These are the most necessary parts which one should first learn to
repeat word for word and which our children should be accustomed to
recite daily when they arise in the morning when they sit down to their
meals, and when they retire at night; and until they repeat them, they
should be given neither food nor drink. Likewise every head of a
household is obliged to do the same with respect to his domestics,
ma-servants and maid-servants and not to keep them in his house if they
do not know these things and are unwilling to learn them. For a person
who is so rude and unruly as to be unwilling to learn these things is
not to be tolerated, for in these three parts everything that we have
in the Scriptures is comprehended in short, pain, and simple terms. For
the holy Fathers or apostles (whoever they were) have thus embraced in
a summary the doctrine, life, wisdom, and art of Christians, of which
they speak and treat, and with which they are occupied. Now, when these
three arts are apprehended, it behooves a person also to know what to
say concerning our Sacraments, which Christ Himself instituted, Baptism
and the holy body and blood of Christ, namely, the text which Matthew
[28, 19 ff.] and Mark [16, 15 f.] record at the close of their Gospels
when Christ said farewell to His disciples and sent them forth.

OF BAPTISM.

Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. So
much is sufficient for a simple person to know from the Scriptures
concerning Baptism. In like manner, also, concerning the other
Sacrament in short, simple words, namely the text of St. Paul [1 Cor.
11, 23 f.].