By Henry Tuberville, D.D.
AN ABRIDGMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE: WITH PROOFS OF SCRIPTURE ON POINTS
CONTROVERTED BY WAY OF QUESTION AND ANSWER. COMPOSED IN 1649, BY REV. HENRY
TUBERVILLE, D.D., OF THE ENGLISH COLLEGE OF DOUAY:
NOW APPROVED AND RECOMMENDED FOR HIS DIOCESE, BY THE RIGHT REV. BENEDICT
BISHOP OF BOSTON.
"This is the way, walk ye in it." - Isaiah xxx. 21
NEW YORK: P. J. KENEDY, EXCELSIOR CATHOLIC PUBLISHING HOUSE,5 BARCLAY STREET
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THE AUTHOR TO THE READER
THE principle part of the Catechism is an Abridgment of the Christian
Doctrine; defended and cleared by proofs of scripture, in points
controverted between Catholics and Sectaries; and explained by the familiar
way of question and answer.
To this, in the former impressions, was only adjoined a necessary
exposition of the Mass, our Lady's Office, and the festival days of the
year, but to this last edition is added, an Explanation of certain
ceremonies of the Church, which now renders it more complete for instructing
the ignorant, in the whole doctrine and discipline of the Catholic Church.
Besides I have corrected some false citations, and other errata, which by
the printer's negligence, occurred in the former impressions.
Peruse it, good reader, with such charity as I have penned it, and if by
it perusal thou shalt become more knowing in the law of Christ, and in
practice more dutiful to God, and thy neighbour, it will abundantly
recompense the labour of Thy well-wishing friend and servant in CHRIST.
- H T
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APPROBATION
CUM Liber inscriptus, An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, &c. authore
viro docto H. T. mihi probe note, intertia Editione, quam non indiligenter
perlegi, nihil contineat contra sanam Doctrinam vel bonos Mores; multa vero
partim scitu necessaria, partim valde utilia, dilucide & succincte, in Fide
Catholica instituen dis proponat, dignum censeo qui ob publicam utilitatem
Typis evulgetur.
Datum Duaci, Martii 11, 1649.
Gulielmus Hydeus, S. T. D., ac professor,
Colligii Anglorum Duacensis Pręses
& Librorum Censor.
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APPROBATION.
WE feel pleasure in recommending to the faithful of our Diocese this edition
of "An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine, with proofs of Scripture on
points controverted," as we have found it essentially conformable to the
Dublin edition of 1820, of the correctness of which we entertain no doubt.
+ BENEDICT, Bp Bn.
Boston, April 24th, 1833
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CONTENTS
1. What a Christian is: and of the blessed Trinity
2. Faith explained
3. The Creed expounded in twelve Articles
4. Hope and Prayer explained
5. The Pater Noster, or our Lord's Prayer expounded
6. The Hail Mary, or Angelical Salutation expounded
7. Charity expounded
8. Of the Commandments in general,
The first Commandment expounded,
The second Commandment expounded,
The third Commandment expounded,
The fourth Commandment expounded,
The fifth Commandment expounded,
The sixth Commandment expounded,
The seventh Commandment expounded,
The eighth Commandment expounded,
The ninth and tenth Commandments expounded,
9. The Precepts of the Church expounded,
10. The Counsels of Christ and his Church expounded,
11. Of the Sacraments in general,
Baptism expounded,
Confirmation expounded,
The Eucharist expounded,
Penance expounded,
Extreme Unction expounded,
Holy Order expounded,
Matrimony expounded,
12. The Cardinal virtues expounded,
13. The Gifts of the Holy Ghost expounded,
14. The twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost expounded,
15. The Works of Mercy, (Corporal and Spiritual) expounded,
16. The eight Beatitudes,
17. The Kinds of Sin expounded,
18. The seven Deadly Sins expounded,
19. The Sins against the Holy Ghost expounded,
20. The Sins that cry to Heaven for Vengeance expounded,
21. The four last things expounded,
22. The substance of Essence, and Ceremonies of the Mass expounded,
23. The Primer, or Office of our blessed Lady expounded,
24. The Solemnities of Christ our Lord, and the Sundays of the Year
expounded,
25. Some Ceremonies of the Church expounded
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CHAPTER 1.
What a Christian is: And of the Blessed Trinity.
Question: CHILD, what religion are you of?
Answer: Sir, by the benefit and grace of God, I am Christian.
Q. Whom understand you by a Christian?
A. Him that inwardly believes and outwardly professes the law of Christ.
Q. When are we obliged to make an external profession of it?
A. As often as God's honour, our own, or neighbour's good requires it.
Q. How prove you that we are bound outwardly to profess our faith?
A. Out of St. Matt. x. 32, where Christ saith, Every one, therefore,
that shall confess me before men, I will confess him before my Father who is
in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I also will deny him before
my Father who is in heaven.
Q. Are we bound also to venture the ruin of our estates, the loss of our
friends, and to lay down our very lives for the profession and defence of
our faith?
A. Doubtless we are: seeing the reward we expect in heaven, infinitely
exceeds all the pleasures and punishments of this life. And because Christ
the Son of the living God, has suffered far greater things for us, even to a
disgraceful death on the cross? and therefore, it were base ingratitude in
us, not to be ready to give our lives for him as often as his honour shall
require it. Luke, xiv. 26, 33.
Q. In what doth the faith and law of Christ chiefly consist?
A. In two principle mysteries, namely, the unity and trinity of God, and
the incarnation and death of our Saviour.
Q. What means the unity and trinity of God?
A. It means, that in God there is but one only divine nature or essence,
and that in the same one and divine nature there are three persons, the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Q. How show you that?
A. Out of John, v. 7. There are three that give testimony in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
Q. Why are there but three Persons only?
A. Because the Father had no beginning, nor proceeds from any other
person; the Son proceeds from the Father, and Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father and the Son.
Q. What means the incarnation and death of our Saviour?
A. It means that the second person of the blessed Trinity was made man,
and died on the cross to save us.
Q. In what are these two mysteries signified?
A. In the sign of the cross, as it is made by Catholics, for when we put
our right hand to our head, saying, In the name we signify Unity; and when
we make the sign of the cross saying, Of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost, we signify Trinity.
Q. How doth the sign of the cross represent the incarnation and death of
our Saviour?
A. By putting us in mind that he was made man and died upon the cross
for us.
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CHAPTER II.
Faith Explained
Q. WHAT is faith?
A. It is a gift of God or a supernatural quality, infused by God into
the soul, by which we firmly believe all those things which he hath any way
revealed to us.
Q. Is faith necessary to salvation?
A. It is; St. Paul assuring that without faith it is impossible to
please God. Heb. xi. 6. and St. Mark, xvi. 16, saying, He that believeth not
shall be condemned.
Q. Why must we firmly believe matters of faith?
A. Because God hath revealed them, who can neither deceive, nor be
deceived.
A second reason is, because not only all points of faith, but also the
rule, or necessary and infallible means whereby to know them, to wit, the
church's oral and universal tradition, are absolutely certain, and cannot
lead us into error in faith; else we can never sufficiently be assured what
is faith, or what is not.
Q. If a man should deny, or obstinately doubt of some one point of
faith, would he be thereby lose his whole faith?
A. Yes, he would; because true faith must always be entire, and he that
fails in one, is made guilty of all, by discrediting the authority of God
revealing it.
Q. Is it not enough to believe all that is written in the Bible?
A. No, it is not: For we must also believe all apostolic tradition.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of 2 Thess. ii. 15. Therefore brethren (saith St. Paul) stand and
hold ye the traditions which ye have learned, whether by word, or by our
Epistle.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. The apostle's Creed, which all are bound to believe, although it be
not in Scripture.
Q. Is faith only, as excluding good works, sufficient to salvation?
A. No: it is not: St. James, ii. 24, saying, Do you see how that by
works a man is justified, and not by faith only? And St. Paul, saying, 1
Cor. xiii. 2. If I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,
and not have charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods
to feed the poor, and if I should deliver by body to be burned, and have not
charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Q. What faith will suffice to justify?
A. Faith working by charity in Jesus Christ.
Q. What vice is opposite to faith?
A. Heresy.
Q. What is Heresy?
A. Is it an obstinate error in things that are of faith.
Q. Is it a grievous sin?
A. A very grievous one, because it wholly divides a man from God, and
leads to atheism, Christ saying, if he will not hear the church let him be
to thee as an heathen and a publican, Matt. xviii. 17.
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CHAPTER III.
The Creed Expounded
Q. WHAT is the creed?
A. It is the sum of belief.
Q. Who made it?
A. The twelve apostles.
Q. At what time did they make it?
A. Before they divided themselves into the several countries of the
world to preach the gospel.
Q. For what end did they make it?
A. That so they might be able to teach one and the same doctrine in all
places.
Q. What doth the creed contain?
A. All those chief things which we are bound to believe, concerning God
and his church.
Q. What is the first article of the creed?
A. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
Q. What signifies I believe?
A. It signifies as much as I most firmly and undoubtedly hold.
Q. What means, I believe in God?
A. It means that not only that I firmly believe there is a God, but also
that I am piously affected to him, as to say chiefest good and last end,
with confidence in him, or otherwise that I move unto him by faith, hope,
and charity.
Q. What signifies the word Father?
A. It signifies the first person of the most blessed Trinity, who by
nature is the Father of his own only begotten Son, the second Person of the
blessed Trinity; by adoption is the Father of all good Christians; and by
creations is the Father of all creatures.
Q. What means the word Almighty?
A. It means that God is able to do all things as he pleaseth; that he
sees all things, knows all things, and governs all things.
Q. Why is he called Almighty in this place?
A. That we might doubt of nothing which follows.
Q. What signify the words, Creator of heaven and earth?
A. They signify that God made heaven and earth, and all creatures in
them, of nothing, by his sole word, Gen. i.
Q. What moved God to make them?
A. His own mere goodness, that so he might communicate himself to
angels, and to men, for whom he made all other creatures.
Q. When did God create the angels?
A. On the first day when he created heaven and earth, Gen. i. where
Moses implies the creation of angels in the word heaven, and makes no other
mention of it. The Nicene creed, interpreting the Apostles' Creed, says,
that the words Creator of heaven and earth, mean all things visible and
invisible.
Q. For what end did God create them?
A. To be partakers of his glory, and our guardians.
Q. How prove you by Scripture, that they be our guardians?
A. Out of St. Matt. xviii. 10, where Christ saith 'See that you despise
not one of these little ones: For I day unto you, their angels in heaven
always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.'
Q. Do the angels know our necessities, and hear our prayers?
A. Doubtless they do, since God has deputed them to be our guardians;
which is also proved out of Zach. i 12. where an angel prays for two whole
cities; the words are 'Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord
of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on the cities of Juda and
Jerusalem, against which thou hast been angry these seventy years?'
Q. What Scripture have you for praying to angels?
A. Gen. xlviii. 16, where Jacob on his death bed prayed to an angel for
Ephraim and Manasses, saying, 'The angel of the Lord that delivered me from
all evils, bless these children.'
This place is cited for prayer to the angels in the notes of the Rhemish
Testament upon it, and is confirmed to signify a created angel by St. Basil,
lib. 3. cont. Dunon. sub initio: And St. Chrysosthom. 7. in laudem Sancti
Pauli.
Q. How did Lucifer and his fellow angels fall from their dignity in
heaven?
A. By a rebellious sin of pride.
Q. With what shall their ruins be repaired?
A. Will holy men.
Q. When and to what likeness did God create man?
A. On the sixth day, and to his own likeness: Gen. i. 27.
Q. In what doth the similitude consist?
A. In this, that man is in his soul an incorporeal, intellectual and
immortal spirit, as God is. And in this, that as in God there is but one
most divine nature or essence, and yet three distinct Persons; so in man
there is but one indivisible soul, and yet in that soul three distinct
powers, will, memory, and understanding.
Q. How do you prove the soul to be immortal?
A. Out of Matt. x. 28, where Christ saith, 'Fear not them that kill the
body, and cannot kill the soul.'
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Eccles. xii. 7. At our death the dust returns to the earth
from whence it was, and the spirit to God that gave it.
Q. In what state did God create man?
A. In the state of original justice, and perfection of all natural
gifts.
Q. Do we owe much to God for our creation?
A. Very much, seeing he made us in such perfect state, creating us for
himself, and all things else for us.
Q. How did we lose original justice?
A. By Adam's disobedience to God, in eating the forbidden fruit.
Q. In what state are we now born?
A. In the state of original sin, and prone to actual sin, subject to
death.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Rom. v. 12. 'By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin
death; and so unto all men death did pass, in whom all have sinned.'
Q. Had man ever died, if he had never sinned?
A. No, he had not, but had been converted by the tree of life, and been
translated alive into the fellowship of the angels.
The Second Article
Q. SAY the second article.
A. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.
Q. Of what treats this article?
A. Of the second person of the blessed Trinity, in whom we also believe
and put our trust.
Q. What is the second Person?
A. He is true God, and true Man, in one Person.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of St. John's Gospel, chap. i. 1. 'In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, &c. And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us.'
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Phil. ii. 6, 7, where St. Paul saith, 'That Christ when he was
in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he hath
lessened himself, taking the form of a servant, made unto the likeness of
men; and found in habit as a man.
Q. Why should God be man man?
A. To redeem and save lost man.
Q. Was his incarnation necessary for that end?
A. In the manner it was; because our offences against God were in some
sort infinite; as being against his infinite goodness; and therefore
required an infinite satisfaction; which no one could make but God and
therefore he was made man.
