Chapter — Marc, Institutiones Morales
Chapter I: On the Virtue of Religion
St. Thomas, 2.2, q. 81; St. Alphonsus, III, tr. 1; ed. G., p. 370; Suarez, de Virt. Relig.; Lessius, de Just., P. 2, c. 34; Aertnys, l. III, tr. 1; Lehmkuhl, I, n. 459; Noldin, II, n. 131; Piscetta, II, tr. 2; Berardi, tr. 2, n. 312; Huby, Manuel d'Hist. des Relig.
- NOTION. RELIGION, as it is taken here, is defined: A moral virtue inclining man to the due worship to be exhibited to God as the first Principle of all things and the supreme Lord.
The MATERIAL object of religion is worship owed to God. - The FORMAL object is the special honesty which is apprehended in that worship, on account, namely, of the supreme excellence of God.
The virtue of religion holds the first place among the moral virtues, because, after the theological virtues, it approaches more closely to God. By the bond of religion man is united with God, but not in the same way as in the theological virtues, insofar as man, by exercising acts of religion, first proclaims himself to be distinct from God and subject to God the Creator.
The virtue of religion is specifically one. It indeed has various offices, contains eminently piety, observance, and gratitude, and also has various acts, as to vow, to pray, etc.; but it produces all these things from one formal motive of worshiping God (Lessius, de Just., l. 2, c. 36, n. 14).
These things having been premised, we shall speak: 1. of the notion of worship; 2. of the species of sacred worship; 3. of the distinction of acts of religion, by which due worship is exhibited to God.