Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMsinner for the sake of the good. It is a summary ofthe general belief in this respect to say that penaljustice was represented as an original and everlastingprinciple of the world's government, maintainedZeus himself.1Thus the individual thought of inquiring mindsfound itself in the presence of a society which offeredto the observer two very different aspects. On the onehand was a civil and religious order, closely united,coming down from remote antiquity. It bore upon itthe tokens of an original divine sanction, with largeportions of a divine tradition preserved in it, with greatand venerable institutions, that of sacrifice showingtraces of a primeval covenant between God and man.Under this lay a revelation and a promise, that ofprayer, which forrr.ed part of the ordinance of sacrifice,expressing the perpetual relation between God andman, a divine government of the world. Togetherwith these were oracles, in which man professed toseek divine guidance in the trials and obscurities ofhis private lot, as well as in public dangers ; and furthermysteries, in which he also sought for deliverance fromguilt. This on the one hand. On the other the wholeof this religious order had suffered an incredible corruption.First the unity of God had been divided,and by that division the conception of His eternal andinfinite Being unspeakably degraded : next, His sanctity1 The above propositions are proved by a great array of quotationsfrom Greek authors by Xiigelsbach, pp. 71-84 and 30-36. 1 take onetruly JEschylean pas- ige, L'ho(^h, 309.vrl-yXuxrcra reXetV^W T6vfi\6fj.evoviraffaovaa A IK?; /J.ty' avrel"avrl; ' dpdaavTi TTO.!j.vdos rd5e