Q. What other proof have you for the necessity of the Incarnation?
A. Because God is in himself so spiritual, sublime, and abstract a
thing, that if he had not in his mercy adapted his own inscrutable greatness
to the littleness of our sensible capacity, by being made man, scarce on of
a thousand would ever have been able to know anything to the purpose of him;
or consequently to love and serve him as they ought, (which is the necessary
means of our salvation) since nothing is efficaciously willed which is not
first well understood.
Q. What benefit have we by the knowledge of God made man?
A. It much inflames us with the love of God, who could not more have
dignified men's nature, or shown more love to the world, then to send down
his only Son to redeem it in our flesh.
Q. What signifies the name of Jesus?
A. It signifies a Saviour, St. Matt. i. 21.
Q. Is any special honour due to that name?
A. There is, because it is the highest title of God made man.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Phil. ii. 8, 9, 10, where we read, 'God hath given unto Christ
because he hath humbled himself unto the death of the cross, a name which is
above all names, the name of Jesus.'
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Because there is no other name under heaven given to man, in which we
must be saved. Acts iv. 12.
Q. How prove you that we must bow at this name?
A. Out of Phil. ii. 10. That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow
of those that are in heaven, on earth and in hell.
Q. What signifies the name Christ?
A. It signifies anointed.
Q. Why was he called anointed?
A. Because he was a priest, a prophet, and a king to all which unction
pertains.
Q. With what was Christ anointed?
A. With all the plenitude of divine grace.
Q. What mean the words, his only Son our Lord?
A. They mean that Jesus Christ is the only Son of God the Father,
begotten, as he is God, and of the same Father from all eternity, without a
mother; and therefore is coequal and consubstantial to his Father; and
consequently infinite, omnipotent Creator, and so Lord of us and all things,
as the Father is.
The Third Article
Q. WHAT is the third article?
A. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.
Q. What means, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost?
A. It means that the second Person of the blessed Trinity took flesh of
the Virgin Mary, not by a human generation, but by the work of the Holy
Ghost.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of St. Luke i. 31, 35. Behold (saith the angel) thou shalt
conceive and bear a Son, &c. the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the
virtue of the Highest shall overshadow thee.
Q. What understand you by the words, born of the Virgin Mary?
A. I understand that Christ was born of her at midnight, in a poor
stable at Bethlehem, between an ox and an ass.
Q. Why at midnight?
A. To signify that he came to take away the darkness of our sins.
Q. Why in Bethlehem?
A. Because it was the head city of David's family, and Christ was of
David's race.
Q. Why in a poor stable?
A. To teach us to love poverty and contempt of this world.
Q. Why between an ox and an ass?
A. To fulfil that of the prophet, Thou shalt be known, O Lord, between
two beasts, Habacuc xii. juxta Sept.
Q. What doth the birth of Christ avail us?
A. It perfecteth in us faith, hope, and charity.
Q. What signifies, "born of the Virgin Mary?"
A. It signifies that Our Lady was a virgin not only before, but also in,
and after childbirth.
The Fourth Article.
Q. WHAT is the fourth article?
A. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried.
Q. What understand you by suffering under Pontius Pilate?
A. I understand that Christ, after a painful life of thirty-three years,
suffered most bitter torments under the wicked president Pontius Pilate.
Q. Where did he begin those sufferings?
A. In the garden of Gethsemani; that as sin began in the garden by the
first Adam, so might grace also, by the second.
Q. What are those torments?
A. His bloody sweat, his whipping at the pillar, his purple garment, his
crown of thorns, his Sceptre of a reed, his carrying the cross, and many
others.
Q. What understand you by the words, was crucified?
A. I understand, he was nailed to a disgraceful cross between two
thieves, for our offences, and to save us.
Q. Is is lawful to honour the cross?
A. Yes, with a relative honour it is, because it is a special memorial
of our Saviour's passion, and is called the sign of the Son of man, St.
Matt. xxiv. 30.
Q. What other reason have you?
A. Because the cross was the sacred altar, on which Christ offered his
bloody sacrifice.
Q. What scripture have you for it?
A. Gal. vi. 14. 'God forbid, (saith St. Paul,) that I should glory, but
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.'
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Phil. iii. 18. Many walk (saith St. Paul) of whom I have often
told you, and now again weeping, I tell you that they are enemies to the
cross of Christ, &c. whose end is perdition. And out of Ezek. ix. 4, where
we read, That such as were signed with the sign Tau, (which was a picture
and figure of the cross,) were saved from the exterminating angel, and only
such.
Q. What signifies the word dead?
A. It signifies that Christ suffered a true and real death.
Q. Why was it requisite he should die?
A. To free us from the death of sin.
Q. Why died he, crying with a loud voice?
A. To show he had power of his own life; and he freely gave it up for
us, being strong and vigorous.
Q. Why died he bowing down his head?
A. To signify his obedience to his Father, in the acceptance of his
disgraceful death.
Q. What means buried?
A. It means, that his body was laid in a new sepulchre, and buried with
honour, as the prophet had foretold, Isa. xi. 10.
The Fifth Article
Q. WHAT is the fifth article?
A. He descended into hell, the third day he arose again from the dead.
Q. What means, he descended into Hell?
A. It means, that as soon as Christ was dead, he descended into Limbo,
to free the holy fathers who were there.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Acts ii. 24, 27. 'Christ being slain, God raised him up
loosing the sorrows of hell, as it was foretold by the prophet,' Psalm xv.
10. 'Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou give thy Holy One to
see corruption.'
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Ephes. iv. 8, 9. 'He ascending on high, hath led captivity captive;
he gave gifts to men; and that he ascended,' what is it but because he
descended into the lower parts of the earth?
Q. Did he not descend to purgatory to free such as were there?
A. It is most probable he did according to 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. 'Christ
being dead, came in spirit; and preached to them also that were in prison,
who had been incredulous in the days of Noah, when the ark was building.'
Q. What understand you by, on the third day he rose again from the dead?
A. I understand, when Christ had been dead part of three days, on the
third day, which was Sunday, he raised up his blessed body from the dead.
Q. Why did he not raise it again sooner?
A. To testify that he was truly dead, and to fulfil the prophecies.
Q. Did he reassume all the parts of his body?
A. He did, even to the last drop of his vital blood, and the very
scattered hairs of his head.
Q. Why did he retain the stigmas and marks of the sacred wounds?
A. To confound the incredulity of men, and to present them often to his
Father, as a propitiation of our sins.
Q. What benefit have we by the resurrection?
A. It confirms our faith and hope, that we shall rise again from death:
'For he who raised up Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.' 2 Cor. iv. 14.
The Sixth Article
Q. WHAT is the sixth article?
A. He ascended into heaven, sits on the right hand of God the Father
Almighty.
Q. What means, He ascended into heaven?
A. It means that when Christ had conversed forty days on earth with his
disciples, after his resurrection, teaching them heavenly things, then he
ascended triumphant into heaven, by his own power.
Q. From what place did he ascend?
A. From the top of the Mount of Olivet, where the print of his blessed
feet are seen to this day.
Q. Why from thence?
A. That were he began to be humbled by his passion, there he might also
begin to be exalted.
Q. Before whom did he ascend?
A. Before his mother, apostles and disciples, Acts 1. 9, &c.
Q. In what manner did he ascend?
A. Lifting up his hands, and blessing them.
Q. Why is it added, Into Heaven?
A. To draw our hearts to heaven after Him; 'If ye have risen with
Christ, seek ye the things which are above.' Col. iii. 1.
Q. What understand you by, Sits at the right hand of God?
A. I do not understand, that God the Father hath any hands, for he is
incorporated, and a spirit: but that Christ is equal to his Father in power
and majesty, as he is God; and that as man he is the highest created glory.
The Seventh Article
Q. WHAT is the seventh article?
A. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Q. What understand you by this article?
A. I understand Christ will come at the last day from heaven, to judge
all men according to their work.
Q. Does every man receive a particular judgment at his death?
A. He doth, but in the general judgment we shall be judged not only in
our souls, as at our death, but also in our bodies.
Q. Why is that necessary?
A. That as Christ was openly rejected, so he may there be openly
acknowledged to the great joy and glory of his friends, as also to the
confusion of his enemies.
Q. How prove you that in the judgment all men shall receive according to
their works?
A. Out of 2 Cor. v. 10. 'We must all be manifested (saith St. Paul)
before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper
things of the body according as he hath done, whether good or evil.' And out
of St. Matt. xvi. 27. 'The Son of man (saith out Lord) shall come in the
glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he will render to every one
according to his works.'
Q. Is there any merit in our good works?
A. There is, according to Apoc. xxii. 12. Behold I come quickly (saith
the Lord) and my reward is with me; to render to every man according to his
works.'
Q. In what place shall this judgment be made?
A. In the Valley of Jehosaphat, as many suppose between Jerusalem and
Mount of Olivet.
Q. How prove you this?
A. By its conformity to that of the prophet. I will gather together all
nations, I will send them into the Valley of Jehosaphat, and there will I
plead with them upon my people, and my inheritance Israel,' Joel iii.
Q. What signs shall go before it?
A. The sun and moon shall lose their lights, there shall be wars,
plagues, famines, and earthquakes, in many places.
Q. In what manner will Christ come unto it?
A. In great power and majesty, attended with legions of angels.
Q. Who are they that shall be judged?
A. The whole race and progeny of man.
Q. What are the things that shall be judged?
A. Our thoughts, words, and works, even to the secrets of our souls.
Q. Who will accuse us?
A. The Devils, and our own guilty consciences: in which all our
thoughts, words and deeds shall presently appear, and be laid open to the
whole world.
Q. How shall the just and reprobate be placed?
A. The just shall be on the right; the reprobate on the left hand of the
Judge.
Q. What shall be the sentence of the just?
A. 'Come, O ye blessed of my Father, and receive ye the kingdom which is
prepared for you, for I was hungry and ye gave me to eat, I was thirsty, and
ye gave me to drink,' &c St. Matt. xxv. 35, 36.
Q. What shall be the sentence of the reprobate?
A. 'Go ye cursed into eternal fire, which hath been prepared for the
devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and ye gave me not to eat,' &c. the
same chap. v. 41, 42. You see of what weight good works will be at that day.
Q. Why is it added, the living and the dead?
A. To signify that Christ shall judge, not only such as are living at
the time of his coming, but likewise all such as have been dead, from the
creation of the world; as also by the living, are understood angels and
saints, by the dead, devils and damned souls.
The Eighth Article
Q. WHAT is the eight article?
A. I believe in the Holy Ghost.
Q. Of what treats this article?
A. Of the third Person of the blessed Trinity, in whom we also believe
and put our trust, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and is the
self-same God with them, distinct in nothing but in person.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of 1 John v. 7. 'There are three that give testimony in heaven,
the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.'
Q. Why is the name of the Holy Ghost appropriated to the third Person,
since angels are all spirits and holy?
A. Because he is such by excellency and essence, they only by
participation.
Q. At least why should it not be common to the other two persons?
A. Because they are known by the proper names of Father and Son, but we
have not any proper name for the Holy Ghost.
Q. In what forms has the Holy Ghost appeared unto man?
A. In the form of a dove, to signify the purity and innocence which he
caused in our souls; and in the form of a bright cloud, and fiery tongue, to
signify the fire of charity, which he produced in our hearts, as also the
gift of tongues; and hence it is, he is painted in these forms.
The Ninth Article
Q. WHAT is the ninth article?
A. I believe in the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints.
Q. What understand you by this?
A. I understand that Christ hath a church upon earth which he
established in his own blood, and that he hath commanded us to believe that
church, in all things appertaining to faith, and morals, Matt. xviii. 17.
Q. What kind of faith must we believe her with?
A. With the same faith that we believe her Spouse the Son of God, that
is, with divine faith, but with this difference among other, that we believe
in God; but though we believe the church, yet we do not properly believe in
the church.
Q. What is the church?
A. It is the congregation of all the faithful under Jesus Christ, their
invisible head, and his vicar upon earth, the Pope.
Q. What are the essential parts of the church?
A. A Pope or supreme head, bishops, pastors, and laity.
Q. How prove you that bishops are of divine institution?
A. Out of Acts xx. 28. Take heed unto yourselves, and to the whole
flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of
God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Q. How believe you St. Peter, and the Pope his successor, to be the
visible head of the church?
A. First out of St. John xxi. 16, 17, and 18, where Christ gave St.
Peter (for a reward of his special faith and love) absolute power to feed
and govern his whole flock, saying, Feed my Lambs, feed my lambs, feed my
sheep; therefore the rest of the apostles were his sheep, and he their head
or pastor.
Secondly, out of St. Matt. xvi. 18, where Christ saith, Thou art Peter,
and upon this Rock will I build my church. Therefore the rest of the
apostles were built on him; and hence also it is, that in Scripture, St.
Peter is still named first.
Q. What are the marks of the true church?
A. Unity, sanctity, universality, and to be apostolical.
Q. What mean you by the church's unity?
A. That all her members live under one evangelical law, obey the same
supreme head, and his magistrates profess the same faith, even to the last
article, and use the same sacraments and sacrifices.
Q. How prove you out of Scripture that the church is one?
A. 1 Cor. x. 17. Being many (saith St. Paul) we are one bread, one body,
all who participate of one bread.
Q. Why may not a well-meaning person be saved in any religion?
A. Because there is but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, Ephes. iv. 5,
and without (that one) faith, it is impossible to please God. Heb. xi. 6.
Q. What other reason have you for it?
A. Because, as in a natural body, that part which has not a due
connection to the heart or root, presently dies for want of continuity; so
in the church (the mystical body of Christ) that man who has not a due
subordination and connection to the head and common councils thereof, (that
is, the Pope and general councils from whence under Christ we have our
spiritual life and motion, as we are Christians,) must needs be dead, nor
indeed can he be accounted a member of that mystical body.
