But from the first years in which a child can think, to the latest, that is but seldom given to man, the full fourscore, there is no age in which I have not seen the hope in Christ sure, able to bear up the dying Christian, even in the shock of death. How can I be frightened to go to my Saviour?' was the answer I heard a dying child of six years old make to her mother's question-if she were afraid to die? 'I am content to suffer if I may but glorify my God,' said one stricken in the bloom of youth and beauty with agonizing pain, from which there was no escape but death. The Lord will provide,' said a strong man of forty, on whom death had set his seal, The Lord will provide for you, my wife, and for our little children; He never forsakes.' 'My Saviour,' were the only words that could be spoken by an old man, when every power of life was gone, and a smile of peace sent away the look of pain. His dim eyes closed, and he was gone to see Him face to face, whom he had served to the best of his knowledge here. These died in peace; they had fixed their hope upon a rock, and it failed them not. So, dear friends, may it be with you and with me, for Christ's sake. Amen. Prayer. "O thou to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of my heart by the indwelling of thy Holy Spirit, that I may worthily serve thee, and magnify thy holy name and word, all the days of my life, for the sake of Jesus Christ, my Lord, and my Redeemer, who is my hope. "In the hour of death and in the day of judgment, good Lord deliver us." Amen and Amen. * Common Prayer Book. QUESTIONS. INTRODUCTORY. ON THE CONNECTION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT WITH THE NEW. How is the Bible divided? I.-page 1. How is it that the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God? What do we learn in the Old Testament? What do we learn in the New Testament? What do we read in the beginning of the first chapter? Where did God put Adam and Eve when He had made them? Why were they the children of God? Why were they perfectly happy? What was to be the sign of the love and obedience of Adam and Eve, in return for all the happiness God had given them ? What was to happen if they did not obey the one commandment God gave them? Why did Satan hate Adam and Eve? What did he envy ? What did he know about their happiness? What did he determine? When did he think he had quite destroyed God's plans for their happiness? What change came when Satan had persuaded Adam and Eve to disobey God? What did Adam and Eve then know? Why were they driven out of the beautiful garden God had made for them? What does the Old and New Testament, that is, the whole Bible, tell us of? What was it written on purpose to do? II.-page 3. Into what was Adam and Eve's love for God changed? What did they hear that gave them hope? What did God say should be between the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan? What does the word seed mean? What is in the New Testament? What are the words of God's promise? What book is the history of the seed or son of the woman, who is to bruise Satan's head, and whose heel is to be bruised by him? What is the difference between a bruise on the head and a bruise on the heel? What will a bad wound on a man's head do? When shall we see God's promise made completely true? What shall we see in the history of the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament? Why have we continual reason to remember Satan's enmity against us? Did Adam and Eve stay in Paradise? What happened to the ground because of their sin? Why should every weed, every day's hard work, and every pain, and every sickness make us think of sin? What happens to the children of a very sick or a very poor man? Why are we, the children of Adam and Eve, sinners because they were sinners? What sort of disease is sin? What has it done to man? Before sin came, what did man naturally do? What does he naturally do now? III.-page 5. How was the promise of God first made? How was the promise afterwards repeated? What did God do as the world filled with people? What did every promise of the Saviour grow? In what books is all this written? How was it they were never destroyed? How old is the world now? IV.-page 7. What are we very apt to pass lightly over? What do we all know? What is it that we think little about? What teaches us to think about death? What is it that most plainly shows us the exceeding sinfulness of sin? What does God say to us in every pain we see or suffer? When do we feel what a terrible thing sin is? Why was Adam's sin the cause of so much misery What two things were before him? Out of what state did he pass? Into what state did he pass? Therefore, in what state were we, Adam's children, born? What is the difference between us and Adam and Eve? Why would you think it much worse for the son of a sick man to be a thief, than the son of a poor man? What would you rightly say of the sick man who was a thief? What would you say, if the sick man, who was a thief, had always lived with good people? Was Adam's sin worse than this? What was greater still than his sin? V.-page 9. What did God appoint as a sign of the promised Saviour? What were men taught by the innocent lamb's blood being shed for their sins? do Was there any thing in the blood of a beast that could in itself any good? For what reason then was the blood of animals to be offered in sacrifice? What did the death of the lamb show men in the first place? What did it also show him as in a picture? When the blood of the Lamb was shed, what was done with it? Of what was this a sign? Why could no son of Adam be a Saviour? What sort of Saviour was needed? How did man at first become a living soul? What do we see from this? Why must the promised Saviour be God? Why must he be also man? What did God so love the world as to do? What is promised to whosoever believeth in the Son? Of whom was the bleeding lamb in sacrifice a sign or picture? What were the people taught by it? What are we taught in the New Testament? VI.-page 11. When the world was filled with inhabitants, what did God choose? What did He establish among them? What did He give them the care of? What were their different names? What was their best name? What did God teach them the meaning of? What other sign did He give them of the Saviour? What was the High Priest appointed to do? Who only might go into the holy of holies? Of what was this a sign? What do we learn from the Old Testament? What promise was given which is fulfilled, and fully declared in the New Testament? Where is the history of the whole world found? What verse of Scripture has in it the history of the world? Which are the words of this verse which tell the history in the Old Testament? Which are the words of this verse which tell the history in the New Testament? As the time for the coming of Christ drew nearer, what happened? What was said about him? Where was it said He should be born? Who was to be sent before him? |