Private Thoughts on Religion, and a Christian Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1829 edition. Excerpt: ...are baptized promise, is, that they will keep God's commandments, which therefore are next taught in the Catechism, without any mixture of human inventions or constitutions: those Ten Commandments, which the supreme Lawgiver himself proclaimed upon mount Sinai, and afterwards wrote with his own finger upon two tables of stone. These they are all bound to learn, because they are bound to keep them all, as they will answer it at the last day, when all mankind shall be judged by them. But no man can keep these commandments without God's special grace, which we have no ground to expect, without praying to him for it. And therefore children are in the next place taught how to pray according to that form which Christ himself composed, and commanded us to say, whensoever we pray, Luke xi. 2. And as he who believes all that is in the Apostles' Creed, believes all that he need believe; and he that keeps all the Ten Commandments, doth all that he need to do; so he that prays this prayer aright, prays for all things which he can have need of: so that in this short Catechism, which children of five years old may learn, they are taught all that is needful for them, either to believe, or do, or pray for. The last part of the Catechism is concerning the two sacraments which Christ hath ordained in his church, as generally necessary to salvation; that is to say, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper: both which our church hath there explained with such extraordinary prudence and caution, as to take in all that is necessary to be known of either of them, without touching upon any of the disputes that have been raised about them, to the great prejudice of the Christian religion. Seeing therefore this Catechism is so full, that it contains all that any man needs to know, ...