Q. Who, I beseech you, are those who are not to be accounted members of
the Church?
A. All such as are not in the unity of the church, by a most firm belief
of her doctrine, and due obedience to her pastors; as Jews, Turks, Heretics,
&c.
Q. Why may not Heretics and Schismatics justly claim to be in the Unity
of the Church and Members of Christ's body?
A. Because Catholics can show to each sect of Heretics and Schismatics
the time they began; the date of their separation from the Church: the name
of the person or persons of their sect who first separated themselves, and
the cause of their condemnation; whilst the Catholic Church always was from
the beginning.
Q. What if a Protestant should tell you, that the difference between
them and us, are not differences in fundamentals, or in faith, but in
opinion only, and therefore do not exclude them out of unity of the Catholic
Church?
A. I should answer, they contradict themselves; for they accuse us of
robbing God of his honour, in holding priestly absolutions from sins; in
adoring Christ's body and blood, as really present in the eucharist, and
holding the Pope's supremacy in things belonging to the spiritual government
of the Church, also the infallibility of the Church and general councils, in
delivering and defining points of faith, which are no matters of
indifference, but high fundamentals.
Q. How do you prove all obstinate Innovators to be Heretics?
A. Because they wilfully stand out against the definitive sentence of
the Church of God, and submit not to any tribunal appointed by Christ to
decide religious controversies; but follow their own interpretation of the
dead letter of the scriptures.
Q. And is not this the reason also why Protestants and all other
sectarians are so divided in religious matters?
A. Yes, it is; for how is it possible that people who imagine that there
is no person or tribunal, or even the Church of God, infallible, for
expounding the bible; people, who expound it each according to his
respective fancy; people, who have no control over the erroneous
interpretation of each other; how it is possible that such people would have
the unity of faith, in the bond of peace; or that they be not tossed to and
fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine?
Q. Why may not the letter of the Scripture be a decisive judge of
controversies?
A. Because it has never been able from it[s] first publication, to
decide any one dispute; as the whole world knows from experience: all
heretics equally pretend to scripture authority in defence of their errors
and heresies.
Q. How then can we ascertain the truth amidst conflicting opinions?
A. By the infallible authority, definition, and proposition of the
Catholic Church.
Q. For what end, then, was the Scripture written, if not to be a decider
of controversies?
A. The writing of the Holy Scriptures was for the purpose of the better
preserving the revealed will of God, and that by a sensible and common
reading of it, without any critical or controversial disputes of words, we
might be able to know that God is, and what he is, and also that there is a
heaven and a hell, rewards for virtue and punishment for vice, with examples
of both, all which we find in the letter of the Scripture, by a plain and
ordinary reading.
Q. Is the church we speak of visible?
A. She is and must be visible at all times, as consisting of a hierarchy
of pastors, governing, teaching, administering sacraments to the world's
end, and of other people governed, taught and receiving sacraments at their
hands, all publicly professing the same faith, all which things are visible.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, out of Eph. iv. 1, and 12. 'Christ gave some apostles, some
evangelists, some doctors, some pastors, to the consummation of the saints,
to the edifying of the body of Christ, and to the work of the ministry,
until we all meet in the unity of faith.'
Secondly, out of St. Matt. v. 14, where Christ saith of his church, "You
are the light of the world, a city seated on a high mountain cannot be hid."
Q. Why then would the Protestants have the church to be invisible?
A. Because we have convinced them, that there were no Protestants to be
seen or heard of in the world before Martin Luther.
Q. Why is the church said to be holy, or to have sanctity?
A. Because she hath a holy faith, a holy law, holy sacraments, and is
guided by the Holy Ghost, to all truth and holiness.
Q. How else prove you her sanctity?
A. Because Christ gave himself for his church that he might sanctify
her, cleansing her by the laver of water in the world, that he might present
her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, but that she
might be holy and unspotted. Eph. v. 26, 27.
Q. Notwithstanding the sanctity of the Catholic Church, are not some
Catholics as wicked as Protestants?
A. Yes, verily, and more wicked, for where sanctity is less, their
sacrilege cannot be so great. No man could damn his own posterity, but he
that had original justice to lose: nor any man to betray Christ, but he that
had eaten at his table. Protestants have not a holy faith, such sacraments,
nor a holy church to abuse, as Catholics have, and therefore no wonder, if
some Catholics be worse than any Protestants; yet Catholics have some
saints, but Protestants have none.
Q. Is the church infallible?
A. She is, and therefore to be believed, and all men may rest securely
on her judgment.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, because she is the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. iii. 15.
Secondly, out of St. Matt. xvi. 18, where Christ saith, "Upon this Rock
will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
her."
Thirdly, out of St. John, xiv. 26. But the Paraclete, (saith he,) the
Holy Ghost, shall teach you all things whatsoever I shall say to you. And
xvi. 13. But when the Spirit of truth cometh, he shall teach you all truth.
Q. How declare you that the definitions of a council perfectly
ecumenical, that is, a general council approved by the Pope, are infallible
in matters of faith?
A. Because such a council is the church representative, and has the same
infallibility that the church spread over the world hath.
Q. What other reason have you?
A. Because of the definitions of such a council are the dictates of the
Holy Ghost, according to that of the apostles, deciding in council, it hath
seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, Acts xv. 28.
Q. What think you then of such as accuse the church of errors in faith
and idolatry?
A. Truly I think them to be Heretics or Infidels, for our Lord saith, He
that will not hear the church let him be unto thee as a heathen and a
publican, St. Matt. xviii. 17.
Q. Is not the church at least too severe in its censures and
excommunications against sectaries?
A. No, she is very reasonable and charitable in them for vicious,
passionate, and self-interested men some times are brought to reason for
fear of punishment and are forced to their own good, when no authority
ordained by Christ is able to persuade them to it.
Q. What understood you by the word catholic, or by the universality of
the church?
A. I understand the church is universal, both for time and place.
Q. How for time?
A. Because she hath been from Christ to this time, and shall be from
thence to the end of the world.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of St. Matt. xxviii. 20. Going therefore (saith our Lord) teach
ye all nations, &c. and behold I am with you all days, even to the
consummation of the world.
Q. What mean you by the universality of place?
A. First, out of St. Matt. above cited, Teach all nations.
Secondly out of Psalm lxxxv. 9. All Nations, whatsoever thou hast made,
shall come and adore before thee, O Lord.
Thirdly, out of Apoc. vii. 9, where we read, that the church shall be
gathered out of all nations, people, tribes, and tongues.
Q. Why do we call the church the Roman Church?
A. Because, since the transition of St. Peter's chair from Antioch to
Rome, the particular Roman Church has been head of all the churches, and to
her the primacy has been affixed.
Q. What is the rule by which the church preserves entire the deposit of
Faith and confounds all sectaries?
A. Apostolical traditions, or receipt of doctrine by hand to hand from
Christ and his apostles.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Rom. vi. 17. "Therefore I beseech you, brethren (saith St.
Paul) mark them which make dissensions and scandals, contrary to the
doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them, for such do not serve
Christ our Lord."
Q. What other proofs have you?
A. Out of St. Paul, saying, "But although we or an angel from heaven
evangelize to you, besides that which we have evangelized to you, be he
anathema, or besides, what you have received be he anathema." Gal. i. 8, 9.
Q. Can the church err in faith, standing to this rule, and admitting
nothing for faith, but what is consented by the whole church to have been so
received?
A. She cannot, otherwise the whole church must there conspire in a
notorious lie, to damn herself and her posterity, or else she must be
ignorant what hath been taught for her faith by the church of the precedent
age, which are both natural impossibilities.
Q. How prove you these to be impossibilities by nature?
A. By the constancy and immutability of contingent causes, whose
particulars may be defective, but the universals cannot.
Q. Explain that a little.
A. Because one man or two or three may be born but with one arm, or one
eye only, through defect of their particular causes; but that all nature
should fail at once, and all men be so born, is totally impossible in
nature; in like manner, one man or two may conspire in palpable lies to damn
themselves and their posterity, or be deceived in what hath been taught them
for faith, from their very cradles; but that the whole church should so far
break with the nature of man (which is reason) to conspire in such a lie, or
to be so mistaken, is as impossible in nature, as it is for men to be no
men.
Q. May some errors have been received for faith, and crept insensibly
over the whole church, no man perceiving or taking notice of them?
A. No, that is as impossible as that the plague or burning fever should
infect or spread itself over a whole kingdom for many years, no man
perceiving it, or seeking to prevent it; for nothing causes greater notice
to be taken, than any public or notorious change in matters of religion.
Q. May not the power of temporal princes, or the over prevalency of
human wit and reason, have introduced errors into the church?
A. Neither is that possible, seeing we are not regulated in things which
are of faith, either by power, or any strength of reason, but by the rule of
apostolical tradition, and by inquiring of the whole church of every age,
what hath been taught by our forefathers, from Christ and his apostles.
Q. Was not the Millenary heresy an apostolical tradition?
A. No, it was not; for there is no assurance or consent among those who
write of it, that it was ever preached or delivered by the apostles.
Q. Did not St. Austin and Innocentius, with their councils, hold the
communion of children a thing necessary to their salvation?
A. They speak not of sacramental communion, as is evident to all who
have read their works, but of the effect of it, that is, of their
incorporation into the mystical body of Christ, which is made in baptism,
and this only they affirmed to be necessary to their salvation.
Q. At least do not heretics say and aver, that the church hath
apostatized and erred in faith?
A. They do indeed, but it will not serve their turn barely to say it,
unless they were also able to prove it, (which they neither are or will be)
by evident and undeniable proofs.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, because that presumption and possession of her integrity and
infallibility is on the church's side; and therefore ought not to be yielded
up, without clear evidence of her prevarication.
Secondly, because he that accuses his neighbour's wife of adultery,
without convincing proof thereof, is not to be hearkened unto, but to be
hated by all good men, as a most infamous slanderer; much more ought they
who shall accuse the church, the spouse of Christ, of errors and apostasy,
unless their proofs be evident and undeniable, to be detested as blasphemous
heretics.
Thirdly, because if less than manifest and convincing evidence be
sufficient to prove matters of this high nature, it is not impossible but
every false tongue shall set dissensions between man and wife, and stir up
the most faithful subjects in the world to a rebellion against their
princes, both spiritual and temporal.
Q. What other reason have you yet, why the church and law of Christ may
not fail and be utterly extinguished?
A. Because the causes of religion (to wit, the hope of good, and fear of
evil from God) are universal and necessary, always knocking at men's hearts,
and putting them in mind of some good or other, and therefore must needs
have perpetual and necessary effects, which in such as are convinced that
Christ is God, can be no other than the faith, hope and love of Christ, and
the observance of his law, and that for ever, speaking of the whole church,
although particular men may err and fall away.
Q. What is it for the church to be apostolical?
A. To have been begun and propagated by the apostles, and to have a
succession of pastors, and doctrines from them.
Q. What means the communion of saints?
A. It means first that the faithful do all communicate in the same faith
and sacraments, in the same sacrifice, and also in the merits of one
another.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of 1 Cor. xii. 26. And if one member suffer any thing, all the
members suffer with it; or if one member do glory, all the members rejoice
with it, you are the body of Christ, and members of a member.
Secondly, It means that the faithful on earth communicate with the
angels and the saints in heaven; we by praising and praying to them, they by
praying for us.
Q. How do you prove this communion?
A. Out of Luke xv. 10. There is joy before the angels of God upon one
sinner that doth penance. And out of 1 John i. 3, That you also may have
fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with the Father and with his
Son Jesus Christ.
Q. How prove you that the saints have any power to do us good?
A. Out of Apoc. ii. 26, 27, where Christ hath promised them power over
us: to him, said he, that shall overcome, and keep my works to the end, to
him will I give power over nations, and he shall rule them with an iron rod.
Q. How prove you that it is lawful to pray to angels?
A. Out of Apoc. i. 4, where St. John did it: Grace (saith he) to you,
and peace from him that is, that was, and that shall come, and from the
seven spirits that are in the sight of his throne.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Apoc. viii. 4, where we read, that they present the church's
prayers to God. The smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints ascend
from the hand of the angel before God.
Q. How prove you that we may pray to saints?
A. Out of Gen. xlvii, 16, where Jacob taught his children to do it,
saying, And let my name be invocated upon them, the names also of my
fathers, Abraham and Isaac.
Q. How prove you that they pray for us?
A. Out of Apoc. v. 8. The twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb,
having every one harps, and vials full of odours, which are the prayers of
the saints.
Q. Is it no dishonour to God, for us to pray to saints to pray for us?
A. No, it is not, nor yet to beg it of men; for St. Paul did it: We hope
(saith he) that God will deliver us, you also helping in prayer for us. 2
Cor. i. 11.
The Tenth Article.
Q. WHAT is the tenth article?
A. The forgiveness of sins.
Q. What do you understand by this?
A. I understand that God is both able and willing to forgive our sins,
if we be heartily sorry for them, and confess them; and have given power to
his church to remit them by baptism and penance.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Matt. ix. 8, where it is recorded by the Holy Ghost, that the
multitude glorified God, who hath given such power unto man, as to forgive
sins, (Christ having before proved the said power by a miracle) ver. 6, 7.
Q. Is any sin so great that God cannot forgive it?
A. No there is not; for his mercy is far above our malice.
Q. Can any one mortal sin be remitted without the rest?
A. It cannot, because the remission of mortal sin is a renewing of
friendship with God by his grace, which can never be effected, so long as
there remains in us any mortal sin.
