True, because, religion implying operation and action, action is imparted in the same manner as knowledge.
Elevating, because it is evident that that aim of Christianity is to raise human persons from their natural state, from their natural operation, to a superior state and operation through the Theanthropos.
Imperative, because, God having made Christianity a law of the cosmos, which he selected, it is not free to a moral agent to accept or reject it, but all must accept it as a law of the cosmos which no one may contravene.
Hence rationalists, and infidels, and indifferentists, in rejecting Christianity or in being indifferent to it, reject a law of the cosmos, a law which is as essential to the entirety of the cosmos, which God chose, as the law of gravitation or locomotion; and in reasoning upon the cosmos, after rejecting Christianity, rationalists and indifferentists should say, "I do not reason on the actual cosmos that God has selected; I reason on a cosmos of my own creation; I limit it, I contract it, I debase it, as it pleases my fancy; and yet, after that, I insist on retaining the name of philosopher."
We pass to the other consequence. The tendency of the exterior act is to form the cosmos, and especially created intelligences, into a universal society. We could prove this by the consideration of the efficient, typical, and final cause of the external act; but prefer to show it only from the typical cause, or objective life of creation.
The objective life of the cosmos is the life of the infinite intelligibly expressed in the Word. Now, God's life is essentially one, absolute, most perfect, universal society. One is the nature of the infinite terminated and concreted by three distinct subsistences—the Beginning, the Word, the Spirit. One and identical is their intelligence and will; because intelligence and will, being an attribute of nature, as the three divine personalities partake of the same nature, they are at the same time endowed with the same identical intelligence and will.
One and identical is likewise their life and bliss; because the life and bliss of the infinite consists in knowing and loving himself, in which operation the three divine personalities share, in force of the identical absolute intelligence and will with which they are equally endowed. They are finally one by their common and reciprocal indwelling in each other; because the beginning is Father, inasmuch as his eternal Son dwells in his bosom. The Son is such, inasmuch as he is related to the Father, and dwells in him. The Spirit is such, inasmuch as he is related to both, and dwells in both.
The Trinity, therefore, is the type of one universal perfect society, because the three divine persons are associated by the unity and identity of nature, of attributes, of life, of happiness, and by a common indwelling in each other.
Now, the Trinity, as intelligibly mirrored in the Word, is the objective life of the cosmos, or its typical cause. On the other hand, we have shown that the plan which God has chosen in his works ad extra is that which draws the subjective cosmos as near in perfection to its intelligible and objective life as possible.
The cosmos, therefore, in force of its typical cause, is called to represent the one most perfect universal society of the three divine persons as perfectly as possible.