be free--free from sin, the world, the flesh, and the Devil. For to
break them is to sin: and whosoever commits sin is the slave of
sin; and whosoever despises these commandments will never enjoy that
freedom, but be entangled again in the yoke of bondage, and become a
slave, if not to open and profligate sins, still surely to an evil
and tormenting conscience, to superstitious anxieties as to whether
he shall be saved or damned, which make him at last ask,
'Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord? Will the Lord be pleased
with this, that and the other fantastical action, or great sacrifice
of mine?' or at last, perhaps, the old question, 'Shall I give my
firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of
my soul? Shall I cheat my own family, leave my property away from
my children, desert them to shut myself up in a convent, or to
attempt some great religious enterprise?'--Things which have
happened a thousand times already, and worse, far worse, than them;
things which will happen again, and worse, far worse than them, as
soon as a hypocritical generation is seized with that dread and
terror of God which is sure to arise in the hearts of men who try to
invent a righteousness of their own, and who forget what God's
righteousness is like, and who therefore forget what God is like,
and who therefore forget what God's name is, and who therefore
forget that Jesus Christ is God's likeness, and that the name of God
is 'Love.'

Now, I say that the Church Catechism, from beginning to end, is the
cure for this poison, and in no part more than where it tells us our
duty to God and our neighbour; and that it does carry out the
meaning of the text as no other writing does, which I know of, save
the Bible only.