CHAPTER III.What God Is.I.Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as acorporeal substanceit is neither separable nor divisible.1Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion,Tertullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced againstApelles, that, “that which is not matter is nothing,” and againstPraxias, that “all substance is matter,”without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church,œcumenicaland general.2II.These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want ajustandavengingGod, whorewardsandpunishesafter the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although thesevisionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans.3They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses.4Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appeara thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things,5and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.Flame surrounded by wreath.1So of water, however, it may be subject to generation and corruption, as long as it is substance it is not subject to separation and division.↑2The four first Councils were 1. That of Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great, and under Pope Sylvester I.; 2. That of Constantinople in the year 381, under the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodore and the Pope Damase I.; 3. That of Ephesus in the year 431, under the Emperor Theodore, the younger, and Valentinian and under the Pope Celestin; 4. That of Chalcedon in the year 451, under Valentinian and Martian, and under Pope Leo I.↑3These, among us, are the Astrologers and Fanatics.↑4The Talmud remarks that the Rabbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes from the number of canonicals, and would have done so had they not found in several places that they eulogized the Mosaic law. They would have done the same with the prophecies of Ezekiel had not a certain Chananias undertook to harmonize them with the same law.↑5The versions that we have differ greatly in a thousand places, one with another, until the end of the book.↑
CHAPTER III.What God Is.I.Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as acorporeal substanceit is neither separable nor divisible.1Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion,Tertullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced againstApelles, that, “that which is not matter is nothing,” and againstPraxias, that “all substance is matter,”without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church,œcumenicaland general.2II.These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want ajustandavengingGod, whorewardsandpunishesafter the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although thesevisionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans.3They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses.4Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appeara thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things,5and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.Flame surrounded by wreath.1So of water, however, it may be subject to generation and corruption, as long as it is substance it is not subject to separation and division.↑2The four first Councils were 1. That of Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great, and under Pope Sylvester I.; 2. That of Constantinople in the year 381, under the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodore and the Pope Damase I.; 3. That of Ephesus in the year 431, under the Emperor Theodore, the younger, and Valentinian and under the Pope Celestin; 4. That of Chalcedon in the year 451, under Valentinian and Martian, and under Pope Leo I.↑3These, among us, are the Astrologers and Fanatics.↑4The Talmud remarks that the Rabbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes from the number of canonicals, and would have done so had they not found in several places that they eulogized the Mosaic law. They would have done the same with the prophecies of Ezekiel had not a certain Chananias undertook to harmonize them with the same law.↑5The versions that we have differ greatly in a thousand places, one with another, until the end of the book.↑
CHAPTER III.What God Is.I.Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as acorporeal substanceit is neither separable nor divisible.1Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion,Tertullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced againstApelles, that, “that which is not matter is nothing,” and againstPraxias, that “all substance is matter,”without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church,œcumenicaland general.2II.These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want ajustandavengingGod, whorewardsandpunishesafter the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although thesevisionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans.3They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses.4Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appeara thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things,5and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.Flame surrounded by wreath.
I.Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as acorporeal substanceit is neither separable nor divisible.1Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion,Tertullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced againstApelles, that, “that which is not matter is nothing,” and againstPraxias, that “all substance is matter,”without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church,œcumenicaland general.2
I.
Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as acorporeal substanceit is neither separable nor divisible.1Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion,Tertullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced againstApelles, that, “that which is not matter is nothing,” and againstPraxias, that “all substance is matter,”without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church,œcumenicaland general.2
Until now we have fought the popular idea concerning the Divinity, but we have not yet said what God is, and if we were asked, we should say that the word represents to us an Infinite Being, of whom one of his attributes is to be a substance of extent and consequently eternal and infinite. The extent or the quantity not being finite or divisible, it may be imagined that the matter was everywhere the same, our understanding not distinguishing parts. For example, water, as much as water is imagined, is divisible, and its parts separable from one another, though as much as acorporeal substanceit is neither separable nor divisible.1Thus neither matter or quantity have anything unworthy of God, for if all is God, and all comes surely from his essence, it follows quite absolutely that He is all that he contains, since it is incomprehensible that Beings quite material should be contained in a Being who is not. That we may not think that this is a new opinion,Tertullian, one of the foremost men among the Christians, has pronounced againstApelles, that, “that which is not matter is nothing,” and againstPraxias, that “all substance is matter,”without having this doctrine condemned in the four first Councils of the Christian Church,œcumenicaland general.2
II.These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want ajustandavengingGod, whorewardsandpunishesafter the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although thesevisionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans.3They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses.4Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appeara thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things,5and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.Flame surrounded by wreath.
