1563AD


Lord’s Day 1

  • 1. What is your only comfort in life and death?
  • 2. How many things are necessary for you to know, that in this comfort you may live and die happily?

FIRST PART: OF MAN’S MISERY

Lord’s Day 2

  • 3. From where do you know your misery?
  • 4. What does the Law of God require of us?
  • 5. Can you keep all this perfectly?

Lord’s Day 3

  • 6. Did God create man wicked and perverse?
  • 7. From where, then, does this depraved nature of man come?
  • 8. But are we so depraved that we are completely incapable of any good and prone to all evil?

Lord’s Day 4

  • 9. Does not God, then, do injustice to man by requiring of him in His Law that which he cannot perform?
  • 10. Will God allow such disobedience and apostacy to go unpunished?
  • 11. But is not God also merciful?

SECOND PART: OF MAN’S REDEMPTION

Lord’s Day 5

  • 12. Since, then, by the righteous judgement of God we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, how may we escape this punishment and be again received into favour?
  • 13. Can we ourselves make this satisfaction?
  • 14. Can any mere creature make satisfaction for us?
  • 15. What kind of mediator and redeemer, then, must we seek?

Lord’s Day 6

  • 16. Why must he be a true and righteous man?
  • 17. Why must he also be true God?
  • 18. But who now is that Mediator, who in one person is true God and also a true and righteous man?
  • 19. From where do you know this?

Lord’s Day 7

  • 20. Are all men, then, saved by Christ as they have perished in Adam?
  • 21. What is true faith?
  • 22. What, then, is necessary for a Christian to believe?
  • 23. What are these articles?

Lord’s Day 8

  • 24. How are these articles divided?
  • 25. Since there is but one Divine Being (Deut 6:4), why do you speak of three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

OF GOD THE FATHER

Lord’s Day 9

  • 26. What do you believe when you say: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth”?

Lord’s Day 10

  • 27. What do you understand by the providence of God?
  • 28. What does it profit us to know that God created, and by His providence upholds, all things?

OF GOD THE SON

Lord’s Day 11

  • 29. Why is the Son of God called ‘Jesus’, that is, Saviour?
  • 30. Do those also believe in the only Savoiur Jesus, who seek their salvation and welfare from “saints”, themselves, or anywhere else?

Lord’s Day 12

  • 31. Why is He called “Christ,” that is, Anointed?
  • 32. But why are you called a Christian?

Lord’s Day 13

  • 33. Why is He called God’s “only begotten Son”, since we also are the children of God?
  • 34. Why do you call Him “our Lord”?

Lord’s Day 14

  • 35. What is the meaning of “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary”?
  • 36. What benefit do you receive from the holy conception and birth of Christ?

Lord’s Day 15

  • 37. What do you understand by the word “suffered”?
  • 38. Why did He suffer “under Pontius Pilate” as judge?
  • 39. Is there anything more in His having been “crucified” than if He had suffered some other death?

Lord’s Day 16

  • 40. Why was it necessary for Christ to suffer “death”?
  • 41. Why was he “buried”?
  • 42. Since, then, Christ died for us, why must we also die?
  • 43. What further benefit do we receive from the sacrifice and death of Christ on the cross?
  • 44. Why is it added “He descended into hell”?

Lord’s Day 17

  • 45. What benefit do we receive from the “resurrection” of Christ?

Lord’s Day 18

  • 46. What do you understand by the words “He ascended into heaven”?
  • 47. But is not Christ with us even to the end of the world (Matt 28:20), as He has promised?
  • 48. But re not, in this way, the two natures in Christ separated from one another, if the manhood is not wherever the Godhead is?

Lord’s Day 19

  • 49. What benefit do we receive from Christ’s ascension into heaven?
  • 50. Why is it added: “And sits at the right hand of God”?
  • 51. What does this glory of Christ, our Head, profit us?
  • 52. What comfort is it to you that Christ “shall come to judge the living and the dead”?

OF GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

Lord’s Day 20

  • 53. What do you believe concerning the “Holy Spirit”?

Lord’s Day 21

  • 54. What do you believe concerning the “Holy Catholic Church”?
  • 55. What do you understand by the “communion of saints”?
  • 56. What do you believe concerning the “forgiveness of sins”?

Lord’s Day 22

  • 57. What comfort do you receive from the “resurrection of the body”?
  • 58. What comfort do you receive from the article “life everlasting”?

Lord’s Day 23

  • 59. What does it help you now, that you believe all this?
  • 60. How are you righteous before God?
  • 61. Why do you say that you are righteous by faith only?

Lord’s Day 24

  • 62. But why cannot good works be the whole or part of our righteousness before God?
  • 63. Do our good works merit nothing, even though it is God’s will to reward them in this life and in that which is to come?
  • 64. But does not this doctrine make men careless and profane?

