's march nearer home."-Montgomery.

The

The Rev. James Hervey used to take his Hebrew Bible or Greek Testament with him to the tea-table and start a conversation upon a verse. Rev. W. Romaine, one of his friends, said, "This was generally an improving season. The glory of God is seldom promoted at the tea-table, but it was at Mr. Hervey's. Drinking tea with him was like being at an ordinance; for it was sanctified by the word of God and prayer."

"Two things," said the Rev. S. Pierce, " are causes of daily astonishment to me:-the readiness of Christ to come from heaven to earth for me; and my backwardness to rise from earth to heaven with him. But, oh! how animating the prospect! A time approaches when Christians shall rise to sink no more-to be 'for ever with the Lord!' To be with the Lord for a week, for a day, for an hour-how sweetly must the moments pass! but to be for ever with the Lord-that enstamps salvation with perfection, that gives energy to our hopes, and a dignity to our joy, so as to render it unspeakable and full of glory."

Dr. Payson said, after long and severe affliction endured by him, "God has been cutting off one source of enjoyment after another, till I find that I can do without them all and yet enjoy more happiness than ever in my life before. There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, for I have no desire but that God's will may be accomplished."

The venerable philosopher Thomas Carlyle said in 1876: "The older I grow (and I now stand on the brink of eternity) the more comes back to me the first sentence in the Catechism, which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes, ‘What is the chief end of man? To glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.'

The Rev. Dr. Humphrey also made a statement to this effect: "For myself, though I confess with shame, when my mother used to give me my little task, and teach me the chief end of man, I would gladly have been excused from both, and wondered what good thing they could ever do me. I subsequently found abundant cause to be thankful for her fidelity and perseverance. I was astonished, when I began to read the Bible seriously, and to collect and arrange its doctrines, to find what a fund of definitions and important scriptural truths I had treasured up for the occasion. This, I doubt not, accords with the experience of thousands who, like myself, once loathed the Assembly's Catechism."

"When I was about to leave Berlin on my return to America," said the eminent Dr. Charles Hodge of Princeton, "the friends whom God had given me in that city were kind enough to send me an album, in which they had severally written their names and a few lines of remarks. What Neander wrote was in Greek, and included these words, 'Nothing in oneself; all things in the Lord, whom alone to serve is a glory and a joy.'"

"A charge to keep I have,

A God to glorify,

A never-dying soul to save,

And fit it for the sky."-Wesley.

QUEST. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?

ANS. The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

EPH. ii. 20. And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.

2 TIM. iii. 16. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

HEB. i. 1. God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Ver. 2. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.

2 PETER i. 21. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

ROM. XV. 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

ISA. viii. 20. To the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

Ps. xix. 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

JER. X. 23. The way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.

Ps. cxix. 105. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

I. Man needs a rule to direct him in fulfilling the chief end of his being.— The light of nature is not sufficient to guide: Jer. x. 23. This is confessed by convicted sinners: Acts ii. 37, xvi. 30.

II. God has revealed a rule in his Word.—It is a revelation from God, not a philosophy of man: Micah vi. 8; Ps. cxix. 9.

III. The rule of faith and duty is a writing.—It is the mind of God in the language of men. It was written partly in Hebrew and partly in Greek, and a very small part in Chaldee: Ezra iv. 8-vii. 27 (letters, decrees, etc.); Jer. x. 11; Dan. ii. 4-vii. Translated into English by Wicliffe out of the Vulgate, 1378; by Tyndale from the Original, 1526; by Coverdale, 1538; and by forty-seven divines in 1611 (the Authorized Version-now revised). IV. It is contained in the Old and New Testaments.—The Old, in Hebrew, contains 39 books by thirty authors: they are historical, poetical, and prophetical. The New, in Greek, contains 27 books by eight authors: they are historical, doctrinal, and prophetical. Thus there is very great variety.

V. The Scriptures are genuine and authentic.-They were written by the authors whose names they bear. Evidence is copious, various, conclusive. Dr. Kennicott collated 630 manuscripts, and De Rossi 734, in Hebrew; 600 manuscripts have been examined in Greek. They relate facts--supported by contemporary and credible testimony.

The Scriptures were received as authentic in the early Church. Our Lord and his apostles, as well as the Jewish Church, received the Old Testament as the word of God. There are 263 direct quotations from the Old Testament in the New with this reference, and about 350 allusions in other places. In the first four centuries as many as 50 authors testify to facts of the gospel narrative. They refer to the New Testament as Scripture.

VI. The Scriptures are the word of God. This is proved by various lines of argument:

1. External evidences, such as history, prophecy, miracles.

2. Internal evidences, such as the character of Christ, and their purity, harmony, and adaptation to man. They profess to be inspired by God: 2 Tim. iii. 16.

VII. The Scriptures are the rule of our faith and duty.

1. They are the only rule: Isa. viii. 20; Micah vi. 6-9.

2. They are an infallible rule: Ps. cxix. 160.

3. They are a perfect rule: 2 Tim. iii. 15-17; Gal. i. 8, 9.

4. They are a plain rule: John v. 39.

LESSONS.

1. The Bible is the best book, and should therefore be most studied. 2. God's Holy Spirit is promised to interpret it, and should be sought. 3. The Bible should be obeyed.

ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

When the Duke of Wellington, then Sir Arthur Wellesley, was in India, an officer dining at the mess where he presided was sporting infidel sentiments. Sir Arthur, wishing to put down such conversation, said, "Sdid you ever read Paley's 'Evidences'?" The reply was in the negative "Well, then," said Sir Arthur, "you had better read that book before you talk in the way you are doing." The occurrence passed away, and the conversation was soon forgotten, but the reference to Paley's work led Colonel