Introduction
"Grace be unto you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present wicked world, according to the will of God and our Father."
And the will of God, our heavenly Father, is our sanctification, our eternal happiness; that we should love him and serve him in this world, and be happy with him forever in the next. And there is no true happiness but with him and in him. God Almighty has created us for happiness; and he could not create us for anything else, because he is Charity, and all his designs and ways are charity and mercy. He has created all things for us, but he has created us for himself. And if we, nevertheless, see how much misery and unhappiness there is among us in this world, and are taught that innumerable souls are in eternal sufferings in the next world, we must acknowledge that the cause of all that, is not the will of God, but our own wickedness, our want of obedient submission to the most holy and merciful will of God Almighty. Our Savior and our God is infinitely faithful to his promises. He promised us solemnly that whosoever shall fulfill the will of his Father, and our Father, that is in heaven, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, and be there eternally happy with God. We see, then plainly before us the way to happiness; it is: The fulfilling of the will of God, the fulfilling of our duties towards him.
Dearly beloved, as I wish your eternal happiness with
the same heartfelt desire as I do my own, I entreat you
with all my heart, be faithful in the fulfilling of your
duties toward God, and God will reward you for it in his
heavenly kingdom.
I will now explain to you our, principal and most sacred
duties, towards God, that you may mind them, and with the
help of God fulfill them faithfully. Read these instructions
with attention; not only once and then throw them
away and forget them, but read them repeatedly, and endeavor to practise them. This is the first time I speak to you, through these lines, as your principal Pastor and Bishop. Let. these words enter into your hearts as they come out of my heart. This heart has ever loved you, my dear children, but never so paternally as now.
Faith
I. Our first essential duty towards God is the duty
of Faith, which consists in the believing of every word that
God has revealed to us, without rejecting a single point of
revealed faith. Some truths of our religion are so sublime
that we cannot comprehend them with our feeble and
limited reason. These truths we also must believe on the
authority of God who never can err, never deceive nor be
deceived. That there are in our holy religion some truths
so sublime that we cannot comprehend them shows the
divine character of it and admonishes us of the necessity, of the absolute submission of our limited reason to the infallible authority of God. To reject a single point would be to destroy the whole; because if God could err or deceive only in one point, his authority would be no better than human.