Q. Can we have absolute certainty, that our sins are forgiven us?
A. Without special revelation we cannot: I am not guilty in conscience
(saith St. Paul) of any thing, but herein I am not justified. 1 Cor. iv. 4.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Because a man knows not whether he be worthy of love or hatred. Eccl.
i. 9.
Q. Can we be certain of our final perseverance?
A. Not without special revelation, and therefore St. Paul said, I
chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I preach to others
I myself become a reprobate, 1 Cor. ix. 27, and Phil. ii. 12. He exhorts,
saying, with fear and trembling, work out your salvation.
Q. How then shall we have peace of conscience?
A. Because we may have moral certainty and a most lively hope, that our
sins are forgiven by us by the due use of the sacraments, which is enough
for our peace.
The Eleventh Article.
Q. WHAT is the eleventh article?
A. The resurrection of the flesh.
Q. What means this article?
A. It means that these very bodies in which we now live, shall at the
day of judgment be all raised up from death to life.
Q. By what means shall this be done?
A. By the omnipotent command of God, and the ministry of angels.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of 1 Thess. iv. 16. For our Lord in commandment, and in the voice
of an archangel, and in the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and
the dead that are in Christ shall rise again.
Q. Shall the same bodies rise again?
A. The same in substance, though different in qualities.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Job xix. 25, 26, 27. For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and
in the last day I shall rise out of the earth, and shall be compassed again
with my skin, and in my flesh I shall see God, whom I myself shall see, and
mine eyes shall behold, and not another.
Q. What shall be the qualities or doweries of a glorified body?
A. Impassability, agility, clarity, subtility.
Q. How do you prove its impassability, or incorruptibility?
A. Out of 1 Cor. xv. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption,
and this mortal must put on immortality.
Q. How prove you its agility?
A. Out of the same chapter, ver. 43, 44. It is sown in infirmity, it
shall rise in power; it is sown a natural body, but it shall rise in a
spiritual body, (that is, in motion, and some operations equal to a spirit;)
which also proves its subtility.
Q. How prove you it clarity?
A. Out of the same chapter, ver. 24 "For star (said he) differs from
star in glory, so also the resurrection of the dead." And ver. 43. "It is
sown in dishonour, it shall rise in glory."
Q. In what space of time shall the dead rise, and the elect be thus
changed?
A. "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye," 1 Cor. xv, 52.
Q. At what age and stature shall men rise?
A. At a perfect age, which is thirty-three, and in that stature which
they should have had at a perfect age, without deformity by defect or
excess.
Q. How prove you this?
A. Out of Ephes. iv. 13. "The church shall last until we all meet into a
perfect may, into the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ."
Q. What example have you in nature for the resurrection?
A. A grain of corn, which first rots in the earth and then springs up
and lives again.
Q. What benefit have we by the knowledge of the resurrection?
A. It emboldens us to suffer persecution and death itself, in hope of
future glory, according to that of St. Paul: "For sufferings of these times
are not comparable to that of future glory, which be revealed in us:" Rom.
viii. 18.
The Twelfth Article.
Q. WHAT is the twelfth article?
A. And life everlasting.
Q. Why is this the last article?
A. Because everlasting life is the last end of man, and the last reward
we expect by faith.
Q. What understand you by this article?
A. I understand that such as keep the commandments, and die in the state
of grace, shall live with God in bliss forever.
Q. How prove you that keeping the commandments is of necessity for
obtaining it?
A. Out of Matt. xix. 17, where Christ said to the young man, asking what
he should do to obtain it, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the
commandments."
Q. Is everlasting life given as a reward of our good works?
A. It is, according to Rom. ii. 6, 7. "God will render to every one
according to his works, to them truly, that according to patience in good
works, seek glory and honour, and incorruption life everlasting" &c.
Q. Were all men created for everlasting life?
A. They were, for God "would have all men to be saved," 1 Tim. ii. 4.
"He willeth not the death of any sinner, but rather that he be converted and
live." Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
Q. Why then are many damned?
A. By reason of their own wilful transgression of God's law, and final
impenitence.
Q. How prove you that man is the free cause of his own sin and
damnation?
A. First out of Job xi. 23. "God (saith he) hath given him place for
penance, but he abuseth it unto pride."
Secondly, out of Hos. xiii. 9. "The perdition is from thyself, O Israel;
in me only is thy aid."
Thirdly, out of Rom. ii. 4. "The benignity of God calls thee to
repentance, but thou heapest to thyself wrath and indignation, according to
thy own impenitent heart."
Q. In what consists everlasting life?
A. In the clear vision and fruition of God, according to that of our
Saviour, in John xvii. 3. "This is the life everlasting, that they know thee
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
Q. Shall we see nothing in Heaven but God?
A. Yes, all the attributes and perfections of God, and in him also, as
in a mirror or looking glass, the nature and perfections of all creatures;
for he contains all things in himself in the most eminent manner.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of the apostle, saying, "from whom all things by whom all things,
and in whom all things." Rom xi. 36.
Q. What effect will follow out the clear vision and fruition of God?
A. A divine love, steadfast possession and ineffable joy; and out of
that praise, jubilation, and thanksgiving for ever.
Q. What means the word Amen? A. It means that the whole creed is divine
truth, and therefore we most heartily assent to it.
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CHAPTER IV.
Hope and Prayer Explained.
Q. WHAT is Hope?
A. It is a virtue infused by God into the soul, by which we have a
confident expectation of glory to be obtained by the grace and merits of
Christ, and our own merits proceeding from his grace.
Q. On what is the confidence chiefly grounded?
A. On the merits and promises of Christ, who hath promised glory to such
as hope in him, and do his works, as also grace whereby to do them.
Q. Are our good works then meritorious of a reward of glory?
A. As proceeding from the grace of Christ, and built upon his promises,
they are.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, out of Mark ix. 14. "For whosoever shall give you to drink a
cup of water in my name because you are Christ's, Amen, I say to you, he
shall not lose his reward."
Secondly, out of 1 Cor. iii. 8. "And every one shall receive his own
reward, according to his own labour, for we are God's coadjutors."
Thirdly, out of Matt. v. 11. "Blessed are ye (saith our Lord) when they
shall revile and persecute you; for very great is your reward in heaven."
Q. Is it lawful for us to do good works in the hope of a reward?
A. Not only lawful but laudable, according to that, I "have inclined by
heart, to do thy justifications for ever, for a reward." Psalm cxviii. 12.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of 1 John iii. 22. "Whatsoever (saith he) we shall ask of God, we
shall receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things
that are pleasing before him."
Q. How declare you the necessity of hope?
A. Because it produces in us obedience to the law of God, as also a
willingness to suffer for his sake, and final perseverance.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Job xiii. 15. "Although he kill me, yet will I hope in him."
And Psalm lv. 5. "In God have I hoped, I will not fear what flesh can do
unto me."
It is according to the Psalmist, "Him that hopeth in our Lord, merely shall
encompass." Psalm xxxi. 10. And, "Our Lord is well pleased in them that hope
in his mercy." Psalm cxlvi. 11.
Q. What other good doth Hope?
A. It moves us to devout and humble prayer.
Q. What is prayer?
A. It is the lifting up of the mind to God, by which we beg for good
things and to be free from evils, or by which we bless and praise God.
Q. What are the conditions of good prayer?
A. That it may be made with reverence, attention, humility, and
perseverance.
Q. What vices are opposite to hope?
A. Despair and presumption.
Q. What is despair?
A. It is a diffidence in the mercy of God, and merits of Christ, even to
death.
Q. What is presumption?
A. It is a foolish and desperate confidence of salvation, without
endeavouring to live well or keep the commandments.
Q. How is the despair the cause of sin?
A. Because despairing men are wont to say, if I shall be damned, I shall
be damned, and so use no endeavour to do good or avoid evil.
Q. How is presumption the cause of sin?
A. Because presumptuous men used to say, God is merciful and will
forgive our sins, how great soever, and at what time soever, we do penance;
and out of this take liberty to sin.
Q. How must our hope be balanced between these two extremes?
A. By a filial fear, and an humble distrust of our own works, as they
are ours.
Q. Is prayer good against both these?
A. It is, according to that of Luke xxii. 40, "pray ye that so ye may
not fall into temptation."
Q. For what else availeth prayer?
A. For the avoiding of evils and the obtaining all benefits.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of John xv 23. "Whatsoever (saith our Saviour) ye shall ask my
Father in my name, he will give it you." And Luke xi. 9. "Ask and it shall
be given you," &c.
Q. Is it lawful to pray in an unknown tongue?
A. It is, "for he that speaks in a tongue (unknown) speaks not to men
but to God." 1 Cor. xiv. 2. And a petition has the same force if it be
understood by him that is petitioned, whether the petitioner understood it
or not.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of the same chap. ver. 16, 17, where Paul saith, "but if thou
bless in spirit, (that is in a tongue not known) he that supplieth the place
of the vulgar, how shall he say Amen, &c. thou indeed givest thanks well,
but the other is not edified." You see in itself the thing is good, for he
gives thanks well.
Q. What means the apostle, when he exhorts us to pray always? Thess. v.
17.
A. He means we should daily spend some time to prayer, according to
James v. 16. "Pray for one another that you may be saved, for the continual
prayer of a just man availeth much."
Q. Is it possible to pray always?
A. In some sense it is: namely, by offering up all our actions to God's
honour.
Q. In what place is prayer best?
A. In churches: because these are places consecrated and devoted to
prayer, and there our prayers are elevated by the peculiar presence of God,
and his special assistance besought by the Church's pastors in the
consecration of those places.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Matt. xviii. 20. "Where there are two or three gathered
together in my name (saith the Lord) there I am in the midst of them."
Q. How prove you that material churches are of God's appointment?
A. First, Because God commanded Solomon to build him a temple, and
dedicate it to his service. 2 Paral vii. 12.
Secondly, out of Luke xix. 46, where Christ calls the material temple
his house, casing the buyers and sellers out of it. "My house, (saith he) is
the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves."
Thirdly, out of Luke xviii. 10, where the publican "ascended to the
temple to pray, and descended into his house justified."
Q. How do you prove it lawful to dedicate of consecrate material
temples?
A. Out of Paralip. above cited, chap. 7, and out of John x. 22, where it
is recorded that Christ
himself kept the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, instituted by Judas
Maccabęus, 1 Mac. iv. 56, 59.
Q. How do you prove it lawful to adorn the churches with tapestry,
pictures, and the like?
A. Out of Mark, xiv. 15, where Christ commanded his last supper to be
prepared in a great chamber adorned.
Q. What proof have you for the order and number of the canonical hours?
A. For Matins, Lauds, and Prime, that of Psalm v. 4 "Early in the
morning will I stand up to thee, early in the morning wilt thou hear my
voice."
Q. What for the third, sixth and ninth hours?
A. For the third out of Acts ii. 16. "At the third hour the Holy Ghost
descended on the Apostles." For the sixth, out of Acts x. 9. "Peter and John
went up into the higher part to pray about the sixth hour:" and for the
ninth, out of Acts iii. 1. "And at the ninth hour Peter and John went up
into the temple to pray."
Q. What for the Even-song and Complin?
A. That of the Psalmist, "Morning and evening, will I declare the works
of our Lord," Psalm liv. 18. and again, "lifting up of my hands is as an
evening sacrifice," cxli 2.
Q. Is it good to use outward ceremonies in a time of prayer, as
kneeling, knocking the breast, and such like?
A. It is, for they declare the inward reverence and devotion of the
heart; and Christ himself prostrated, when he prayed in the garden, Matt.
xxvi. 39. And the poor publican beat his breast, and cast down his eyes in
that prayer by which he merited to descend justified, Luke xviii. 13, 14.
Q. Why is the morning so fit a time for prayer?
A. To open the windows of the soul to the light of divine grace and
offer up the works of the whole day to God's honour.
Q. Why is the evening also?
A. To shut the windows of the soul against the darkness of sin, and the
illusions of the devil; as also to render thanks for all the benefits of the
day past.
Q. What things ought we to pray for?
A. For all good things both spiritual and temporal, and to be freed from
evil; for so our Lord bath taught us by his prayer.
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CHAPTER V.
The Lord's Prayer Expounded
Q. WHAT is the Pater Noster?
A. It is the most holy prayer, that ever was.
Q. Who made it?
A. Christ our Lord, the eternal wisdom of his Father, Matt. vi. 9.
Q. Why did he make it?
A. To teach us a set form of prayer, and how we ought to pray.
Q. Why did he make it in so short and plain a manner?
A. That all persons might be able to understand and practise it.
Q. What doth it contain?
A. All those chief things which we can ask or hope for of God.
Q. How many petitions does it contain?
A. Seven.
Q. What understand you by these words, which are prefixed to the
petition, Our Father who art in Heaven?
A. I understand that God is our Father, both by creation and by
adoption: and if we be in the state of grace, we may confidently come to
him, and beg all blessings of him.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of 1 John iii. 1. "See what manner of charity the Father hath
given us, that we should be named, and be the sons of God."
Q. Why do you say, our Father, and not my Father?
A. Because God is the common Father of all, and all good Christians must
pray for one another,
according to the article in the Creed. "I believe in the communion of
saints."
Q. What understand you by the words, Who art in heaven?
A. I understand that God who fills heaven and earth, and is in all
things, times, and places, is in heaven in a peculiar manner, declaring and
manifesting his glory to the blessed; and therefore when we pray, we must
lift up our minds to him, and keep them fixed upon heavenly things.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Jer. xlviii. 10. "Cursed be he that doth the word of God
negligently."
The First Petition.
Q. WHAT is the first petition?
A. Hallowed be thy name.
Q. What do we beg by this?
A. That God may be known by the whole world, and that he may be worthily
praised, served, and honoured by all his creatures, which cannot be effected
but by his grace.
