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| How Any One Can Forget and Remember God.
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Chapter 13.—How Any One Can Forget and Remember
God.
17. Let us take an instance for the
purpose from visible things. Somebody whom you do not recognize,
says to you, You know me; and in order to remind you, tells you
where, when, and how he became known to you; and if, after the
mention of every sign by which you might be recalled to
remembrance, you still do not recognize him, then you have so come
to forget, as that the whole of that knowledge is altogether
blotted out of your mind; and nothing else remains, but that you
take his word for it who tells you that you once knew him; or do
not even do that, if you do not think the person who speaks to you
to be worthy of credit. But if you do remember him, then no doubt
you return to your own memory, and find in it that which had not
been altogether blotted out by forgetfulness. Let us return to that
which led us to adduce this instance from the intercourse of men.
Among other things, the 9th Psalm says, “The wicked shall be
turned into hell, and all the nations. that forget God;”887
and again
the 22d Psalm, “All the ends of the world shall be reminded, and
turned unto the Lord.”888
These nations, then, will not so
have forgotten God as to be unable to remember Him when reminded of
Him; yet, by forgetting God, as though forgetting their own life,
they had been turned into death, i.e. into hell.889
| 889 [Augustin here understands
“Sheol,” to denote the place of retribution for the
wicked.—W.G.T.S.] | But when
reminded they are turned to the Lord, as though coming to life
again by remembering their proper life which they had forgotten. It
is read also in the 94th Psalm, “Perceive now, ye who are unwise
among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that
planted the ear, shall He not hear?” etc.890
For this is spoken to those, who
said vain things concerning God through not understanding
Him.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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