Bad Advertisement? Are you a Christian? Online Store: | PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP Chapter VII.—Grief of the Faithful at the Admission of Idol-Makers into the Church; Nay, Even into the Ministry. A whole day the zeal of faith will direct its pleadings to this quarter: bewailing that a Christian should come from idols into the Church; should come from an adversary workshop into the house of God; should raise to God the Father hands which are the mothers of idols; should pray to God with the hands which, out of doors, are prayed to in opposition to God; should apply to the Lord’s body those hands which confer bodies on demons. Nor is this sufficient. Grant that it be a small matter, if from other hands they receive what they contaminate; but even those very hands deliver to others what they have contaminated. Idol-artificers are chosen even into the ecclesiastical order. Oh wickedness! Once did the Jews lay brands on Christ; these mangle His body daily. Oh hands to be cut off! Now let the saying, “If thy hand make thee do evil, amputate it,”200
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