The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of meeAll he could have; I made him just and right,Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.Such I created all th_ Ethereal PowersAnd Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail__;Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.Not free, what proof could they have giv__ sincereOf true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,Where only what they needs must do, appear__,Not what they would? what praise could they receive?What pleasure I from such obedience paid,When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil__,Made passive both, had served necessity,Not mee. They therefore as to right belong__,So were created, nor can justly accuseThir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;As if Predestination over-rul__Thir will, dispos__ by absolute DecreeOr high foreknowledge; they themselves decreedThir own revolt, not I; if I foreknewForeknowledge had no influence on their fault,Which had no less prov__ certain unforeknown.So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,Or aught by me immutable foreseen,They trespass, Authors to themselves in allBoth what they judge and what they choose; for soI form__ them free, and free they must remain,Till they enthrall themselves: I else must changeThir nature, and revoke the high DecreeUnchangeable, Eternal, which ordain__Thir freedom: they themselves ordain__ thir fall.
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Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of meeAll he could have; I made him just and right,Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.Such I created all th_ Ethereal PowersAnd Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail__;Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.Not free, what proof could they have giv__ sincereOf true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,Where only what they needs must do, appear__,Not what they would? what praise could they receive?What pleasure I from such obedience paid,When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil__,Made passive both, had served necessity,Not mee. They therefore as to right belong__,So were created, nor can justly accuseThir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;As if Predestination over-rul__Thir will, dispos__ by absolute DecreeOr high foreknowledge; they themselves decreedThir own revolt, not I; if I foreknewForeknowledge had no influence on their fault,Which had no less prov__ certain unforeknown.So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,Or aught by me immutable foreseen,They trespass, Authors to themselves in allBoth what they judge and what they choose; for soI form__ them free, and free they must remain,Till they enthrall themselves: I else must changeThir nature, and revoke the high DecreeUnchangeable, Eternal, which ordain__Thir freedom: they themselves ordain__ thir fall.
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The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer it; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus' hands.
Evil_doesn__ mean doing things that have bad consequences for people. It means private thoughts and actions that are not to __he Christian majority___ private liking.
I felt at one and the same time quite close, within reach of my hand, and yet an infinite distance away, an unknown world of goodness. Often Isa had said to me: 'You, who see nothing but evil.... You, who see evil everywhere....' It was true, and it was not true.
Richard Dawkins regards faith as an evil to be eliminated; he takes all religious faith to be blind faith. (Dawkins says) __cientific belief is based on publicly checkable evidence, religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its joy, shouted from the rooftops._ However, taking Dawkins own advice we ask: where is the evidence that religious faith is not based on evidence? Mainstream Christianity will insist that faith and evidence are inseparable. Indeed, faith is a response to evidence, not a rejoicing in the absence of evidence. The apostle Paul says what many pioneers of modern science believed, that nature itself is part of the evidence for the existence of God ,_ Since the creation of the world, God__ invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature _ have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. So that men are without an excuse._ Dawkins_ definition of faith turns out to be the direct opposite of the biblical one. Curious that he does not seem to be aware of the discrepancy.
...So little knowsAny but God alone to value rightThe good before him but perverts best thingsTo worst abuse or to their meanest use.