may the more easily bear it in your memories) I will knit it up in a few words, that when you be demanded, How understand you the first article of your belief? you may thus shortly answer: "I believe that God the Father hath made me and all creatures in heaven and earth; that he hath given to me, and conserveth my body and soul, reason, senses, eyes, ears, and all my other mem'bers. Also I believe that the same Almighty

Lord and God doth daily give to me, and to us all, meat, drink, clothes, wife, children, house, land, riches, cattle, and all things necessary to the maintenance of our lives; and that he doth daily defend, keep, and preserve us from all peril, and deliver us from all evil. And all this he doth of his own mere mercy and goodness, without our worthiness or deservings. For the which benefits it is our duty to render to him continual and everlasting thanks, to obey him in all things, and to take heed that we be not unkind to him that hath shewed such great kindness toward us.

KING EDWARD THE SIXTH'S CATECHISM.

Master. Seeing then God hath created all other things to serve man, and made man to obey, honour, and glorify him: what canst thou say more of the beginning and making of man?

Scholar. Even that which Moses wrote: that God shaped the first man of clay: and put into

him soul and life: then, that he cast Adam in a dead sleep, and brought forth a woman, whom he drew out of his side, to make her a companion with him of all his life and wealth. And therefore was man called Adam, because he took his beginning of the earth: and the woman called Eve, because she was appointed to be the mother of all living.

Mast. What image is that, after the likeness whereof, thou sayest that man was made?

Scho. That is most absolute righteousness, and perfect holiness; which most nearly belongeth to the very nature of God, and most clearly appeared in Christ; our new Adam. Of the which in us, there scarce are to be seen any sparkles,

NOWELL'S CATECHISM.

Scholar. Forasmuch as the mind of man is not able of itself to conceive the goodness and incomprehensibleness of the most good and most great God, we add further, that he is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things contained in them. By which words we signify that God is, as it were, in a glass to be beholden, and (so far as behoveth us) to be known in his works, and in the orderly course of the world. For when we see that same unmeasurable greatness of the world, and all the parts thereof, to be so framed, as they could not possibly in beauty be fairer, nor for

the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of the workman and builder thereof. For who is so

brutish, that in looking up to heaven doth not perceive that there is a God? Yea, for this cause specially it seemeth that God hath fashioned men out of the earth, tall and upright; that they should be beholders of things above and heavenly matters, and in beholding heaven might conceive the knowledge of him.

Master. How dost thou say that God created a all things.

Scho. That God, the most good and mighty Father, at the beginning and of nothing, by the power of his word, that is, of Jesus Christ his Son, framed and made this whole visible world, and all things whatsoever they be, that are contained therein, and also the uncorporal spirits, whom we call angels.

Mast. But dost thou think it godly to affirm that God created all spirits, even those wicked spirits whom we call devils?

Scho. God did not create them such; but they, by their own evilness, fell from their first creation, without hope of recovery, and so are they become evil, not by creation and nature, but by corruption of nature......

Mast. What hast thou then to say of the first beginning and creation of man?

Scho. That which Moses wrote; that is, that God fashioned the first man of clay, and breathed into him soul and life; and afterward, out of the side of man, being cast in a sleep, he took out

woman, and brought her into the world, to join her to man for a companion of his life. And therefore was man called Adam, because he took his beginning of the earth; and woman was called Eve, because she was ordained to be the mother of all living persons.

Mast. Whereas at this day there is to be seen in both sorts, both men and women, so great corruption, wickedness, and perverseness, did God create them such from the beginning?

Scho. Nothing less. For God being most perfectly good can make nothing but good. God therefore at the first, made man according to his own image and likeness.

instinct, to the destined sources of their security and maintenance ;-and to sustain in the human species the power of free-agency, according to that reasoning faculty with which man is alone endowed,-the power of acting according to the dictates of his judgment for the preservation and enjoyment of his life. Without this divine concurrence, man would no more possess the ability to act in conformity with reason, than the brute, destitute of reason, would be actuated by sufficient intelligence to provide against future and unforeseen necessities.

§ 7. The Government of God, which constitutes an essential branch of his Providence, is the absolute authority to which all natural causes are subservient,— by which the system of the universe is controuled,— and the peculiar effects and properties of all things in the material world rendered conducive to the accomplishment of his designs. This power extends no less to the disposal of those events which are called accidental or fortuitous, than to the direction of second causes. By the interposition of Providence, for especial reasons, that which appears casual becomes most essential, and the natural process of a series of causes and effects, is arrested or diverted from its course. Nothing, however inconsiderable, is beneath the knowledge and superintendance of the Almighty: nothing is excluded from his dominion and providential care. No events, however inconsistent with the usual course of things,--no circumstances, however unexpected, can occur without the cognizance of God. Nothing, therefore, is really accidental; since every thing must be either directed or permitted by