Page:Institutes of the Christian Religion Vol 1.djvu/28

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INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

est. Breviter, quod omnia illius nostra sunt et nos in eo omnia, in nobis nihil."—(Pp. 91, 92.)

On the margin of the above passage, reference is made to Ephes. i.; Rom. ix.; 2 Tim. i.; Joan. i.; Ephes. i., iii.; Rom. v., viii.; 2 Cor. v.; Joan, x., xvii.; 1 Cor. i.; Matth. ult.; Coloss. i., iii.; Rom. viii.; Eph. ii., iv.

With the exception of the last passage, which, as observed, is from a different chapter of the work, all those which have been quoted are contained within the first ten pages of the text, where the subjects of which they treat are disposed of summarily in brief, weighty sentences. It is here that the greatest difference is observable between the first and the last editions of the Institutes. In both the doctrines are the same, but the sentences of the first, though for the most part incorporated verbatim, become in the last a kind of general heads, some of which expand into sections, and even occasionally into whole chapters. Indeed, The Knowledge of God, which here occupies little more than a single page, ultimately becomes the subject of a whole book.

The next part of the first chapter is devoted to an exposition of The Decalogue, the Ten Commandments being taken up in order, and the substance of them explained. The whole of the exposition extends only to twenty pages, and hence several commandments, as the first, fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth, are each disposed of in two or three sentences. The largest space is devoted to the second and the fourth. In the exposition of the second, the subject chiefly dwelt upon is The Worship of Images. In the later editions, this subject, though adverted to under the Second Commandment, was deemed of sufficient importance to have a separate chapter devoted to it, and it is somewhat curious to see how Calvin,