A CATECHISM: EMBRACING THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY, DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, FAMILIES, AND BIBLE CLASSES. BY THE REV. WILLIAM COOKE, PRICE THREEPENCE. LONDON: METHODIST NEW CONNEXION BOOK-ROOM, SOLD ALSO BY PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1851. PETTER, DUFF, AND CO. CRANE COURT, FLEET STREET. 136 PREFACE. THIS Catechism is intended chiefly for the use of senior scholars and families. The author has endea voured to furnish a general view of the great topics of doctrinal, experimental, and practical religion and by inculcating evangelical truth, apart from the points of sectarian controversy, to render the Cate chism adapted to children of all Christian denomina tions. He has studied to combine simplicity wit efficiency, and brevity with fulness. As all religiou truth rests on the basis of Holy Scripture, and as th design of this manual is to stimulate to the study c the Sacred Volume, the Author has fortified hi answers by numerous quotations from the Divin records. In using the Catechism, the Author would recor mend the Tutor to require his pupils, in the first plac to read the whole carefully through, and subsequent ́ to commit the answers to memory, in such portio as may be adapted to the age, capacity, and oppc tunities of the learners, accompanying the rehears with such further explanations and observations the several topics may suggest. The careful perus of the questions and the scriptural quotations may 1 sufficient, without taxing the mind with a verba committing of them to the memory. A single answe each day, or six in the course of the week, would carry the pupil through the whole in about nine months. LONDON, May 17, 1851. W. C. FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS, FAMILIES, AND h in SECTION I. GOD AND HIS ATTRIBUTES. 1. You have learned the great truth that there is a God; give me, in a few words, your views of God. God is that great and glorious Being who created all things, and whom it is our duty to love, worship, and obey. DI "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."-Matthew iv. 10. t 2. Is the nature of God material, like that of o the human body, and like other substances in the cworld around us? No: God is a spirit; and a spirit hath not flesh and bones, nor any of those gross properties which belong to matter.-John iv. 24; Luke xxiv. 39. 3. You have said that God is a great and glorious Being; what do you mean by those terms? I mean that he is an infinite Being, and that all his attributes and perfections are infinitely great and glorious. "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable."-I's. cxlv. 3; Job xi. 7. A |