Q. Who are these that say this petition ill?
A. Such as dishonour the name of God by blaspheming, swearing, lying,
cursing, and scurrilous disclosures.
The Second Petition.
Q. WHAT is the second petition?
A. Thy kingdom come.
Q. What do we beg of God by this petition?
A. We beg, that our miseries and afflictions in this life may be such,
as that we may be made partakers of his joyful and heavenly kingdom
hereafter.
Q. What else do we beg?
A. That Christ may reign in us in this life by grace, and in the next by
glory, presenting us a kingdom to his Father.
Q. Who say this petition ill?
A. Such as are willing slaves to sin, and to the devil.
The Third Petition.
Q. WHAT is the third petition?
A. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Q. What do we beg by this?
A. That God would enable us by his holy grace to keep his commandments,
and obey his will in all things.
Q. What mean you by the words, on earth as it is in heaven?
A. We beg by those, that we may be as ready and willing to do the will
of God on earth, as the blessed saints and angels are in heaven.
The Fourth Petition.
Q. WHAT is the fourth petition?
A. Give us this day our daily bread.
Q. What do we beg by this?
A. All food and nourishment for our souls and bodies.
Q. What is the food of the soul?
A. The word of God, the holy sacraments, especially the blessed
Eucharist, and divine grace.
Q. How prove you, that by this petition Christ intended the blessed
bread of the Eucharist?
A. Because in Matt. vi. 11, we read "our supersubstantial bread."
Q. Why is the Eucharist called our daily bread?
A. Because it is daily offered for our sins on the altar, and we ought
daily to receive it, at least in spirit and desire.
Q. Who say this petition ill?
A. Such as are cold and careless in coming to the sacraments, and in
hearing divine service, or exhortations; and such as ascribe their temporal
goods and blessings to their own industry and providence, and not to any
special bounty or gift of God.
The Fifth Petition.
Q. WHAT is the fifth petition?
A. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Q. What do we beg by this petition?
A. That God would pardon us the sins of our life past, as also the
punishments which are due unto them.
Q. Why are sins, and the penalties of sin, called debts?
A. Because they make us debtors to the justice of God, whom by sin we
rob of his due honour.
Q. Why is it added, As we forgive our debtors?
A. To signify that God will not forgive us, unless we also forgive our
brethren; "If you will not forgive men, neither will your Father forgive you
your offences." Matt. vi. 15.
Q. Who say this petition ill?
A. Such as bear malice against their neighbour, and seek revenge.
The Sixth Petition.
Q. WHAT is the sixth petition?
A. And lead us not into temptation.
Q. What do we beg by this?
A. That God would not permit us to be tempted above our strength.
Q. Doth God tempt any man to sin?
A. No, "God is not a tempter of evils, he tempts no man." James i. 13.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Ps. v. 7 "Thou art not a God willing iniquity." And out of
Rom. ix. 14. "Is there iniquity with God? No, God forbid."
Q. By whom then are we tempted?
A. By the devil, and our own concupiscence.
Q. Can a man live in this world, and be free from all temptations?
A. Morally speaking he cannot: "for the whole life of man on earth is a
warfare." Job vii. 1.
Q. Why then do we pray to be delivered from temptation?
A. That we may not be overcome, or vanquished by them.
Q. Is temptation of itself a sin?
A. No, not without consent on our part; nay, it is a great occasion of
merit, if we resist it as we ought.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, out of Apoc. ii. 10, 11. "Be thou faithful unto death (saith
our Lord) and I will give thee the crown of life: he that overcometh, shall
not be hurt by the second death."
Secondly, because Christ himself, who never sinned, would be tempted,
"and the tempter came unto him." &c. Matt. iv. 3.
Q. Are we never overcome by by our own default?
A. Never, according to that answer which was given to St. Paul, desiring
to be freed from a temptation "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of James iv. 7. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
Q. Who are they that say this petition ill?
A. Such as seek after occasion of sin, and wilfully expose themselves
unto temptations.
Q. What are the best remedies against temptations?
A. To have recourse by humble prayer to God and to his saints, and to
such especially as have undergone temptations of the same kind; to resist
them valiantly at the first entrance, and to remember often the four last
things, death, judgment, hell, and heaven.
The Seventh Petition.
Q. WHAT is the seventh petition?
A. But deliver us from evil.
Q. What do we beg by this petition?
A. That God would deliver us from all our evils both spiritual and
temporal, especially from the evils of sin past, present, and to come.
Q. Who is the author of the evil sin?
A. The devil; for "Sin in God there is none." 1 John iii. 5.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Wisdom xiv. 9. "Hateful to God is the impious man and his
impiety."
Q. Who say this petition ill?
A. They who commit their evils before God, and multiply their sins
without remorse.
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CHAPTER VI.
The Hail Mary, or Angelical Salutation.
Q. WHAT is the Hail Mary?
A. It is a most honourable salutation to the blessed Virgin Mary, and
prayer to her.
Q. How do your prove it lawful to honour her?
A. Out of Luke i. 48, where (by inspirations from God; she prophesied,
saying, "All generations shall call me blessed."
Q. How may parts hath the Hail Mary?
A. It hath three parts.
Q. What is the first part?
A. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Q. Who made this part?
A. The Holy Ghost, though it was delivered by the angel Gabriel, Luke i.
28.
Q. What signifies the word Hail?
A. It signifies, Rejoice or be glad, O Mother of God.
Q. Why do we invite her by this prayer to rejoice?
A. Because it renews the memory of her blessed Son's conception, which
is an infinite cause of joy to her and the whole court of heaven.
Q. What signifies the word Mary?
A. It signifies star of the sea.
Q. Why is she properly called the star of the sea?
A. Because she shines on us by her exemplary virtue in this sea of
miseries, like a most glorious star.
Q. What mean you by the words, full of grace?
A. I mean that the Blessed Virgin hath a special fulness and prerogative
of grace for the conception of her Son.
Q. What means, The Lord is with thee?
A. It means that the whole Trinity was with her at the time in a
particular manner.
Q. How declare you that?
A. Because the Father was with her, as with his Spouse, the Son as with
his Mother, the Holy Ghost was with her, as with his choicest tabernacle.
Q. Are they also now with her?
A. They are in glory, and will be so for all eternity.
The Second Part of the Hail Mary.
Q. WHAT is the second part of it?
A. Blessed art thou among women, blessed is the fruit of thy womb,
JESUS.
Q. Who made this part?
A. These words, Blessed art thou among women, were first delivered by
the angel; and after with the rest, uttered by St. Elizabeth, being inspired
by the Holy Ghost. Luke i. 28, 42.
Q. What understand you by Blessed art thou among women?
A. I understand, she alone was chosen out amongst all women to be the
Mother of God, and therefore ought to be blessed and praised by all women.
Q. Why by married women?
A. Because their children are made the sons of God by the nativity and
merits of her Son, of whom she daily also begs blessings for them.
Q. Why by virgins?
A. Because she is their queen and chiefest patroness, and obtains for
them of her Son Jesus, the gift of chastity.
Q. Why by widows?
A. Because she is their best example, and advocate to their Spouse, her
Son.
Q. What means, Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus?
A. It means, that Jesus is her true and natural Son, and in him she is
the author of all our blessings, and to be blessed both by men and angels.
Q. Why are Catholics such great honourers of the name Jesus.
A. Because it is a name above all names, as you have heard in the creed;
and as St. Paul exhorts, saying "all whatsoever you do in word or work, do
all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father by
him." Colos. iii. 17.
The Third Part of the Hail Mary.
Q. WHAT is the third part of the Hail Mary?
A. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and in the hour
of our death. Amen.
Q. Who made this part?
A. The holy Catholic Church in the Council of Ephesus, the year of our
Lord 431, (Pope Celestine presiding,) against Nestorius, the heretic, who
denied our blessed Lady to be the Mother of God, and would only have her
called the Mother of Christ. See Baronius, tom. 5. An. 4. 31.
Q. What means, Pray for us sinners now?
A. It means, that we need divine assistance every moment.
Q. What means, And at the hour of our death?
A. It meaneth that we then especially shall need the aid of the blessed
Mary, and her Son Jesus, and therefore do daily beg it. The word Amen,
signifies, let it be done, or be it so.
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CHAPTER VII.
Charity Expounded.
Q. WHAT is Charity?
A. It is the gift of God, or a supernatural quality infused by God into
the soul of man, by which we love God above all things, and our neighbours
as ourselves, for God's sake.
Q. Why is it called supernatural?
A. Because it is not in the power of nature to obtain it, but by the
special grace and gift of God.
Q. Is charity imputed as protestants would have it, or is it a quality
truly inherent in the soul.
A. It is truly inherent in the soul, as wisdom is inherent in a soul
that is wise, and love in a soul that loves.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First out of Rom. v. 5. "The charity of God which is poured forth in
our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, which is given us."
Secondly, out of Dan. vi, 22, "Before him (i.e. God) justice have been
found in me."
Thirdly, out of Ephes. iii. 17, 18, where St. Paul prays for his
brethren, "That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts: that, being rooted
and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints,
what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth."
Q. What is it to love God above all things?
A. To be willing to lose all things, rather than the grace or love of
God by mortal sin.
Q. Who has this love?
A. They who keep the commandments of God, according to that, "This is
the charity of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are
not heavy." 1 John v. 3.
Q. Hath not he charity then, that breaks any of the commandments?
A. He hath not; for "he that saith, he knoweth God, and doth not keep
his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." 1 John ii. 4.
Q. What is it to love our neighbours as ourselves?
A. To wish him as much good as we wish ourselves, and to do him no
wrong.
Q. Who is our neighbour?
A. All men, women, and children, even those who injure us, or differ
from us in religion, but especially Catholics.
Q. Why so?
A. Because they are the images of God, and redeemed with the blood of
Christ.
Q. Why especially Catholics?
A. Because they are all members of the mystical body of Christ, which is
the church.
Q. Whence ariseth the obligations of loving our neighbour?
A. Because God hath commanded it: and 'if one shall say I love God, and
hateth his brother, he is a liar.' 1 John, iv. 20.
Q. Are we not also bound to love our enemies?
A. We are, according to that, "It was said of old, Thou shalt not kill:
but I say unto you, Love your enemies." Matt. v. 43, 44.
Q. What kind of love are we bound to show to our enemies?
A. We are bound to use a civil behaviour towards them, to pray for them
in general, and to be disposed to do any charitable office for them when
their necessity require it.
Q. What is the highest act of charity?
A. To give our life for God's honour, and the salvation of our
neighbour.
Q. Why is charity the greatest and most excellent of virtues?
A. Because it is the life of all the rest. "Faith without charity is
dead." James ii. 26.
Q. What state of life do we conceive to be of greatest perfection.
A. That which of its own nature and proper institution obligeth to the
highest and greatest charity, for charity is perfection, and such is the
state not only of bishops, but also, as many probably think, of pastors who
have the charge of souls.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of 1 John xv. 13; "Greater charity than this no man hath, that a
man yield his life for his friends," which is the proper obligation of every
parish priest, according to that, "The good pastor giveth his life for his
sheep." John x. 12.
Q. How prove you the necessity of charity?
A. Out of John iv. 16. "He that remains in charity, remains in God, and
God in him," and chap. iii. ver 14, "He that loves not, remains in death."
Q. What are the effects of charity?
A. It destroys sin. "Charity covers a multitude of sins," James v. 20,
and gives spiritual life to the soul. "In this we know that we are
translated from death to life, because we love the brethren." 1 John iii.
14.
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CHAPTER VIII.
Of the Commandments in general.
Q. WHAT is the principal aim or end of the commandments?
A. To teach us the will and pleasure of the eternal God, or the love of
God, and our neighbour. "He that loveth his neighbour hath fulfilled the
law." Rom. xiii. 8.
Q. Why are the commandments (excepting the determination of the sabbath
day) called the commandments of the law of nature?
A. Because God wrote them in the heart of men at the creation, being the
very dictates of natural reason.
Q. When did he renew them in the written law?
A. When he gave them to Moses on mount Sinai, in thunder and lightening,
written in two tables of stone Exod. xx.
Q. Why in thunder and lightening?
A. To move us to a careful observance of them.
Q. Are all men bound to know the commandments?
A. For the substance of them they are, because they are the rule of our
whole life and actions.
Q. How do you prove them to be only ten?
A. Out of Deut. iv. 13, "He shewed his covenant which he commanded you
to do, and the ten words which be wrote in two tables of stone."
Q. By what kind of sins are the commandments broken?
A. By mortal sins only; for venial sins are not strictly speaking
contrary to the end of the commandments, which is charity.
Q. How declare you that?
A. Because a venial sin, for example, a vain word, an officious or
jesting lie, which hurts nobody, the theft of a pin or an apple, is not of
weight enough to break charity between man and man, much less between God
and man.
Q. Is it possible for us to keep all the commandments?
A. Not only possible, but necessary and easy, by the assistance of God's
grace.
Q. How do you prove that?
A. Because God is not a tyrant to command impossibilities under pain of
eternal damnation, as he doth the keeping his commandments.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First out of Exod. xx. and Deut. xxviii. 15. where he often commands
them to be kept, threatening grievous punishments to such as break them.
Secondly, out of Matt. v. 19. "Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of
these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the
least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach the same
shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Thirdly, out of Matt. xi. 29, 30. "Take up my yoke upon you (saith the
Lord) for my yoke is sweet, and my burden light." And again, 1 John v. 3.
"His commandments are not heavy."
