Westminster Larger Catechism

The Westminster Larger Catechism expands on the Shorter in 196 questions and answers, with fuller treatment of the law, the sacraments, prayer, and the church.

Each question has its own page below. To read the whole of the Westminster Standards over a year, one short reading a day, see Westminster Daily.

• Q1. What is the chief and highest end of man?
• Q2. How doth it appear that there is a God?
• Q3. What is the Word of God?
• Q4. How doth it appear that the Scriptures are the Word of God?
• Q5. What do the Scriptures principally teach?
• Q6. What do the Scriptures make known of God?
• Q7. What is God?
• Q8. Are there more Gods than one?
• Q9. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
• Q10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
• Q11. How doth it appear that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father?
• Q12. What are the decrees of God?
• Q13. What hath God especially decreed concerning angels and men?
• Q14. How doth God execute his decrees?
• Q15. What is the work of creation?
• Q16. How did God create angels?
• Q17. How did God create man?
• Q18. What are God’s works of providence?
• Q19. What is God’s providence towards the angels?
• Q20. What was the providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created?
• Q21. Did man continue in that estate wherein God at first created him?
• Q22. Did all mankind fall in that first transgression?
• Q23. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
• Q24. What is sin?
• Q25. Wherein consisteth the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
• Q26. How is original sin conveyed from our first parents unto their posterity?
• Q27. What misery did the fall bring upon mankind?
• Q28. What are the punishments of sin in this world?
• Q29. What are the punishments of sin in the world to come?
• Q30. Doth God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
• Q31. With whom was the covenant of grace made?
• Q32. How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant?
• Q33. Was the covenant of grace always administered after one and the same manner?
• Q34. How was the covenant of grace administered under the old testament?
• Q35. How is the covenant of grace administered under the new testament?
• Q36. Who is the Mediator of the covenant of grace?
• Q37. How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
• Q38. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God?
• Q39. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be man?
• Q40. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one person?
• Q41. Why was our Mediator called Jesus?
• Q42. Why was our Mediator called Christ?
• Q43. How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?
• Q44. How doth Christ execute the office of a priest?
• Q45. How doth Christ execute the office of a king?
• Q46. What was the estate of Christ’s humiliation?
• Q47. How did Christ humble himself in his conception and birth?
• Q48. How did Christ humble himself in his life?
• Q49. How did Christ humble himself in his death?
• Q50. Wherein consisted Christ’s humiliation after his death?
• Q51. What was the estate of Christ’s exaltation?
• Q52. How was Christ exalted in his resurrection?
• Q53. How was Christ exalted in his ascension?
• Q54. How is Christ exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God?
• Q55. How doth Christ make intercession?
• Q56. How is Christ to be exalted in his coming again to judge the world?
• Q57. What benefits hath Christ procured by his mediation?
• Q58. How do we come to be made partakers of the benefits which Christ hath procured?
• Q59. Who are made partakers of redemption through Christ?
• Q60. Can they who have never heard the gospel, and so know not Jesus Christ, nor believe in him, be saved by their living according to the light of nature?
• Q61. Are all they saved who hear the gospel, and live in the church?
• Q62. What is the visible church?
• Q63. What are the special privileges of the visible church?
• Q64. What is the invisible church?
• Q65. What special benefits do the members of the invisible church enjoy by Christ?
• Q66. What is that union which the elect have with Christ?
• Q67. What is effectual calling?
• Q68. Are the elect only effectually called?
• Q69. What is the communion in grace which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?
• Q70. What is justification?
• Q71. How is justification an act of God’s free grace?
• Q72. What is justifying faith?
• Q73. How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God?
• Q74. What is adoption?
• Q75. What is sanctification?
• Q76. What is repentance unto life?
• Q77. Wherein do justification and sanctification differ?
• Q78. Whence ariseth the imperfection of sanctification in believers?
• Q79. May not true believers, by reason of their imperfections, and the many temptations and sins they are overtaken with, fall away from the state of grace?
• Q80. Can true believers be infallibly assured that they are in the estate of grace, and that they shall persevere therein unto salvation?
• Q81. Are all true believers at all times assured of their present being in the estate of grace, and that they shall be saved?
• Q82. What is the communion in glory which the members of the invisible church have with Christ?
• Q83. What is the communion in glory with Christ which the members of the invisible church enjoy in this life?
• Q84. Shall all men die?
• Q85. Death being the wages of sin, why are not the righteous delivered from death, seeing all their sins are forgiven in Christ?
• Q86. What is the communion in glory with Christ, which the members of the invisible church enjoy immediately after death?
• Q87. What are we to believe concerning the resurrection?
• Q88. What shall immediately follow after the resurrection?
• Q89. What shall be done to the wicked at the day of judgment?
• Q90. What shall be done to the righteous at the day of judgment?
• Q91. What is the duty which God requireth of man?
• Q92. What did God at first reveal unto man as the rule of his obedience?
• Q93. What is the moral law?
• Q94. Is there any use of the moral law to man since the fall?
• Q95. Of what use is the moral law to all men?
• Q96. What particular use is there of the moral law to unregenerate men?
• Q97. What special use is there of the moral law to the regenerate?