II.
These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want ajustandavengingGod, whorewardsandpunishesafter the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although thesevisionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans.3They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses.4Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appeara thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things,5and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.Flame surrounded by wreath.
These sentiments are plain and the only ones that good and sound judgment can form of God. However, there are but few who are satisfied with such simplicity. Boorish people, who are accustomed to adulation of opinion, demand a God who resembles earthly kings. The pomp and circumstance surrounding them so fascinates, that to take away all hope of going after death to increase the number of heavenly courtiers enjoying the same pleasure which attaches to the Court of Kings, is to take away the consolation and the only things which prevent them from going to despair over the miseries of life. They want ajustandavengingGod, whorewardsandpunishesafter the manner of kings, a God susceptible of all human passions and weaknesses. They give him feet, hands, and ears, and yet they do not regard a God so constituted as material. They say that man is his masterpiece, and even his own image, but do not allow that the copy is like the original. In a word, the God of the people of today is subject to as many forms as Jupiter of the Pagans, and what is still more strange, these follies contradict each other and shock good sense. The vulgar reverence them because they firmly believe what the Prophets have said, although thesevisionaries among the Hebrews, were the same as the augurs and the diviners among the pagans.3They consult the Bible as if God or nature was therein expounded to them in a special manner, however this book is only a rhapsody of fragments, gathered at various times, selected by several persons, and given to the people according to the fancy of the Rabbins, who did not publish them until after approving some, and rejecting others, and seeing if they were conformable or opposed to the Law of Moses.4Yes, such is the malice and stupidity of men that they prefer to pass their lives disputing with one another, and worshipping a book received from ignorant people; a book with little order or method, which everyone admits as confused and badly conceived, only serving to foment divisions.
Christians would rather adore this phantom than listen to the law of Nature which God—that is to say, Nature, which is the active principle—has written in the heart of man. All other laws are but human fictions, and pure illusions forged, not by Demons or evil spirits, which are fanciful ideas, but by the skill of Princes and Ecclesiastics to give the former more warrant for their authority, and to enrich the latter by the traffic in an infinity of chimeras which sell to the ignorant at a good price.
All other laws are not supported save on the authority of the Bible, in the original of which appeara thousand instances of extraordinary and impossible things,5and which speaks only of recompenses or punishments for good or bad actions, but which are wisely deferred for a future life, relying that the trick will not be discovered in this, no one having returned from the other to tell the news. Thus, men kept ever wavering between hope and fear, are held to their duty by the belief they aver that God has created man only to render him eternally happy or unhappy, and which has given rise to the infinity of religions which we are about to discuss.
Flame surrounded by wreath.
1So of water, however, it may be subject to generation and corruption, as long as it is substance it is not subject to separation and division.↑2The four first Councils were 1. That of Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great, and under Pope Sylvester I.; 2. That of Constantinople in the year 381, under the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodore and the Pope Damase I.; 3. That of Ephesus in the year 431, under the Emperor Theodore, the younger, and Valentinian and under the Pope Celestin; 4. That of Chalcedon in the year 451, under Valentinian and Martian, and under Pope Leo I.↑3These, among us, are the Astrologers and Fanatics.↑4The Talmud remarks that the Rabbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes from the number of canonicals, and would have done so had they not found in several places that they eulogized the Mosaic law. They would have done the same with the prophecies of Ezekiel had not a certain Chananias undertook to harmonize them with the same law.↑5The versions that we have differ greatly in a thousand places, one with another, until the end of the book.↑
1So of water, however, it may be subject to generation and corruption, as long as it is substance it is not subject to separation and division.↑
2The four first Councils were 1. That of Nice in the year 345, under the Emperor Constantine the Great, and under Pope Sylvester I.; 2. That of Constantinople in the year 381, under the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian and Theodore and the Pope Damase I.; 3. That of Ephesus in the year 431, under the Emperor Theodore, the younger, and Valentinian and under the Pope Celestin; 4. That of Chalcedon in the year 451, under Valentinian and Martian, and under Pope Leo I.↑
3These, among us, are the Astrologers and Fanatics.↑
4The Talmud remarks that the Rabbins deliberated whether they should omit the Book of Proverbs and that of Ecclesiastes from the number of canonicals, and would have done so had they not found in several places that they eulogized the Mosaic law. They would have done the same with the prophecies of Ezekiel had not a certain Chananias undertook to harmonize them with the same law.↑
5The versions that we have differ greatly in a thousand places, one with another, until the end of the book.↑