Q. Hath God ever promised to enable man to keep them?
A. He hath, and also actually to make them keep and do them.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Ezek. xxxvi. 27. "I will put my spirit in the middle of you,
(said our Lord) and I will make ye walk in my precepts, and keep my
judgments and do them."
And again, chap. xxxvii. 23, 24. "They shall be my people, and I will be
their God, there shall be one pastor of them all, and they shall walk in my
judgments and keep my commandments and do them.
Q. How do you prove that any have kept them?
A. Out of Luke i. 6. "Zachary and Elizabeth were both just before God:
walking in all the commandments and justifications of our Lord without
reproof.
Q. How prove you the keeping of them to be necessary to salvation?
A. First, out of Matt. xix. 17. "If thou wilt enter into life (saith our
Lord) keep the commandments."
Secondly, out of Luke x. 25, 28, where the lawyer had asked, what he
should do to possess everlasting life, and had repeated the sum of the
commandments: Christ answered him saying, "Do this, and thou shalt live."
Thirdly, out of Rom. ii. 13, "Not hearers of the law are just with God,
but the doers of the law shall be justified."
OF THE COMMANDMENTS IN PARTICULAR.
The First Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the first commandment?
A. I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and
out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, or in the earth below, or of those things that are
in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not adore nor worship them; I am
the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the sins of the fathers upon
their children, to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and
showing mercy to thousands of those that love me, and keep my commandments.
Exod. xx.
Q. What are we commanded by this precept?
A. To serve, love, adore, and worship one only, true, living, and
eternal God, and no more.
Q. What are we forbidden by this precept?
A. Not to worship any creature for a God, or give to it the honour which
is due to God.
Q. What is the honour due to God?
A. A supreme and sovereign honour, which is called by divines Latria; by
which we honour him as the great master of life and death, as our creator,
redeemer, preserver, and last end.
Q. How do men sin against this commandment?
A. By worshipping idols and false gods, by erring or doubting in faith,
by superstition and witchcraft.
Q. How else?
A. By communicating with infidels or heretics, by believing dreams, &c.
Q. How do you prove it a great sin to go to church with heretics?
A. Because by so doing we outwardly deny our faith, and profess their
false faith.
Q. What scripture have you against it?
A. Out of Luke xvii. 23, 24, where Christ forbids it, saying, "And they
shall say unto you, Lo! here is Christ, Lo, there Christ; go ye not, neither
do you follow them."
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of Tit. iii. 10, 11. "A man that is a heretic, after the first
and second admonition, avoid, knowing that he that is such an one is
subverted and sinneth."
Q. How do you prove it unlawful to go to witches and fortune-tellers?
A. Out of Deut. xviii. 10, 11. "There shall not be found among you any
one that shall expiate his son or daughter making them to pass through the
fire, or that useth divination, or any observer of times, or enchanter, or
witch, or a charmer, or a wizard, or necromancer, &c. For all these things
our Lord abhorreth."
Q. What understand you by these words. Thou shalt not make to thyself
any graven thing, &c. Thou shalt not adore them, &c.
A. I understand that we must not make idols or images, nor any graven
thing whatsoever, to adore it as a god, or with God's honour.
Q. Why are not these words expressed at length in many of our short
catechisms?
A. Because they are sufficiently included in the preceding words, "Thou
shalt not have strange (or other) gods before me."
Q. How declare you that?
A. Because if we must have no other but the only true God, who created
heaven and earth, then it is clear to the reason of every child, that we
must not have many gods, or any graven things for gods, or adore any other
things for God.
Q. Why do Protestants of those of new religions, instead of graven
things, translate graven images?
A. Because they have a will to corrupt the text, in hope by so doing to
persuade ignorant people, that Catholics are idolaters, and break the first
commandment by making and worshipping images.
Q. How do you prove they corrupt the text?
A. Because the Hebrew word is Pesel, which signifies a graven thing, the
Greek is Idolon, and the Latin is Sculptile, a graven thing; therefore the
word Image is a mere corruption.
Q. Is it lawful then to give any honour to the images of Christ and his
saints?
A. Yes, an inferior or relative honour, as much as they represent unto
us heavenly things, but not God's honour, nor yet the honour due the saints.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Exod. xxv. 18, 19, 22, where God himself commanded "two
cherubims to be made of beaten gold, and to be set on both sides of the ark
(before which the people were to pray) and promised that he would speak unto
them from the middle of the cherubims;" therefore it is lawful to make
images and pray before them.
Q. Do not Catholics pray to images and relics?
A. By no means; we pray before them, indeed, to excite our devotion, and
to keep our thoughts collected upon heavenly subjects; but we do not, at
all, pray to them; for we know well they can neither see, nor hear, nor help
us.
Q. What other proof have you for the lawful use of images?
A. First, out of John iii. 14, where Christ approves the making and
exalting the brazen serpent, by which the Israelites were healed in the
desert, and owns it to be an image or figure of himself, exalted on the
cross.
Secondly, because we read in Baronius, that the famous church historian,
in the year of Christ, 31, that Christ himself sent his own image to king
Abdagar, and made it also by the miracle on the handkerchief of St.
Veronica, and on his own shroud.
Add to this, the second Nicene council, Actio 4, anathematizes
image-breakers, that is such as shall break them in contempt or scorn, and
all such as allege the places in scripture, which are against idols, are
against the sacred images; and also those who say that Catholics honour
images as God, with sovereign honour.
Q. How could you further satisfy a Protestant, that should charge you
with idolatry, in giving sovereign honour to pictures and images?
A. I would for satisfaction herein, if necessary, break a crucifix, or
tear a picture of Jesus Christ in pieces, and throw the pieces into the
fire; and would show him the council of Trent, Sess. 25, which teaches thus,
"Images are not to be venerated for any virtue of divinity that is believed
to be in them, or for any trust or confidence that is to be put in them, as
the Gentiles did of old, who reposed their hope and trust in their idols;
but because the honour that is exhibited to them, is referred to the
prototypes represented by them" &c.
Q. What benefits do we receive by images?
A. Very great, because they movingly represent to us the mysteries of
our Saviour's passion, as also by martyrdoms and examples of his saints.
Q. Is there not some danger of Idolatry in the frequent use of idols?
A. Truely none at all; for it is not possible that any rational man, who
is instructed in Christianity, would conceive or think a piece of painted
wood or marble, is that God and man, Jesus Christ, who was born of the
Virgin Mary, died on the cross, arose from the dead, ascended into heaven,
and sits now on the right hand of God.
Q. But how, if such inconveniences happen, at least by accident?
A. Let the abuse be mended, and not the good institution taken away or
blamed; For man's nature is subject to hurt itself, even in the best things,
which must not therefore be given over.
Q. How do you prove it lawful to paint God the Father like an old man,
seeing he is pure spirit, and hath no body?
A. Because he appeared to the prophet Daniel in the shape of an old man,
Dan. 7, but this is to be understood, that the pictures we make, are not the
proper images of God the Father, but the shape wherein he appeared to
Daniel. And the like is to be understood of the pictures of angels, to wit,
that they are not proper images of them, according to their spiritual
substance, but of the shape they appear in to men.
Q. What utility doth accrue to us by our honouring and canonizing
Saints?
A. Very great, seeing it much conduceth to the imitation of their
virtues, and the love of God, making us know that it is possible even for
ourselves, to come to the like reward.
Q. How declare you that?
A. Because the higher esteem we have of the saints, and the excellency
of their state, the more ardent must needs be our desire, and the stronger
our courage, to do and undertake what they did and practised.
Q. Is it lawful to honour the angels and saints?
A. It is with Dulia, an inferior honour, proportioned to their
excellency, which they have from God; it is God we honour in them.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, out of Josue v. 14, where the angel of the Lord said to Josue,
"I am the prince of the host of our Lord." Josue fell on his face to the
ground; and worshipping said, "What saith my Lord to his servant?'
Secondly, out of Apoc. xxii. 8, where John (though the angel had already
forbidden him so to do, because of his apostolical dignity, chap xix. 10.)
"fell down to adore before the feet of the angel, who shewed him these
things."
Q. Is it lawful to honour the relics of saints?
A. With a relative honour it is, referring it to God's honour.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, because a dead man was raised from death to life by touching
the bones of Eliseus the prophet, 4 Kings xiii. 21.
Secondly, out of Matt. ix. 20, 21, where we read the woman was healed of
her bloody flux, but by the touching the hem of our Saviour's garment, and
believing it would heal her.
Thirdly, out of Acts xviii. 19. "The handkerchiefs and aprons which had
but touched the body of St. Paul, cast out devils, and cured all diseases."
Q. How prove you that dead and inanimate things, (for example, medals,
crosses, churches, bread, water and the like) are capable of sanctity and
honour?
A. First, out of Joshua iv. 16, and Exod. iii. 5, where the Angel saith
to Moses and Joshua, "Loose thy shoes from 'thy feet, for the ground whereon
thou standest is holy ground."
Secondly, out of Matt. xxiii. 17, 18, where we read, that the temple
sanctifieth the gold, and the altar the gift. "Ye fools and blind, (saith
our Lord,) whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the
gold? the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?
Thirdly, out of Tim. iv. 4, 5. "Every creature of God is sanctified by
the word of God and prayer," and out of 2 Peter i. 18, where he calls the
mountain Tabor a holy hill, because Christ was transfigured upon it.
Q. How prove you that pilgrimages to holy places, as to mount Calvary,
mount Tabor, and the sepulchre of Christ, are laudable and pious practices?
A. First, out of Deut. xvi. 16, where God himself commanded, that thrice
a year all the people should come up into Jerusalem, to adore and make their
offerings to him."
Secondly, the example of Christ himself, our blessed Lady, and St.
Joseph, "who went up to Jerusalem, the solemn day of the Pasch." Luke ii.
41, 42.
Thirdly, out of Acts viii. where the Ethiopian eunuch, going on a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, was in his return converted and baptized by St.
Philip, so pleasing was his pilgrimage to God.
Finally, because it was foretold by the prophets that these places which
Christ sanctified by his passion should be of great pilgrimage and
adoration, "We will adore (saith David) in the place where his feet stood,"
Psalm cxxxi. 7. And in Isa. xi. 10, we read, "To him shall the Gentiles
pray, and his sepulchre shall be glorious."
Q. How do you prove it lawful to go on pilgrimages to the shrines of
Saints?
A. Because, as you have read already, their relics are holy and
venerable things, and God is pleased to work great cures and miracles by
them for such as are devout honourers of them.
Q. If there any power now in the church to do miracles?
A. There is according to that unlimited promise of Christ. "And these
signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils;
they shall speak with new tongues: they shall lay their hands upon the sick,
and they shall recover." Mark xvi. 17.
Q. Have these things been done in latter ages?
A. They have, and are, as you may see in the unquestioned histories and
records of all Catholic countries; where many great miracles wrought by the
servants of God, especially at pilgrimages and shrines of Saints, are yearly
registered under the depositions of eye-witnesses, men above all exceptions,
which cannot be denied unless we deny all history.
Q. Why do the pretended reformers say miracles are ceased?
A. Because they have never yet been able to do any in confirmation of
their errors.
Q. Why are so few done here in our days?
A. By reason of incredulity of many bad Christians. Matt. xiii. 58.
Q. What necessity is there for the belief of miracles?
A. Doubtless very great; because the belief of miracles well grounded,
make men extremely apprehensive of the presence of God, and his immediate
government of human affairs; so that he who absolutely denies miracles, is
to be suspected of not believing particular providence, which is the main
string on which all Christianity depends.
The Second Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the second commandment?
A. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord by God in vain.
Q. What is forbidden by this precept.
A. All false, rash, and unnecessary oaths.
Q. What kind of sins are false and rash oaths?
A. Mortal sins, if they be voluntary and deliberate, because by such
oaths, we call God to witness a lie; or at least to that which is uncertain.
Q. What are the necessary conditions of a lawful oath?
A. Truth, that we hurt not God's honour; justice that we wrong not our
neighbour; and judgment, that we swear not vainly.
Q. What is the just cause of an oath?
A. God's honour, our own, or our neighbour's good and defence.
Q. If a man swears to do that which is evil, is he bound to keep his
oath?
A. No, he is not bound to keep it; for an oath is no bond of iniquity.
Q. How prove you a vain or jesting oath to be a sin?
A. Out of Matt. v. 33. "It was said of old (saith our Lord) Thou shalt
not commit perjury; but I say unto you, not to swear at all," that is
without just cause.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of James v. 12. "But above all things, my brethren, swear not,
neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other oath. But let your speech
be: Yea, yea: no, no: that you fall not under judgment."
Q. What else is prohibited by this precept?
A. All cursing and blaspheming.
Q. How else do men sin against this precept?
A. By breaking lawful vows, and by making or keeping unlawful ones.
Q. What is a lawful vow?
A. It is a deliberate and voluntary promise made to God, of some better
good.
Q. How do you prove it lawful to make vows?
A. Out of Isa. xix. 21. "They shall make vows unto the Lord, and shall
pay them."
Q. What is commanded by this precept?
A. To speak always with reverence of God, and his saints.
The Third Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the third commandment?
A. Remember that thou keepest holy the sabbath day.
Q. When did the Sabbath begin to be kept?
A. From the very creation of the world; for then God blessed the seventh
day, and rested on it from all His works. Gen. ii. 2.
Q. When was this commandment renewed?
A. In the Old Law; when God gave the commandments to Moses on mount
Sinai, written with His own finger in two tables of stone, Exod. xx. 1, &c.
xxxi. 18.
Q. Why was the Jewish Sabbath changed into the Sunday?
A. Because Christ was born upon a Sunday, arose from the dead upon a
Sunday, and sent down the Holy Ghost on a Sunday: works not inferior to the
creation of the world.
