Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/168

164, in every individual man, of soul, body, and proceeding operation; and that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is that One God.

II. That, if man would be saved, he must not only believe in the Lord, but also live, or endeavour to live, according to his divine precepts of love and charity, shunning evils of every description as sins against him. These two fundamental articles of the true christian religion may well be considered as the two witnesses, of the last days, heretofore clothed in sackcloth, and rejected in the church, but now at length reviving, standing upon their feet, and testifying to the world, in the first place, the true Object of divine worship; and in the second place, the manner how such worship ought to be performed, so as to become acceptable in the sight of Heaven, and to secure to man the happiness of eternal life. The first distinguishes the true christian religion from every other in the known world: for it teaches, that the Supreme Being, the Creator and Preserver of the world, has actually manifested himself as a Divine Man; that he is himself the Redeemer and Saviour of the human race; and consequently that a genuine faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, is at the same time a faith in him as the Everlasting Father. The second article holds up to view, not merely the duty of believing in him with the understanding, which of itself will in the end avail nothing, but (what is of greater importance) insists upon the necessity of conscientiously obeying his sacred laws, by departing from every thing that is opposed to his Word, by embracing with the supreme affections of the heart every principle of the heavenly life, and by reducing to practice all that we know or believe to be the divine will.