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.
Next - The Douai Catechism, 1649 - CHAPTER II. - Faith Explained
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