Q. By whom was it changed?
A. By the Governors of the Church, the Apostles, who also kept it; for
St. John was in spirit on the Lord's day (which was Sunday.) Apoc. i. 10.
Q. How prove you that the Church hath power to command feasts and
holydays?
A. By the very act of changing the sabbath into Sunday, which
Protestants allow of; and therefore they fondly contradict themselves, by
keeping Sunday strictly, and breaking most other feasts commanded by the
same Church.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Because by keeping Sunday, they acknowledge the Church's power to
ordain feasts, and to command them under sin; and by not keeping the rest by
her commanded, they again deny, in fact, the same power.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of John x. 22, where we read that Christ himself was present, and
kept the Dedication of the temple in Jerusalem, a feast ordained by Judas
Maccabęus, 1 Macc. iv. 59.
And out of Acts ii. 1, 4, where the Apostles, keeping the feast of
Pentecost, "were all filled with the Holy Ghost." Neither do Protestants as
yet differ from this, though some have lately prohibited and profaned both
it and the holy feast of the Resurrection, and all the other feasts of the
Church.
Q. What commandment have you from God for obedience to the Church in
things of this nature?
A. Out of Acts xv. 41, where we read that "St. Paul went about
confirming the Churches, and commanding them to keep the precepts of the
Apostles and the ancients." And out of Luke x. 16, "He that heareth you,
heareth me; and he that despiseth you (the Church) despiseth me."
Q. May temporal princes and the laity make a holy day?
A. With consent and approbation of the Church, they may, otherwise not;
because this is an act of spiritual jurisdiction.
Q. For what end doth the Church ordain holydays?
A. For the increase of piety, and the memory of special benefits
received from God.
Q. If keeping the Sunday be a church precept, why is it numbered in the
decalogue, which are the Commandments of God, and the Law of Nature?
A. Because the substance or chief part of it, namely Divine Right, and
the Law of Nature; though the determinating this particular day, Sunday
rather than Saturday, be a Church ordinance and precept.
Q. Did not Christ, when he confirmed the rest, confirm also this
commandment?
A. In as much as it belongeth to the law of nature, he did: but not as
it belonged to the ceremonial law of the Jews, and was affixed to Saturday,
therefore, now we are not bound to keep Saturday.
Q. Why so, I pray you?
A. Because that particular day was a command of the ceremonial law of
the Jews, which was abrogated, and ceased to oblige after the death of
Christ.
Q. To what are we obliged by this precept?
A. To spend Sunday in prayer and divine service.
Q. What is the best means to sanctify the Sunday?
A. By hearing mass, confessing our sins, communicating, hearing sermons,
and reading good books.
Q. What is forbidden by this precept?
A. All profane employments, and servile labours, excepting such as are
of necessity, as dressing meat, serving cattle, &c. or such as appertain to
piety and works of mercy.
Q. Who break this commandment?
A. Such as without necessity spend any considerable part of the Sunday
in servile labours.
Q. How else is the Sunday profaned?
A. By spending all the morning slothfully in bed, or vainly dressing
ourselves; by missing divine service when we may hear it, or spending a part
of the day in drinking, gaming, dancing, or the like.
Q. Is there any thing now in this first table of the law impossible to
be observed?
A. No certainly; for nothing can be more easy and delightful to the true
servant of God, than the things that are here commanded.
Q. Why do you now divide the table of Moral law into three and seven,
whereas anciently some Fathers assigned four to the first table, and six to
the last?
A. Concerning the manner of limiting the number of commandments to each
table, the scripture says nothing, not so much as which is the third, which
is the fourth commandment, and therefore it is in itself indifferent: St.
Jerome divides them into four and six, which is no where condemned, St.
Augustine into three and seven, who is more generally followed; but indeed
the matter is of no great importance how we reckon them so we retain them in
our books, and keep them in our lives.
Q. But what reason can justify the omission of so great a part of the
text, when we transcribe the commandments into our catechisms?
A. Such books being composed principally for the unlearned, are by the
pastors of the church abridged into the shortest and easiest method they
can, prudently condescending to the weak memories and low capacities of the
people: nor can the church be accused of the least shadow of corrupting or
omitting any part of the commandments, or of God's word; since in no
Catholic Bible is there one syllable left out; and whether the first
commandment, after this account, be divided, and the two last united, or
contrawise the last divided and the first united, is not at all material,
the whole ten commandments being entirely contained in both, or either way.
THE SECOND TABLE OF THE LAW.
The Fourth Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the fourth commandment?
A. Honour thy father and mother.
Q. What are we commanded by this precept.
A. To love, reverence, obey, and relieve our parents in their wants.
Q. Why to love them?
A. Because, under God they are the chief causes of our very life and
being; and do not only bring us up with much love, labour, and solicitude.
Q. How are we bound to reverence them?
A. Not only inwardly in our heart, but also outwardly in our carriage
and comportment.
Q. Why to obey them?
A. Because they are God's vicegerents, and have received power from him
(from whom is all paternity in heaven and earth) both to direct us, instruct
us, and correct us.
Q. In what things are we bound to obey our parents?
A. In all that is not sin, according to that, "Children obey your
parents in all things, for that is pleasing unto God." Col. iii. 20.
Q. What is prohibited by the precept?
A. All sourness, stubborness, and disobedience to parents.
Q. What is the reward of dutiful children?
A. Long and happy life; "The blessing of heaven comes upon them, and
remains to the end of their days." Eccl. iii. 10.
Q. What is the reward of undutiful children?
A. A short and sinful life, accompanied with an untimely death witness
the example of Absalom,
2 Kings viii. 14.
Q. What other proof have you?
A. That of Prov. xxx. 17. "The eye that mocketh at his father, and that
despiseth the travail of his mother in bearing him, let the ravens of the
torrent pick it out and the young of the eagle eat it."
Q. What signifies the word Father?
A. It signifies not only our corporal parents, but also our Ghostly
Father, and all lawful superiors.
Q. What owe we to the Ghostly Father?
A. Love, reverence, obedience, and maintenance.
Q. Why love?
A. Because they are the fathers and feeders of our souls, and under God
and his saints, the instrumental causes of our spiritual good: "For in
Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel," (saith St. Paul) 1
Cor. iv. 15.
Q. Why reverence?
A. Because they are God's anointed, and represent the person of Christ.
Q. Why obedience?
A. Because God hath appointed them to be our spiritual pastors, guides,
and governors.
Q. In what are we bound to obey them?
A. In all things belonging to faith, doctrine, and the government of our
souls.
Q. Is any great honour due to priests and ghostly fathers?
A. There is, according to that of St. Paul. "Let the priests who rule
well be esteemed worthy of double honour; especially they who labour in the
word and doctrine." 1 Tim. v. 17.
Q. Have you any other place?
A. Yes, Eccle. vii. 13, 32, 33, "With all thy soul fear our Lord and
reverence his priests, with all thy strength, love them that made thee and
forsake not his master, honour God with all thy soul, and honour the
priests." And the reason is, for if we owe love, honour, and obedience to
our carnal parents, much more to our spiritual, by how much the soul
surpasseth the body. Again, as there is none greater than priests, who are
empowered to shut and open the gates of heaven, as also to convert the
substance of bread and wine, into the most precious body and blood of our
blessed Saviour: to no person is greater honour due, than to them who
personate Christ himself, so that he who despiseth them despiseth Christ
himself, and the disregard of them is the origin of impiety.
Q. How may we sin against priests and ghostly fathers?
A. By disobeying or detracting them, or believing slanderous reports
against them, upon mere hearsay, or the testimony of insufficient witnesses,
or without witnesses.
Q. What testimony is sufficient against a priest?
A. I will tell you out of St. Paul's mouth: "Against a priest (saith he
to Timothy the bishop of Ephesus) receive not an accusation under two or
three witnesses." 1 Tim. v. 19, and 21, "I charge thee before God, and
Christ Jesus, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without
prejudice, doing nothing by declining to either side."
Q. Is it convenient to ask a blessing of priests?
A. It is, because they give it in the name and person of Christ.
Q. What warrant have you for it?
A. First out of Mark 14, 16, where "Christ laying his hands upon the
children, blessed them."
Secondly, the example of Melchisedech blessing Abraham; upon which St.
Paul saith, "without all contradiction, that which is less, is blessed of
the better." Heb. vii. 7.
Q. What scripture have you for obedience to priests?
A. Heb. xiii. 17. "Obey your prelates, and be subject to them; for they
watch, as being to render an account for your souls." And in the old law,
disobedience to the priests was punished with death,
Deut. xvii. 12.
Q. In what are we bound under sin to obey princes and temporal
magistrates?
A. In all things (which are not sin) belonging to the good and peace of
the commonwealth.
Q. How prove you that?
A. First, out of Rom. xiii. 1. "Let every soul be subject to the higher
powers, for there is no power but of God: he therefore that resists power,
resists the ordinance of God."
Secondly, out of 1 Pet. ii. 13, 14. "Be ye subject to every creature for
God, whether to the king as excelling, or to magistrates, as sent by him to
the revenge of malefactors.
Q. What if kings or magistrates command us to do sin, or things against
our conscience?
A. Then we must answer them with the apostles, 'we must obey God, rather
than men." Acts v. 29.
Q. In what are servants bound to obey their masters?
A. In all things that are not sin, belonging to their charge.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Coloss. iii. 22. "Servants, obey in all things your masters,
according to the flesh, not serving the eye, as pleasing men, but in
simplicity of heart, as pleasing God.
Q. How do servants sin against their masters?
A. By neglecting their commands, stealing or spoiling their goods, &c.
The Fifth Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the fifth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not kill.
Q. What is prohibited by this?
A. All murder, unjust shedding of blood, fighting and quarreling.
Q. Is it not lawful to kill in any cause?
A. Yes, in a just war, or when public justice requires it: "For the
magistrate beareth not the sword without cause." Rom. i. 4. As also in the
blameless defence of our own, or our innocent neighbour's life, against an
unjust invader.
Q. Is it lawful to fight duels, appointing a set time and place, for
private interest, or punctilios of honour?
A. No, by no means; for the church hath forbidden it under
excommunication, to be incurred ipso facto; and such as die in duels, can
be neither have Christian burial nor be prayed for the church.
Q. How prove you all fighting and quarreling to be unlawful?
A. Out of Matt. v. 39. "You have heard (saith Christ) it was said of
old, and eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you not to
resist evil, but if any other strike thee on the right cheek, turn to him
also the other."
Q. What else is forbidden by this precept?
A. To seek, wish, or desire our own, or any other man's death, out of
impatience or passion, or to cause women with child to miscarry.
The Sixth Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the sixth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Q. What is prohibited by this precept?
A. All carnal sin with another man's wife, or another woman's husband,
and chiefly adultery; as also fornication and pollution.
Q. How prove you fornication and pollution to be mortal sins?
A. Out of Col. iii. 5, 6. "Mortify, therefore, (saith St. Paul,) your
members, which are upon earth: fornication, uncleaness, lust, evil
concupiscence, and covetousness, which is the service of idols: for which
things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of unbelief."
Q. In what case is it lawful for a man to dismiss his wife?
A. Only in case of evident adultery.
Q. Can he that hath so dismissed his wife, marry another during her
life?
A. He cannot; for "he that dismisseth his wife and marries another,
committeth adultery." Matt. v. 32. And Luke xvi. 18. "He that marries her,
that is so dismissed, commits adultery."
Q. Why is adultery a far greater sin than fornication?
A. Because it is a greater injury to our innocent neighbour, as also to
the sacrament of matrimony.
Q. How prove you that a wife so dismissed from her husband, cannot marry
again during her husband's life?
A. Out of 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11. "But to them, that are married, not I, but
the Lord commandeth, that the wife depart not from her husband: and if she
depart, that she remain unmarried." And ver. 39. "A woman is bound to the
law, so long as her husband liveth; but if her husband sleep (that is be
dead) she is at liberty, let her marry whom she will."
Q. What else is forbidden by this precept?
A. Whoredom, incest, sacrilege, and sins against nature.
Q. Why is lust hateful in the sight of God?
A. Because it defiles in us the image of God, and the temple of the Holy
Ghost.
Q. What more is here prohibited?
A. Unchaste touching of ourselves or others, with delight in lustful
thoughts and kisses.
Q. What is the heir of unlawful lust?
A. Death and damnation; for, "neither fornicators nor adulterers, nor
effeminate," (that is such as defile themselves with voluntary pollution,)
"shall possess the kingdom of God." 1 Cor. vi. 9.
The Seventh Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the seventh commandment?
A. Thou shalt not steal.
Q. What is forbidden by this precept?
A. All unjust taking away, or detaining that which is another man's.
Q. How many kinds of theft be there?
A. Three kinds, simple theft, which is a secret taking away that which
is another man's; rapine, which is a taking away by open violence, or
keeping of that which is another man's; and sacrilege, which is stealing of
sacred things, or out of sacred places.
Q. When is theft a mortal sin?
A. When the thing stolen is of a considerable value, or causeth a
considerable hurt to our neighbour.
Q. How prove you that:
A. Out of 1 Cor. vi. 10. "Neither thieves, nor covetous men, nor
extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God."
Q. What doth the sin of theft oblige us to?
A. To make restitution of the things stolen to the right owner, if we be
able, else the sin will not be forgiven us.
Q. What else is here prohibited?
A. All usury, bribery, cozenage in gaming, or unjust gain by buying or
selling.
Q. What is usury?
A. It is to receive, or to hope for some money or moneys' worth, as
gain, above the principle, immediately out of the consideration of loan.
