g of salvation, whereby darkness hath been made light, the
wanderers have found the way, they that were lost in dire captivity
have been recalled. Tell me whether is better? To worship God
Almighty, with the only-begotten Son and the Holy Ghost, God increate
and immortal, the beginning and well-spring of good, whose power is
beyond compare, and his glory incomprehensible, before whom stand
thousand thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand of Angels and
heavenly hosts, and heaven and earth are full of his glow, by whom all
things were brought into being out of nothing, by whom everything is
upheld and sustained and ordered by his providence; or to serve deadly
devils and lifeless idols, whose glory and boast is in adultery and the
corrupting of boys, and other works of iniquity that have been recorded
concerning your gods in the books of your superstition? Have ye no
modesty, ye miserable men, fuel for unquenchable fire, true copy of the
Chaldean race, have ye no shame to worship dead images, the works of
men's hands? Ye have carved stone and graven wood and called it God.
Next ye take the best bullock out of your folds, or (may be) some other
of your fairest beasts, and in your folly make sacrifice to your dead
divinity. Your sacrifice is of more value than your idol; for the
image was fashioned by man, but the beast was created by God. How much
wiser is the unreasonable beast than thou the reasonable man? For it
knoweth the hand that feedeth it, but thou knowest not that God by whom
thou wast created out of nothing, by whom thou livest, and art
preserved; and thou callest God that which thou sawest, but now,
smitten by steel, and burnt and moulded in the fire, and beaten with
hammers, which thou hast covered around with silver and gold, and
raised from the ground, and set on high. Then, falling upon the earth,
thou liest baser than the base stone, worshipping not God but thine own
dead and lifeless handiwork. Or rather, the idol hath no right to be
called even dead, for how can that have died which never lived? Thou
shouldest invent some new name worthy of such madness. Thy stone god
is broken asunder; thy potsherd god shattered; thy brazen god rusteth;
thy gold or silver god is melted down. Aye, and thy gods are sold,
some for a paltry, others for a great price. Not their divinity but
their material giveth them value. But who buyeth God? Who offereth
God for sale? And how is that god that cannot move