• Q98. Where is the moral law summarily comprehended?
• Q99. What rules are to be observed for the right understanding of the Ten Commandments?
• Q100. What special things are we to consider in the Ten Commandments?
• Q101. What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?
• Q102. What is the sum of the four commandments which contain our duty to God?
• Q103. Which is the first commandment?
• Q104. What are the duties required in the first commandment?
• Q105. What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment?
• Q106. What are we specially taught by these words before me in the first commandment?
• Q107. Which is the second commandment?
• Q108. What are the duties required in the second commandment?
• Q109. What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
• Q110. What are the reasons annexed to the second commandment, the more to enforce it?
• Q111. Which is the third commandment?
• Q112. What is required in the third commandment?
• Q113. What are the sins forbidden in the third commandment?
• Q114. What reasons are annexed to the third commandment?
• Q115. Which is the fourth commandment?
• Q116. What is required in the fourth commandment?
• Q117. How is the Sabbath or the Lord’s Day to be sanctified?
• Q118. Why is the charge of keeping the Sabbath more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors?
• Q119. What are the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment?
• Q120. What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment, the more to enforce it?
• Q121. Why is the word Remember set in the beginning of the fourth commandment?
• Q122. What is the sum of the six commandments which contain our duty to man?
• Q123. Which is the fifth commandment?
• Q124. Who are meant by father and mother in the fifth commandment?
• Q125. Why are superiors styled father and mother?
• Q126. What is the general scope of the fifth commandment?
• Q127. What is the honor that inferiors owe to their superiors?
• Q128. What are the sins of inferiors against their superiors?
• Q129. What is required of superiors towards their inferiors?
• Q130. What are the sins of superiors?
• Q131. What are the duties of equals?
• Q132. What are the sins of equals?
• Q133. What is the reason annexed to the fifth commandment, the more to enforce it?
• Q134. Which is the sixth commandment?
• Q135. What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?
• Q136. What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?
• Q137. Which is the seventh commandment?
• Q138. What are the duties required in the seventh commandment?
• Q139. What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment?
• Q140. Which is the eighth commandment?
• Q141. What are the duties required in the eighth commandment?
• Q142. What are the sins forbidden in the eighth commandment?
• Q143. Which is the ninth commandment?
• Q144. What are the duties required in the ninth commandment?
• Q145. What are the sins forbidden in the ninth commandment?
• Q146. Which is the tenth commandment?
• Q147. What are the duties required in the tenth commandment?
• Q148. What are the sins forbidden in the tenth commandment?
• Q149. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?
• Q150. Are all transgressions of the law of God equally heinous in themselves, and in the sight of God?
• Q151. What are those aggravations that make some sins more heinous than others?
• Q152. What doth every sin deserve at the hands of God?
• Q153. What doth God require of us, that we may escape his wrath and curse due to us by reason of the transgression of the law?
• Q154. What are the outward means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation?
• Q155. How is the Word made effectual to salvation?
• Q156. Is the Word of God to be read by all?
• Q157. How is the Word of God to be read?
• Q158. By whom is the Word of God to be preached?
• Q159. How is the Word of God to be preached by those that are called thereunto?
• Q160. What is required of those that hear the Word preached?
• Q161. How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation?
• Q162. What is a sacrament?
• Q163. What are the parts of a sacrament?
• Q164. How many sacraments hath Christ instituted in his church under the new testament?
• Q165. What is baptism?
• Q166. Unto whom is baptism to be administered?
• Q167. How is our baptism to be improved by us?
• Q168. What is the Lord’s Supper?
• Q169. How hath Christ appointed bread and wine to be given and received in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper?
• Q170. How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord’s supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein?
• Q171. How are they that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to prepare themselves before they come unto it?
• Q172. May one who doubteth of his being in Christ, or of his due preparation, come to the Lord’s Supper?
• Q173. May any who profess the faith, and desire to come to the Lord’s Supper, be kept from it?
• Q174. What is required of them that receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the time of the administration of it?
• Q175. What is the duty of Christians, after they have received the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper?
• Q176. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper agree?
• Q177. Wherein do the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper differ?
• Q178. What is prayer?
• Q179. Are we to pray unto God only?
• Q180. What is it to pray in the name of Christ?
• Q181. Why are we to pray in the name of Christ?
• Q182. How doth the Spirit help us to pray?
• Q183. For whom are we to pray?
• Q184. For what things are we to pray?
• Q185. How are we to pray?
• Q186. What rule hath God given for our direction in the duty of prayer?
• Q187. How is the Lord’s Prayer to be used?
• Q188. Of how many parts doth the Lord’s Prayer consist?
• Q189. What doth the preface of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?
• Q190. What do we pray for in the first petition?
• Q191. What do we pray for in the second petition?
• Q192. What do we pray for in the third petition?
• Q193. What do we pray for in the fourth petition?
• Q194. What do we pray for in the fifth petition?
• Q195. What do we pray for in the sixth petition?
• Q196. What doth the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer teach us?