Q. How prove you usury and bribery to great sins?
A. Out of Psalm xiv. 1, 6. "O Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle,
or who shall rest in thy holy mountain? He that have not given his money to
use, nor taken bribes upon the innocent man." And from Ezek. xxii 12. "Thou
hast taken usury and increase, and hast covetously oppressed thy neighbours.
I will disperse thee in the nations, and will scatter thee among the
countries." Likewise from Luke vi. 35, where the Lord says, "Do good and
lend, hoping for nothing thereby." See on this the Catechism of the holy
council of Trent.
Q. How are rich men soonest brought to beggary?
A. By mingling other men's goods among their own.
Q. How do men generally sin against this precept?
A. Princes, by imposing unjust taxes on their subjects; subjects, by not
paying their due taxes to their princes: buyers and sellers, by deceitful
weight and measure, or by exceeding the just prices: masters by defrauding
servants of their wages: and servants, by embezzling their master's goods.
"And that no man over-reach or deceive his brother in business: because the
Lord is the avenger of all such things, as we have told you before, and have
testified." 1 Thess. iv. 6.
The Eighth Commandment Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the eighth commandment?
A. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Q. What is prohibited by this precept?
A. All false testimonials, rash judgment, and lies.
Q. Why is false testimony so great a sin?
A. Because it is against the justice of God, and our neighbour.
Q. How prove you that corrupt judgment is a great sin?
A. Out of Isa. v. 22, 23, 24. "Wo be to you that call evil good, that
justify the impious man for bribes and rob the just man of his justice; for
as fire devoureth the stubble, so shall the root of these men be ashes."
Q. Why is rash judgment a great sin?
A. Because it robs God of his judgment, and our neighbour of his good
name: "Do not ye judge, that you be not judged." Matt. vii. 1.
Q. Why is it a sin to lie?
A. Because "the devil is a liar, and the father of all lies." John viii.
44.
Q. What else is prohibited by the precept?
A. The crimes of whispering, flattery, detraction.
Q. What is whispering?
A. It is to break friendship between others, by speaking ill of one unto
the other behind his back.
Q. What is flattery?
A. to attribute to another some perfection which he hath not, or to
praise him for that which he deserves not.
Q. What is detraction?
A. Is is a secret staining and blotting another's good name.
Q. What is calumny?
A. It is telling a falsehood of our neighbour to his prejudice.
Q. Are lies, backbiting, flattery, afronts, detraction, and calumny,
grievous sins?
A. They are often very grievous sins. The scriptures saith, Prov. vi.
16, 19. "Six things there are which the Lord hateth; and the seventh his
soul destesteth. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent
blood, a heart that deviseth wicked plots, feet that are swift to run into
mischief, a deceitful witness that uttereth lies, and him that soweth
discord among the brethren.
Q. What is he bound to, that hath hurt his neighbour in any of these
kinds?
A. To make him satisfaction, and restore him his good name.
Q. How for example?
A. If he have told a hurtful lie of him, he is bound to unsay it; or if
he have revealed his secret sin, he is bound to speak well of the same
party, and to mitigate the matter as well as he can.
Q. Is it a sin to hearken to detraction?
A. To do it willingly, and with delight, or so as to encourage the
detractor, it is; for by so doing we cooperate with the detractor.
Q. How them must we behave ourselves among detractors?
A. If they be inferiors, we must reprehend them; if equals or superiors,
we must show ourselves at least not pleased with that discourse.
Q. What is rash judgment?
A. That which is grounded on mere hearsay, jealousy, and surmises
without any moral certainty, or great probability.
Q. When is a lie a mortal sin?
A. When it is any great dishonour to God or notable prejudice to our
neighbour: otherwise, if it be merely officious, or trifling, it is but a
venial sin.
The Ninth and Tenth Commandments Expounded.
Q. WHAT are the ninth and tenth commandments?
A. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's goods.
Q. What is prohibited by these commandments?
A. The inordinate will or desire of unlawful lust, especially adultery,
and of all these.
Q. What else?
A. Not only deliberate desire or consent, but likewise all voluntary
delight and complacency, in covetous or impure thoughts and motions of the
flesh.
Q. How prove you that unchaste desires are mortal sins?
A. Out of Matt. v. 27, 28. "It was said of old, Thou shalt not commit
adultery; but I say unto you, whosoever shall see a woman to lust after her,
he hath already committed adultery in his heart."
Q. How prove you covetous desires to be great sins?
A. Out of 1 Tim. vi. 9. "For they who would become rich, fall into
temptation, and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and
hurtful desires, which drown men in destruction and perdition."
Q. Is there any sin in those motions of concupiscence, which we feel an
suffer against our wills?
A. There is not, for nothing is sin, which is not voluntary and
deliberate. Nay, if resisted they become the occasion of merit to us. To
them were liable the most perfect saints, and even the apostles themselves;
for Paul, 2 Cor. xii. 7, 8, 9, writes, "And lest the greatness of the
revelations should puff me up, there was given me a sting of my flesh, and
angel of Satan, to buffet me. For which thing I thrice besought the Lord,
that it might depart from me: And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for
thee: for power is made perfect in infirmity.
Q. What think you now of this second table of the law, is there any
thing that favours of impossibility?
A. No certainly, for there is nothing commanded us, which the very law
of nature and right reason doth not dictate to us; and therefore ought to be
observed and done, although it were not commanded us.
Q. Is there any thing but what every man expects and desires to have
done to himself by others?
A. There is not, therefore we must do the same to others, according to
that, "All things whatsoever you will that men do unto you, do ye also to
them; for this is the law and the prophets." Matt. vii. 12.
Q. Why then do Protestants pretend and say, that the commandments are
impossible to be kept?
A. Because they are not willing to oblige themselves to the observance
of them, but had rather make God the author of sin, by commanding
impossibilities, (a most high blasphemy) and justify their own iniquities by
saying, they cannot help it; than humbly acknowledge and confess their sins,
with purpose to amend, by an acceptance of the law of God.
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CHAPTER IX.
The Precepts of the Church Expounded.
Q. HOW many are the commandments of the church?
A. There be six principle ones.
Q. What is the first?
A. "To hear mass on Sundays and holydays," if we have opportunity to do
it, and there be no just cause to the contrary.
Q. Why on all Sundays?
A. In thanksgiving for the benefits of the week past, as also to
sanctify the Lord's day.
Q. For what other reason?
A. In memory that the same Christ, who is offered upon the altar at the
mass for our sins, was born, rose from the dead, and sent down the Holy
Ghost on a Sunday.
Q. Why on all holydays?
A. Either in memory of some special benefit, or else for a commemoration
of some peculiar saint, so to move ourselves to imitate his example.
Q. How prove you that the church hath power to ordain and command
feasts?
A. First, by the example of the church in the apostle's time, which
ordained the feast of Christmas in honour of the Nativity of Christ; Easter
in honour of his resurrection; Whitsuntide, in honour of the coming of the
Holy Ghost, in tongues of fire.
Secondly, out of St. Clement, the disciple of St. Peter, in his eighth
book of apostolical constitutions, where he witnesseth. "That the apostles
gave order for the celebrating of St. Stephen's and some other of their
fellow apostles' days after their deaths."
Thirdly, out of 2 Thess. iii. 4. "And we have confidence concerning you
in the Lord, that the things which we command, you both do, and will do."
And ver. 14. "And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that
man, and do not keep company with him, he may be ashamed."
Fourthly, out of 1 Thess. iv. 8, where St. Paul, (speaking of the
precepts he had given his brethren,) saith, "He that despiseth these things,
despiseth not man, but God, who also hath given his Holy Spirit in us." See
what was said before in the third commandment of God.
The Second Precept of the Church Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the second commandment of the church?
A. To fast Lent, Vigils commanded, Ember days, and with abstinence from
flesh on Fridays and Saturdays.
Q. Why Lent?
A. In imitation of Christ our Lord, who fasted forty days and forty
nights in the desert for our sins, without once eating or drinking.
Q. Can we fast in this manner?
A. We cannot; but we must do at least what we are able.
Q. How prove you fasting to be a pious practice?
A. By the example of Christ and his Saints, and out of Luke ii. 37,
where we read, "That Anna the prophetess departed not from the temple
serving day and night by fasting and prayer."
Q. How prove you fasting to me meritorious?
A. Out of Matt. vi. 16, 17, 18. "And when you fast, be not sad, like the
hypocrites; but anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou appear not
unto men to fast, but to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father who
seeth in secret, will repay thee."
Q. How prove you abstinence from certain meats to be commendable?
A. Because it was proscribed by an angel to St. John. "He shall be great
before the Lord, wine and cider he shall not drink." Luke i. 15. And in
Matt. iii. 4, we read, "That his food was locusts and wild honey."
Q. For what is fasting available?
A. For the remission of sins and appeasing the wrath of God, according
to that, "Be ye converted unto me in your whole heart, in fasting, weeping,
and mourning," Joel ii. 12.
To mortify all the lustful desires of the flesh; and that it hath
special force against the Devil: "This kind of devil (saith our Lord) can go
out by nothing but by prayer and fasting," Mark ix. 29.
Q. Why Vigils?
A. To prepare ourselves for a devout keeping the feasts that follow.
Q. Why Ember-days?
A. Because on those days the church giveth Holy orders and ordained
priests; and for that cause hath dedicated them to public prayers and
fasting.
Q. What ground have you for that?
A. Out of Acts xiii. 2, 3. "And as they (the apostles) were ministering
to our Lord, and fasting, the Holy Ghost said, Separate ye unto me Saul and
Barnabas to the work whereto I have them. Then with fasting and praying, and
imposing hand on them, they dismissed them."
Q. Why abstinence on Fridays?
A. In memory that Christ suffered for us upon a Friday; drinking gall
and vinegar on the cross; but especially by custom, which is a good as law.
Q. Why abstinence on Saturdays?
A. To prepare ourselves for a devout keeping of the Sunday, as also in
honour of the blessed Virgin Mary, who stood firm in faith on that day, the
apostles themselves wavering.
The Third Precept of the Church Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the third commandment of the church?
A. To confess our sins at least once a year.
Q. Why was that commanded?
A. Because otherwise, libertines would not have done it once in many
years.
The Fourth Precept of the Church Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the fourth?
A. To receive the blessed Sacrament at least once a year, and that at
Easter, or thereabouts.
Q. Why at Easter?
A. Because Christ instituted the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist at
his last supper, the Thursday before Easter day.
Q. What said it, or thereabouts?
A. Because it will satisfy the precept, if it be done at any time
between Palm Sunday and Low-Sunday.
The Fifth Precept of the Church Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the fifth?
A. To pay tithes to our pastors.
Q. Why so?
A. Because as they feed us spiritually, it is fit we should feed them
corporally.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Gal. vi. 6. Let him that is catechised in the word communicate
to him that catechised him, in all his goods. And 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14. They
that serve the altar participate with the altar, and so the Lord ordained
that they who preach the gospel should live by the gospel.
The Sixth Precept of the Church Expounded.
Q. WHAT is the sixth?
A. Not to solemnize marriage on times prohibited that is, from the first
Sunday of Advent, until Twelfth day be past, nor from Ash-Wednesday, until
Low-Sunday be past.
Q. Why so?
A. Because those are times of special piety and penance, and should not
therefore be spent in feasting, or carnal pleasures.
Q. What sin is to break any of these church commandments?
A. A mortal sin of disobedience, according to that "He that will not
hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heather and a publican." Matt.
xvii. 17.
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CHAPTER X.
The Council of Christ and his Church Expounded.
Q. HOW many councils are there?
A. There be three principle ones.
Q. What is the first of them?
A. Voluntary poverty, which is observed by willingly leaving all things
to follow Christ.
Q. How prove you that to be a work of perfection?
A. Out of Matt. xix. 21. "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou
hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come
and follow me."
Q. How prove you this to be meritorious?
A. Out of the same chap. ver. 27, 28, 29, "When Peter, answering, said
to him: Behold, we have left all things, and have followed he: what,
therefore, shall we have? And Jesus said to them: Amen I say to you, that
you, who have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall
sit on the seat of his majesty, you also shall sit on twelve seats judging
the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath left house, or
brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or lands for my name's
sake, shall receive a hundred-fold and shall possess life everlasting."
The Second Counsel.
Q. WHAT is the second counsel?
A. Perpetual chastity; which is a voluntary abstaining from marriage,
and all carnal pleasures, for the love of God.
Q. Is this also a work of perfection?
A. It is, for Christ himself was born of a virgin, and counselled
virginity, though he commanded it not.
Q. How prove you that?
A. Out of Matt. xix. 12. "There be eunuchs, (said he,) which have made
themselves so for the kingdom of heaven; he that can take let him take."
Q. How prove you that virginity is a more prefect state than marriage,
or that it is lawful to vow virginity?
A. Out of 1 Cor. vii. 37, 38. "He that hath determined in his heart,
being settled, not having any necessity, but having power of his own will to
keep his virgin, doth well; therefore he that joineth his virgin in marriage
doth well, but he that joineth her not, doth better"
Q. What other proof have you?
A. Out of 1 Tim. v. 5. "But she that is a widow indeed, (that is, a
vowed widow,) and desolate, let her hope in God, and continue in prayer and
supplications night and day." And ver. 11, 12. "But the younger widows
avoid, for they, when they shall be wanton in Christ, will marry, having
damnation, because they have made void their first faith, that is, their vow
of chastity, according to the fourth council of Carthage, Canon 104, and all
the Fathers."
Q. Who was the first that taught marriage to be better than virginity,
and persuaded priests and nuns to marry?
A. Jovinian, an old condemned Heretic, according to St. Augustin, in his
book Heresies, Her. 82, and in his 2d book of Retractions, he calls him a
monster for it, and saith the church stoutly resisted him, chap. 22.