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| Dangerous Effects to Religion and Morality of the Doctrine of So Weak a God.
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Chapter
XXVII.—Dangerous Effects to Religion and Morality of the Doctrine
of So Weak a God.
Again, he plainly judges evil by not willing it,
and condemns it by prohibiting it; while, on the other hand, he acquits
it by not avenging it, and lets it go free by not punishing it. What a
prevaricator of truth is such a god! What a dissembler with his own
decision! Afraid to condemn what he really condemns, afraid to hate
what he does not love, permitting that to be done which he does not
allow, choosing to indicate what he dislikes rather than deeply examine
it! This will turn out an imaginary goodness, a phantom of discipline,
perfunctory in duty, careless in sin. Listen, ye sinners; and ye who
have not yet come to this, hear, that you may attain to such a pass! A
better god has been discovered, who never takes offence, is never
angry, never inflicts punishment, who has prepared no fire in hell, no
gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness! He is purely and simply good.
He indeed forbids all delinquency, but only in word. He is in you, if
you are willing to pay him homage,2660
| 2660 Obsequium
subsignare. | for the sake
of appearances, that you may seem to honour God; for your fear he does
not want. And so satisfied are the Marcionites with such pretences,
that they have no fear of their god at all. They say it is only a bad
man who will be feared, a good man will be loved. Foolish man, do
you say that he whom you call Lord ought not to be feared, whilst the
very title you give him indicates a power which must itself be feared?
But how are you going to love, without some fear that you do not
love? Surely (such a god) is neither your Father, towards whom
your love for duty’s sake should be consistent with fear because
of His power; nor your proper2661
Lord, whom you
should love for His humanity and fear as your teacher.2662
| 2662 Propter
disciplinam. | Kidnappers2663
| 2663 Plagiarii. The
Plagiarius is the ἀνδραποδιστής
or the ψυχαγωγός of
Alex. Greek. This “man-stealing” profession was often
accompanied with agreeable external accomplishments. Nempe ψυχαγωγοί,
quia blandis et mellitis verbis servos alienos sollicitant, et ad se
alliciunt. Clemens Alex. Strom. i. λύκοι
ἅρπαγες
προβάτων
κωδίοις
ἐγκεκρυμμένοι,
ἀνδραποδιστοί
τε καὶ
ψυχαγωγοὶ
εὐγλῶσσοι,
κλέπτοντες
μὲν ἀφανῶς,
κ.τ.λ.—Desid. Herald. Animad. ad Arnobium, p.
101. |
indeed are loved after this fashion, but they are not feared. For power
will not be feared, except it be just and regular, although it may
possibly be loved even when corrupt: for it is by allurement that it
stands, not by authority; by flattery, not by proper influence. And
what can be more direct flattery than not to punish sins? Come, then,
if you do not fear God as being good, why do you not boil over into
every kind of lust, and so realize that which is, I believe, the main
enjoyment of life to all who fear not God? Why do you not frequent the
customary pleasures of the maddening circus, the bloodthirsty arena,
and the lascivious
theatre?2664
Why in persecutions
also do you not, when the censer is presented, at once redeem your life
by the denial of your faith? God forbid, you say with
redoubled2665
emphasis. So you do
fear sin, and by your fear prove that He is an object of fear Who
forbids the sin. This is quite a different matter from that obsequious
homage you pay to the god whom you do not fear, which is identical in
perversity indeed to is own conduct, in prohibiting a thing without
annexing the sanction of punishment. Still more vainly do they act, who
when asked, What is to become of every sinner in that great day? reply,
that he is to be cast away out of sight. Is not even this a question of
judicial determination? He is adjudged to deserve rejection, and that
by a sentence of condemnation; unless the sinner is cast away forsooth
for his salvation, that even a leniency like this may fall in
consistently with the character of your most good and excellent god!
And what will it be to be cast away, but to lose that which a man was
in the way of obtaining, were it not for his rejection—that is,
his salvation? Therefore his being cast away will involve the
forfeiture of salvation; and this sentence cannot possibly be passed
upon him, except by an angry and offended authority, who is also the
punisher of sin—that is, by a judge.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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