BOOK VI
PRECEPTS OF THE DECALOGUE
PART I
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT
CHAPTER I
THE MATTER OF THE COMMANDMENT
THE great precepts of the natural law which binds all men are summed up in the Ten Commandments given by God to the Israelites, which our Lord declared that he came not to destroy but to fulfil. They bind all men, and they will continue to do so as long as human nature is what it is; if only they were observed, the blissful state of happiness of which poets have dreamed, and reformers have striven in vain to bring about, would indeed be realized on earth. The first three Commandments lay down our duty toward God and constitute the first table; the rest, forming the second table, contain our duties toward our neighbour and our self-regarding duties.
The First Commandment, in the words of Exodus, is: "I am the Lord thy God . . . thou shalt not have strange gods before me."[1]
Here God solemnly declares to us that he is our Lord God from whom we have all that we possess, on whom we depend absolutely, to whom we altogether belong. From this, our essential relation with God our Creator, is derived immediately our duty to worship him as our first beginning and last end. The fact that we derive our bodily origin under God from our parents lays upon us certain obligations in their regard; similarly, our relation to God imposes on us our highest duty of worshipping God, our Creator.
The acts of this worship, which natural reason thus prescribes, belong to the virtue which theologians call religion. They are acts such as prayer, worship in the stricter sense, sacrifice, offerings, tithes, vows, oaths, etc. Most of them will be more suitably treated of elsewhere; in this part we will consider the subject of prayer and worship, and then the chief sins against the virtue of religion.
- ↑ Exod. xx 2, 3..
