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| Chapter X.—How God is to be served. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter X.—How God is to be served.
But we have received by tradition that God
does not need the material offerings which men can give, seeing, indeed,
that He Himself is the provider of all things. And we have been taught,
and are convinced, and do believe, that He accepts those only who imitate
the excellences which reside in Him, temperance, and justice, and
philanthropy, and as many virtues as are peculiar to a God who is called
by no proper name. And we have been taught that He in the beginning did
of His goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of unformed
matter; and if men by their works show themselves worthy of this His
design, they are deemed worthy, and so we have received—of
reigning in company with Him, being delivered from corruption and
suffering. For as in the
beginning He created us when we were not, so do we consider that, in like
manner, those who choose what is pleasing to Him are, on account of their
choice, deemed worthy of incorruption and of fellowship with Him. For the
coming into being at first was not in our own power; and in order that we
may follow those things which please Him, choosing them by means of the
rational faculties He has Himself endowed us with, He both persuades us
and leads us to faith. And we think it for the advantage of all men that
they are not restrained from learning these
things, but are
even urged thereto. For the restraint which human laws could not effect,
the Word, inasmuch as He is divine, would have effected, had not the
wicked demons, taking as their ally the lust of wickedness which is in
every man, and which draws variously to all manner of vice, scattered
many false and profane accusations, none of which attach to us. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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