| But thou ( O' our God ) art sweet, long suffering and true, and in mercy orderest thou all things. Though we sin, yet we are thine, for we know thy strength. If we sin not, then are we sure, that thou regard us. For to know thee, is perfect righteousness: Yee to know thy righteousness and power, is the root of immortality. As for the thing that men have found out through their evil science, it hath not deceived us: as the painting of a picture ( an unprofitable labor ) an carved image, with diverse colors, whose sight enticeth the ignorant: so that he honoreth and loveth the picture of the dead image that hath no soul.
Nevertheless, they that love such evil things, are worthy of death: they that trust in them, they that make them, they that love them, and they that honor them. The potter also taketh and tempereth soft earth, laboreth it, and giveth it the fashion of a vessel, whatsoever serveth for our use: and so of one piece of clay he maketh some clean vessel for service, and some contrary. But where to every vessel serveth, that knoweth not the potter himself. So with his vain labor he maketh a God of the same clay: this doth even he, which a little afore was made of earth himself, and within a little while after ( when he dieth ) turneth to earth again.
Notwithstanding, he careth not the more because he shall labor, ner because his life is short: but striveth to excel goldsmiths, the silversmiths and coppersmiths, and taketh it for an honor to make vain things. For his heart is ashes, his hope is but vain earth, and his life is more vile than clay: for so much as he knoweth not his own maker, that gave him his soul to work, and breath in him the breath of life. They count our life but a pastime and our conversation to be but a market, and that men should ever be getting, and that by evil means. Now he that of earth maketh frail vessels and images, knoweth himself to offend above all other.
All the enemies of thy people and that hold them in subjection, are unwise, unhappy, and exceedingly proud unto their own souls: for they judge all the Idols of the Heathen to be gods, which neither have eye sight to see, ner noses to smell, ner ears to hear, nor fingers of hands for to grope: and as for their feet, they are too slow to go. For man made them, and he that hath but a borrowed spirit, fashioned them. But no man can make a God like unto him: for seeing he is but mortal himself, it is but mortal that he maketh with ungodly hands. He himself is better then they whom he worshipeth, for he lived though he was mortal, but so did never they. Yee they worship beasts also, which are most miserable: for compare things that cannot feel unto them, and they are worse then those. Yet is there not one of these beasts, that with his sight can behold any good thing, neither have they given praise ner thanks unto God. |
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