INTRODUCTION. I. Religion.-II. Its necessity.-III. Natural and revealed religion.-IV. Old and new law.-V. Necessity of faith and good works. I. [1] RELIGION is the science which teaches man to know God and how to worship him. II. [2] The existence of God as the creator and sovereign Lord of all, proves the necessity of religion in all beings that possess the use of reason: for, God could not have endowed any of his creatures with will, memory, and understanding, without requiring them to use those faculties in serving him. III. [3] Religion may be distinguished into two kinds, natural and revealed. [4] Natural religion, or as it is otherwise called the law of nature, is that primitive worship which the Almighty prescribed to our first parent, and the patriarchs, his descendants. [5] Revealed religion are those two more explicit modes of worship, one of which the Almighty revealed to the Jewish people through the ministry of Moses and other B prophets; and the other in after time, to the whole world through his son Jesus Christ. IV. [6] Those truths, which were made known to the Jews through the voice of Moses and the prophets, are called the old law, and they are so named, because the various ceremonies of that law, which were merely figurative of what Jesus Christ was afterwards to establish, were abrogated when he came into the world. [7] The new law, then, is the doctrine which was preached by Jesus Christ, which his apostles promulgated throughout the world, and which will be handed down to the end of time in the church which they established. V. Some things, which God has revealed, merely require our belief; others relate to our practise. Both, however, are equally binding upon all men; that is to say, we are as much obliged, under pain of eternal damnation, to believe what God has taught as we are to practise the good works which he has commanded: [8] for he who has said, that faith without good works is dead (a) or of no avail, has also assured us that without faith it is impossible to please God. (b) Hence it follows that to attain salvation it does not suffice, as many ignorant persons imagine, to wish well to every one, and to do no injury by word or deed to others, but that we must, moreover, be true christians, by believing all those truths which God has taught, and by avoiding all (a) St. James xx. 26. the evil which he has forbidden, and practising the particular virtues which he has commanded. The following treatise, therefore, is divided into two parts in the first is laid down the substance of what christians are obliged to believe, (a) in the second are explained the evil which they are commanded to avoid, and the good which they are required to practice. (a) The compiler would not have it supposed that he considers every article contained in the first part to be strictly speaking an article of faith. He has, however, laid down nothing as a point of doctrine which is not universally believed in the catholic church. PART THE® FIRST, WHAT CHRISTIANS ARE OBLIGED TO BELIEVE. CHAPTER THE FIRST. I. Unity of God,-II. Trinity. I. [1] THERE is one and only one God. [2] This God is a pure spirit without body or parts; he is eternal, without beginning, ending, or change; he is the Lord and, maker of heaven and earth; he is every where present; he knows, sees, and governs all things; he can do whatever he pleases, and is infinite in all perfections.. II. [3] Although there is, only one God, yet this one God exists in three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. [4] This is called the mystery of the blessed trinity. (a) [5] The Father proceeds from no one; the Son proceeds from the Father, only; and the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son. [6] No one of these three divine persons is greater than the others, because all are (a) Mat, xxviii. 19. Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. 1 John y. 7. There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. |