They, then, are but abandoned and ungrateful wretches, in deep and fast bondage to that malign spirit, who complain and murmur that men are rescued by the name of Christ from the hellish thraldom of these unclean spirits, and from a participation in their punishment, and are brought out of the night of pestilential ungodliness into the light of most healthful piety.Only such men could murmur that the masses flock to the churches and their chaste acts of worship, where a seemly separation of the ***es is observed; where they learn how they may so spend this earthly life, as to merit a blessed eternity hereafter; where Holy Scripture and instruction in righteousness are proclaimed from a raised platform in presence of all, that both they who do the word may hear to their salvation, and they who do it not may hear to judgment.And though some enter who scoff at such precepts, all their petulance is either quenched by a sudden change, or is restrained through fear or shame.For no filthy and wicked action is there set forth to be gazed at or to be imitated;but either the precepts of the true God are recommended, His miracles narrated, His gifts praised, or His benefits implored.
CHAP.29.--AN EXHORTATION TO THE ROMANS
TO RENOUNCE PAGANISM.
This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, O admirable Roman race,--the progeny of your Scaevolas and Scipios, of Regulus, and of Fabricius.This rather covet, this distinguish from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils.If there is in your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it purged and perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and punished.
Choose now what you will pursue, that your praise may be not in yourself, but in the true God, in whom is no error.For of popular glory you have had your share; but by the secret providence of God, the true religion was not offered to your choice.
Awake, it is now day; as you have already awaked in the persons of some in whose perfect virtue and sufferings for the true faith we glory: for they, contending on all sides with hostile powers, and conquering them all by bravely dying, have purchased for us this country of ours with their blood; to which country we invite you, and exhort you to add yourselves to the number of the citizens of this city, which also has a sanctuary(3) of its own in the true remission of sins Do not listen to those degenerate sons of thine who slander Christ and Christians, and impute to them these disastrous times, though they desire times in which they may enjoy rather impunity for their wickedness than a peaceful life.Such has never been Rome's ambition even in regard to her earthly country.Lay hold now on the celestial country, which is easily won, and in which you will reign truly and for ever.
For there shall thou find no vestal fire, no Capitoline stone, but the one true God.
" No date, no goal will here ordain:
But grant an endless, boundless reign."(1)No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods; abjure them rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty.
Gods they are not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal happiness will be a sore punishment.Juno, from whom you deduce your origin according to the flesh, did not so bitterly grudge Rome's citadels to the Trojans, as these devils whom yet ye repute gods, grudge an everlasting seat to the race of mankind.
And thou thyself hast in no wavering voice passed judgment on them, when thou didst pacify them with games, and yet didst account as infamous the men by whom the plays were acted.
Suffer us, then, to assert thy ******* against the unclean spirits who had imposed on thy neck the yoke of celebrating their own shame and filthiness.The actors of these divine crimes thou hast removed from offices of honor; supplicate the true God, that He may remove from thee those gods who delight in their crimes,--a most disgraceful thing if the crimes are really theirs, and a most malicious invention if the.crimes are feigned.Well done, in that thou hast spontaneously banished from the number of your citizens all actors and players.Awake more fully: the majesty of God cannot be propitiated by that which defiles the dignity of man How, then, can you believe that gods who take pleasure in such lewd plays, belong to the number of the holy powers of heaven, when the men by whom these plays are acted are by yourselves refused admission into the number of Roman citizens even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more glorious than Rome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity.
Much less does it admit into its society such gods, if thou dost blush to admit into thine such men.Wherefore, if thou wouldst attain to the blessed city, shun the society of devils.They who are propitiated by deeds of shame, are unworthy of the worship of right-hearted men.Let these, then, be obliterated from your worship by the cleansing of the Christian religion, as those men were blotted from your citizenship by the censor's mark.
But, so far as regards carnal benefits, which are the only blessings the wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, which alone they shrink from enduring, we will show in the following book that the demons have not the power they are supposed to have;and although they had it, we ought rather on that account to despise these blessings, than for the sake of them to worship those gods, and by worshipping them to miss the attainment of these blessings they grudge us.But that they have not even this power which is ascribed to them by those who worship them for the sake of temporal advantages, this, I say, I will prove in the following book; so let us here close the present argument