4. Their idols are silver and gold, mere dead inert matter; at the best only made of precious metals, but that metal quite as powerless as the commonest wood or clay. The value of the idol shows the folly of the maker in wasting his substance, but certainly does not increase the power of the image, since there is no more life in silver and gold than in brass or iron. The work of men’s hands. Inasmuch as the maker is always greater than the thing that he has made, these idols are less to be honored than the artificers, who fashioned them. How irrational that people should adore that which is less than themselves! Our God is a spirit, and his hands made the heavens and the earth: well may we worship him, and we need not be disturbed at the sneering question of those who are so proud as to refuse to adore the living God, and yet bow their knees before images of their own carving. We may make an application of all this to the times in which we are now living. The god of modern thought is the creation of the thinker himself, evolved out of his own consciousness, or fashioned according to his own notion of what a god should be. Now, it is evident that such a being is no god. It is impossible that there should be a god at all except the God of revelation. A god who can be fashioned by our own thoughts is no more a god than the image manufactured or produced by our own hands. The true God must of necessity be his own revealer.
PREVIOUS
NEXT
No comments:
Post a Comment