Page images
PDF
EPUB

INSTITUTES OF RELIGION.

PART I.

OF THE BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD.

I

N thefe Inftitutes I fhall endeavour to explain the principles of natural and re

vealed religion; or to affign the reasons why we acknowledge ourselves to be fubject to the moral government of God, and why we profefs ourselves to be chriftians, and confiftent proteftants.

Knowledge of this kind is, in its own nature, the most important of any that we can give our attention to; because it is

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
[ocr errors]

the most nearly connected with our present and future happiness.

If there be a God, and if we be accountable to him for our conduct, it must be highly interefling to us to know all that we can concerning his character and government, concerning what he requires of us, and what we have to expect from him. If it be true that a perfon, pretending to be fent from God, hath affured us of a future life, it certainly behoves us to examine his pretentions to divine authority; and if we fee reason to admit them, to inform ourselves concerning the whole of his instructions, and particularly what kind of behaviour here will secure our happiness hereafter, Laftly, if the religion we profess be divine, and have been corrupted by the ignorance or artifice of men, it is a matter of consequence that it be reftored to its primitive purity; because its efficacy upon the heart and life must depend upon it. And if men have ufurped any power with respect to religion which

the

« PreviousContinue »