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| Argument: Whatever the Christians Worship, They Strive in Every Way to Conceal: They Have No Altars, No Temples, No Acknowledged Images. Their God, Like that of the Jews, is Said to Be One, Whom, Although They are Neither Able to See Nor to Show, They Think Nevertheless to Be Mischievous, Restless, and Unseasonably Inquisitive. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter X.—Argument: Whatever the Christians Worship,
They Strive in Every Way to Conceal: They Have No Altars, No
Temples, No Acknowledged Images. Their God, Like that of the
Jews, is Said to Be One, Whom, Although They are Neither Able to See
Nor to Show, They Think Nevertheless to Be Mischievous, Restless, and
Unseasonably Inquisitive.
“I purposely pass over many things, for
those that I have mentioned are already too many; and that all these,
or the greater part of them, are true, the obscurity of their vile
religion declares. For why do they endeavour with such pains to
conceal and to cloak whatever they worship, since honourable things
always rejoice in publicity, while crimes are kept secret? Why
have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?1743 Why do they never speak openly, never
congregate freely, unless for the reason that what they adore and
conceal is either worthy of punishment, or something to be ashamed
of? Moreover, whence or who is he, or where is the one
God, solitary, desolate, whom no free people, no kingdoms, and not even
Roman superstition, have known? The lonely and miserable
nationality of the Jews worshipped one God, and one peculiar to itself;
but they worshipped him openly, with temples, with altars, with
victims, and with ceremonies; and he has so little force or power, that
he is enslaved, with his own special nation, to the Roman
deities. But the Christians, moreover, what wonders, what
monstrosities do they feign!—that he who is their God, whom they
can neither show nor behold, inquires diligently into the character of
all, the acts of all, and, in fine, into their words and secret
thoughts; that he runs about everywhere, and is everywhere
present: they make him out to be troublesome, restless, even
shamelessly inquisitive, since he is present at everything that is
done, wanders in and out in all places, although, being occupied with
the whole, he cannot give attention to particulars, nor can he be
sufficient for the whole while he is busied with particulars.
What! because they threaten conflagration to the whole world, and to
the universe itself, with all its stars, are they meditating its
destruction?—as if either the eternal order constituted by the
divine laws of nature would be disturbed, or the league of all the
elements would be broken up, and the heavenly structure dissolved, and
that fabric in which it is contained and bound together1744
1744 Otherwise, “we
are contained and bound together.” | would be overthrown.1745
1745 [These very
accusations, reduced back to Christian language, show that much of the
Creed was, in fact, known to the heathen at this period.] | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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