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Show -"DEMAND'' Of GOD How God Must Be Served Worldly Motions Mo-tions God Makes Provision for Men The Obligation of Hearing the. Church ! Implies Two Commands: (1) to Learn; (2) to Practice the Law of God God Exacts Fajjh Faith Excludes Doubt TJaesSTCIe, Without an Unerring Interpreter, Interpre-ter, Can Only Give Doubt, i -' (Writ ten fur The Intermountain Catholic.) Jho obligation of serving God. i. e., of knowing j :uid loving him, carries with it a kindred obligation "i knowing, loving and serving him in the manner " in which he prescribes. Leading up to this impor- i tant -obligation we have treated of the harmony be' Uv (.on reason and faith, the -necessity of. 'rev-Ta- ' lion and the assistance which it renders to "reason --In'making .known truths-which reason could not of " ' JtMl discover. These preliminaries disposed of;' ' Kii the basis of Christian-, revelation, we come to t lie' all-important questio'ii.-""lIott,'are we to serve (ulr" ; - . ' ' - . 4 , -. The popular creod of our age is no belief, or-. or-. b. liove as uie wills, not as he Vhould. The ways. , ; of the world are not the ways of God, hence persons j . swayed by worldly ideas, courting popularity, try - to shake off the yoke of the cross, and free them-- IM - " Ti'oni ;iy meii.uU,or physical restraint which "'. "lie 1;i .),- GuTl "Imvrxy. Imagining themselves - wiM-r rhan',lhoif'tirvlfi Juri,'tr:ey asiime to make f. - their owi road to heaven,' onaet. laws which will be - fli"o:Jy guide for thcif conscience, and'which a re ! ff 3 -road and elastic that they, never come in con- . i ' 'J '"iff- V--- timayifri-imi.:i V ti. - ;-UrPv t i'ig the place of God, they dictate what should be i lone and not be done. i f ' But God not only reveals the law, but he also ; :'P'oiiits teachers whose office it is to make known - what the law prescribes. "And if he will not hear ,j ibo church Jet him be to'thee as a heathen and a publican." ITo hear the church implies a two-fold obligation: obliga-tion: (1) To learn from her the true faith, (2) to put in practice the laws of God as taught by her. (1) We are bound to learn the true faith, for with- j out it, according to St. Paul, "it is impossible to please God.' This strong declaration Christ sup- I plomonts when he said: "lie that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth noi 3 shall be condemned." The obligation of believing I embodies an obligation of believing something, and that siinuthing is the truth, or true faith- and that. true faith, like God, its author, is one. It was so from the beginning of time, whether we consider people living under the natural law, the synagogue or the Catholic church. Men could not worship God by believing in error. Hence, the grave mistake of those who sav or think that every religion is the same, for as there is but one God. there can be but one faith, i. e., one 1 rue faith, and those not in possession of the one true faith fall inio the same category as the "heathen "heath-en and the publican.' G.k exacts of all faith, and that under no less ' a penally than the loss of the soul. Then is he, bound to make known to his children what the true faith is, and that with such certainty that there oan be no room for doubt. "Where there is the least doubt there can be no faith, since the very essence of faith i to exclude doubt. A person who simply thinks or feels that he has faith cannot have tlx-faith tlx-faith required, for thinking and feeling do no exclude doubt. Then it follows that God. who ox-h-is faith, and nothing but the true faith, mus have made some provision for an unerring guide-an guide-an infallible teacher who will interpret his law in accordance with his will, and thereby give an assurance assur-ance of the certainty of the true faith which he demands. de-mands. Where do wo find this certain unerring guide J n the acred scriptures, say those who have pro-irsted pro-irsted against the Catholic church. Impossible, for. in ihe iirst place, how establish that the Bible ' i. the reveaLd word of God. They have no author ity and no proof outside the-Catholic church, and at thy have protested against her authority, they conic into court without a witness. Doing without auihority, therefore unable to establish what is scripture and what is not, it is not at all surprising To read of so many disputes and wrangles not only ! as to the meaning and interpretation of scriptural texts, but also as to the books that should be ad-' ad-' mitted as inspired, and rejected as uninspired- ; Martin Lulher called the Epistle of St. .lames an epistle of straw, whilst others lermed it an epistle ) ..f gold. Some have rejected the entire Old Tes- ) lament as uninspired, others the epistles of St- ! Peter and .lude, and still others the gospel of St. ! .lolm. What some hold others reject, clearly dem- onstrating that there must be doubt where there is no supreme, unerring court to decide. But with j ihe possibility of an existing doubt there can be no j faith for those who attempt to build it on the Bi- 1,0 alone. Yet faith is a condition without which salvation is not obtainable. "He that believeth I not shall be condemned." I Even admitting, for the sake of argument, that I all have the sacred scriptures in their entirety, and ! that they contain all that one must believe, how are I persons ' enabled to obtain the meaning of God's I word in the sacred scriptures? In the iuterpreta- 1j07l of the simplest texts there is the widest and most varied differences which have led to a denial i i 1 of every article of the Apostles' Creed, from "! believe in God" to the last article. If, then, as it is historically evident, not only for the past four centuries, but since God revealed himself to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise,. that all who have separated themselves from Patriarchal religion, reli-gion, the synagogue and the Catholic church were in doubt as to what was God's word, assigned meaning mean-ing to God's word wl.cli was not the genuine meaning, mean-ing, then it follows that, where there is room for doubt, there can be o faith which must exclude all doubt. Whoso canf not say with the Apostle, "I know in whom I believe, and am certain," partakes not of the fnith "without which it is impossible to please God." j F. D. .. ........ ' ;";; .. |