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A phrase like that of Clement of Alexandria, "deifying into apathy we become monadic," is seas away from anything we find in the speech of Jesus. That is not the way he preaches God. He is far more natural; and that his followers accepted this naturalness, and drew him so, and gave his teaching as he gave it, is a fresh pledge of the truthfulness of the Gospels.
This presumptuous imposing of the senses of man upon the words of God, of the special senses of man upon the general words of God, and laying them upon men's consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation, this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God, this deifying our own interpretations and tyrannous enforcing them upon others, this restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality, and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and His apostles left them, is and hath been the only foundation of all the schisms of the Church, and that which makes them immortal."
If this can be applied with truth to any armies, it must be to those of France. We have seen them successively and implicitly adopting all the new constitutions and strange gods which faction and extravagance could devise we have seen them alternately the dupes and slaves of all parties: at one period abandoning their King and their religion: at another adulating Robespierre, and deifying Marat.
If this can be applied with truth to any armies, it must be to those of France. We have seen them successively and implicitly adopting all the new constitutions and strange gods which faction and extravagance could devise we have seen them alternately the dupes and slaves of all parties: at one period abandoning their King and their religion: at another adulating Robespierre, and deifying Marat.
After all, it may be doubted whether the theatrical display was as splendid as that which marked the beginning of the Ernestian era. Schoolmaster Houwaerts had surpassed himself on that occasion, and was no longer capable of deifying the new sovereign as thoroughly as he had deified his brother. Much real discontent followed close upon the fictitious enthusiasm.
But despite this degrading warfare men and women have continued to attract each other in varying degrees of love, until now the future offers a golden promise of union. As long as primitive man kept to nature worship, deifying earth as the mother who brought forth the grains and fruits for her childrens' sustenance, religious practices were devoid of sacrifice and strife.
How can the man of the nineteenth century, how can this creature so supremely intelligent, who has displayed a power well-nigh supernatural, who has employed the resources of his genius in concealing the machinery of his life, in deifying his necessary cravings in order that he might not despise them, going so far as to wrest from Chinese leaves, from Egyptian beans, from seeds of Mexico, their perfume, their treasure, their soul; going so far as to chisel the diamond, chase the silver, melt the gold ore, paint the clay and woo every art that may serve to decorate and to dignify the bowl from which he feeds! how can this king, after having hidden under folds of muslin covered with diamonds, studded with rubies, and buried under linen, under folds of cotton, under the rich hues of silk, under the fairy patterns of lace, the partner of his wretchedness, how can he induce her to make shipwreck in the midst of all this luxury on the decks of two beds.
After all, it may be doubted whether the theatrical display was as splendid as that which marked the beginning of the Ernestian era. Schoolmaster Houwaerts had surpassed himself on that occasion, and was no longer capable of deifying the new sovereign as thoroughly as he had deified his brother. Much real discontent followed close upon the fictitious enthusiasm.
If religion, instead of deifying princes, had but taught them to respect the property of their subjects, to be just, and to exercise but their legitimate rights, we should not see such a great number of mendicants in their realms.
Howell, in his epistle to the nobility of England before his French and English Dictionary, takes notice, "that both in France, and in other nations, the word thou was used in speaking of one, but by succession of time, when the Roman commonwealth grew into an empire, the courtiers began to magnify the emperor, as being furnished with power to confer dignities and offices, using the word you, yea, and deifying him with more remarkable titles, concerning which matter we read in the epistles of Symmachus to the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, where he useth these forms of speaking, Vestra Æternitas, vestrum numen, vestra serenitas, vestra Clementia, that is, your, and not thy eternity, godhead, serenity, clemency.
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