Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 13.djvu/146

 After these proofs follow special proofs of the unity of God in opposition to the bitheistic heretics, and these proofs have no connection with the subject. And after all that it is assumed that the first dogma about the unity of God has been disclosed, and the author proceeds with the teaching about the moral application of this first dogma.

The author has the idea that every dogma is necessary for the saving faith. One dogma about the “one God” has been revealed, and so it is necessary to show how this dogma is helpful in the salvation of men. this:

“Three important lessons can we draw for ourselves from the dogma about the unity of God. Lesson the first in respect to our relation to God. ‘I believe in one God,’ utters every Christian, beginning the words of the Symbol,—in one, and not in many, or two, or three, as the pagans and certain heretics used to believe: and so him alone shall we serve as God (Deut. vi. 13; Matt. iv. 10); and love him alone with all our heart, and with all our soul (Deut. vi. 4, 5); and put all our confidence in him alone (Psalm cxvii. 8, 9; 1 Peter i. 21); at the same time we must keep away from all kinds of polytheism and idolatry (Exod. xx. 3—5). The pagans, while believing in one supreme God, at the same time recognized many lower gods, and among this number included incorporeal spirits, good and bad (genii and demons), and deceased persons who had in some way been famous in life. We, too, worship good angels, and we worship holy men who in their lifetime have excelled in faith and piety; but we must not forget that we have to worship them, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, not as inferior gods, but as servants and ministers of God, as intercessors for us before God, and as promoters of our salvation,—we must worship them in such a way that the whole glory should refer mainly to him alone as won-