THE SACRAMENTS

Lord’s Day 25

  • 65. Since, then we are made partakers of Christ and all His benefits by faith only, where does this faith come from?
  • 66. What are the sacraments?
  • 67. Are both the Word and the sacraments designed to direct our faith to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation?
  • 68. How many sacraments has Christ instituted in the New Testament?

OF HOLY BAPTISM

Lord’s Day 26

  • 69. How is it signified and sealed to you in Holy Baptism that you have part in the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross?
  • 70. What is it to be washed with the blood and Spirit of Christ?
  • 71. Where has Christ promised that we are as certainly washed with His blood and Spirit as with the water of Baptism?

Lord’s Day 27

  • 72. Is, then, the outward washing with water itself the washing away of sins?
  • 73. Why then does the Holy Spirit call Baptism the washing of regeneration and the washing away of sins?
  • 74. Are infants to be baptized?

OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Lord’s Day 28

  • 75. How is it signified and sealed to you in the Lord’s Supper that you partake of the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross and all His benefits?
  • 76. What does it mean to eat the crucified body and drink the shed blood of Christ?
  • 77. Where has Christ promised that He will thus feed and nourish believers with His body and blood as certainly as they eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup?

Lord’s Day 29

  • 78. Do then, the bread and the wine become the real body and blood of Christ?
  • 79. Why then does Christ call the bread His body, and the cup His blood, or the New Testament in His blood, and the Apostle Paul, the communion of the body and blood of Christ?

Lord’s Day 30

  • 80. What difference is there between the Lord’s Supper and the Pope’s Mass?
  • 81. Who are to come to the table of the Lord?
  • 82. Are they, then, also to be admitted to this Supper who show themselves by their confession and life to be unbelieving and ungodly?

Lord’s Day 31

  • 83. What is the Office of Keys?
  • 84. How is the kingdom of heaven opened and shut by the preaching of the Holy Gospel?
  • 85. How is the kingdom of heaven shut and opened by Christian discipline?

THIRD PART: OF THANKFULNESS

Lord’s Day 32

  • 86. Since, then, we are redeemed from our misery by grace through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we do good works?
  • 87. Can they, then, not be saved who do not turn to God from their unthankful, impenitent life?

Lord’s Day 33

  • 88. In how many things does true repentance or conversion consist?
  • 89. What is the dying of the old man?
  • 90. What is making alive of the new man?
  • 91. What are good works?

THIRD PART: OF THE LAW OF GOD

Lord’s Day 34

  • 92. What is the Law of God?
  • 93. How are these Commandments divided?
  • 94. What does God require in the first commandment?
  • 95. What is idolatry?

Lord’s Day 35

  • 96. What does God require in the second Commandment?
  • 97. May we not make any image at all?
  • 98. But may not pictures be tolerated in churches as books for the people?

Lord’s Day 36

  • 99. What is required in the third Commandment?
  • 100. Is the profaning of God’s name, by swearing and cursing, so grievous a sin that His wrath is kindled against those also who do not help as much as they can to hinder and forbid it?

Lord’s Day 37

  • 101. But may we swear reverently by the name of God?
  • 102. May we swear by “the saints” or by any other creatures?

Lord’s Day 38

  • 103. What does God require in the fourth Commandment?

Lord’s Day 39

  • 104. What does God require in the fifth Commandment?

Lord’s Day 40

  • 105. What does God require in the sixth Commandment?
  • 106. Does this Commandment speak only of killing?
  • 107. But is this all that is required: that we do not kill our neighbor?

Lord’s Day 41

  • 108. What does the seventh Commandment teach us?
  • 109. Does God forbid nothing more in this Commandment than adultery and such gross sins?

Lord’s Day 42

  • 110. What does God forbid in the eighth Commandment?
  • 111. But what does God require of you in this Commandment?

Lord’s Day 43

  • 112. What does the ninth Commandment require?

Lord’s Day 44

  • 113. What does the tenth Commandment require?
  • 114. Can those who are converted to God keep these Commandments perfectly?
  • 115. Why then does God so strictly enjoin the Ten Commandments upon us, since in this life no one can keep them?

PRAYER

Lord’s Day 45

  • 116. Why is prayer necessary for Christians?
  • 117. What belongs to such prayer which is acceptable to God and which He will hear?
  • 118. What has God commanded us to ask of Him?
  • 119. What is the Lord’s prayer?

Lord’s Day 46

  • 120. Why did Christ command us to address God: “Our Father”?
  • 121. Why is it added “in heaven”?

Lord’s Day 47

  • 122. What is the first petition?

Lord’s Day 48

  • 123. What is the second petition?

Lord’s Day 49

  • 124. What is the third petition?

Lord’s Day 50

  • 125. What is the fourth petition?

Lord’s Day 51

  • 126. What is the fifth petition?

Lord’s Day 52

  • 127. What is the sixth petition?
  • 128. How do you close this Prayer?
  • 129. What is the meaning of the word “Amen”?