Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

WHEN CHRIST APPEARED.27away from the notion of a good and holy Creator,the contemplation of whom was its present supportand future reward, to visible things. Of thesethings the chief were bodily pleasures. Thus thiscorruption of the soul, in process of time, andcontinually becoming worse, produced this wholepantheon of gods, originally the creation of itsown lusts, and subsisting as a perpetual food andsupport of those lusts. For this cause it hadbroken up the one perfect idea of God the Creatorand Euler of all persons and things into a multitudeof gods, whose functions became more andmore divided, until the ether, the air, the earth,and the water swarmed with these supposed beings,which took possession even of wood and stone,dwelling in the statues erected to them; and everydesire which the soul in its corruption could entertainhad its corresponding patron, helper, andexemplar. In this descending course cause andeffect were perpetually reacting on each other,and as the corruption of the human soul hadgenerated these gods, so their multiplication anddegradation intensified its corruption from age toa^e.25. But this was not all. If corrupt affectionin man himself, if the charm of representing theIn order to form " "scend, and what an incredible depth of turpitude it reached, see De Civ.Dei, 1. vi. c. 9, de officiis singulorum deorum. Its foulness prevents anyadequate representation of it.