Tutelary deity

“ Under the eye of this terrible Deity, no one would have had the audacity to violate his ordinances, no mortal would have dared to place himself in the situation of drawing down his wrath; and, lastly, no man would have had the effrontery to impose on his fellow creatures, in the name of the Deity, or to interpret his will according to his own fancy. ”

“ In short, they logically refuse to the Divine power as exhibited in Nature all personal or moral quality, as inferring on the part of Deity any possible unequal or inequitable relations to the creatures He has made ”

“ If it be said that free-will can be granted to deity but to nothing lower, inasmuch as the Deity must be aware of all that is going to happen, I reply that you are now making a hypothesis of a complicated kind, and going beyond knowledge into speculation. But if still the speculation appears reasonable, that only the Deity can be endowed with free-will, it merely opens the question, What shall be included in that term? ”

“ He would, moreover, when he died, make his last will and testament, wherein he left to his spouse a singular manna, to cure all her infirmities; a gift, than which nothing can be more sovereign, nothing more precious, seeing the Deity itself is therein contained. ”

“ By the argument which it contains against a particular Providence, though you allow a general Providence, you strike at the foundation of all religion. For, without the belief of a Providence that takes cognizance of, guards and guides, and may favour particular persons, there is no motive to worship a Deity, to fear His displeasure, or to pray for His protection. ”

“ In the first place, it is obvious that those who regard the arbitrary will of the Deity as the sole rule of morals, render it perfectly idle to represent the Divine attributes as deserving of our admiration. ”

“ As the State, which had its origin in no more than common fear and hatred, in the end would be honoured without thought of gain and its flag held sacred by its sons; so Deity, beginning as vengeance personified, would advance to a spiritual Law and a spiritual Love. When the power of loving returned to the race, it would cease to abase itself and lift up its eyes to a Father—endowing its Deity with that which was best in itself ”

“ A system of morals which excludes the worship of the Deity, or the duties which we owe him, is as essentially defective and as repugnant to reason, as if it excluded all the duties of the social life, or which man owes to man.—Agreeably to this, we find all the pagan world, who admitted the being of a God, paying divine honours, of some kind, to their fancied Divinities. ”

“ Justice is inherent in the universal sovereignty of the Paradise Trinity, but goodness, mercy, and truth are the universe ministry of the divine personalities, whose Deity union constitutes the Trinity. Justice is not the attitude of the Father, the Son, or the Spirit. Justice is the Trinity attitude of these personalities of love, mercy, and ministry. No one of the Paradise Deities fosters the administration of justice. Justice is never a personal attitude ”

“ The divine law, then, not only forbids the worshipping of idols, but also of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, or the other stars; yea, not heaven, nor earth, nor the sea, nor fountains, nor rivers, must be worshipped, but we must serve in holiness of heart and sincerity of purpose only the living and true God, who also is Maker of the universe. Wherefore saith the holy law: “Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not desire thy neighbour’s wife.” ”

“ Nearly all sects reject sacrifice in toto and make the basis of salvation emotional—namely devotion to the deity, and as a counterpart to this the chief characteristic of the deity is loving condescension or grace. ”

“ Furthermore it is believed that the personal deity requires the performance of certain actions in his honor, and what these actions are is again left to the priest to determine. In this manner the ceremonial part of religion grows up, and acquires a degree of importance fatal to the moral life. The duties toward God transcend the duties toward man, and but too often usurp their place. ”

“ That whatsoever divinity and celestial power may exist may be propitious to us, and to all that live under our government. Therefore, we have decreed the following ordinance as our will, with a salutary and most correct intention, that no freedom at all shall be refused to Christians, to follow or to keep their observances or worship. But that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to that worship which he may think adapted to himself. That the Deity may in all things exhibit to us His accustomed favour and kindness. ”

“ Indeed, Almighty God, in his infinite mercy, can dispose a soul, in a moment, for receiving sanctifying grace, and infuse, at the same time, this grace into the soul. The light of true faith, the voluntary inclination of free-will to conform to the will and grace of God, the determination of free-will to abstain from sin, the remission of sins, and the infusion of grace, take place by a simultaneous movement; for justification is instantaneous, and has no successive gradation. ”

“ Its aim is to please the deity, and if the deity is one who delights in charity and mercy and purity more than in oblations of blood, the chanting of hymns, and the fumes of incense, his worshippers will best please him, not by prostrating themselves before him, by intoning his praises, and by filling his temples with costly gifts, but by being pure and merciful and charitable towards men, for in so doing they will imitate, so far as human infirmity allows, the perfections of the divine nature. ”

“ No power but that of Deity can bring them again together, and as God proceeds by law, and the law fixed for these relations have not been complied with, the separation continues while endless ages roll. "In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage," but, if in a saved condition, are as the angels, and they are ministering spirits or servants unto those who obtain the crown of eternal lives, "a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory," than that which rests upon any of the angels. ”

“ But they will by no means say that the Deity, enfeebled through the desire that springs from want, is nourished. Accordingly, they will represent Him as nourished without desire like a plant, and like beasts that burrow. ”

“ Furthermore, it tends to emphasize these considerations and at the same time degrade the object of worship through claiming the attention of God in their behalf. The deity is conceived, not under the form of a broad and consecutive purpose, but under the form of a casual and desultory good-nature. ”

“ We talk about true riches—about the eternal attributes of the Deity—and about that which He has given to the children of men. I also heard something said the other day about sanctification. This doctrine I heard taught many years ago, and I perceive that men do not fully understand these principles; even the best of the Latter-day Saints have but a faint idea of the attributes of the Deity. ”

“ He has made known, through direct revelation, that we are His offspring, begotten in the eternal worlds, that we have come to this earth for the special purpose of preparing ourselves to receive a fullness of our Father's glory when we shall return into his presence. Therefore, we must seek the ability to keep this law, to sanctify our motives, desires, feelings and affections, that they may be pure and holy, and our will in all things be subservient to the will of God, and have no will of our own except to do the will of our Father. ”

“ As this was destructive to the ecclesiastical system, so was the doctrine equally subversive of morality, which taught that such was the virtue of love and charity that whatever was done in their behalf could be no sin, and, further, that any one filled with the Holy Ghost was impeccable, no matter what crime he might commit, because that Spirit, which is God, cannot sin, nor can man, who is nothing of himself, so long as the Spirit of God is in him. ”

“ In the Deity no less than in thecreature, it is “the great governing principle, which has power, dominion and authority over all things.”
‘he next and last peculiar doctrine which I shall adduce, not only illustrates the transcendental tendencies of this superstition, but also the adroitness with which its founder addresses it to the strongest affections and holiest sentiments of the human heart. Starting with the postulate that things earthly are modelled after the pattern of things celestial, he connects closely the two worlds. ”

“ Whence, also, we have received from the inspired writings, that those who are begotten, even though it be in adultery, are committed to guardian angels. But if they came into being in opposition to the will and the decree of the blessed nature of God, how should they be delivered over to angels, to be nourished with much gentleness and indulgence? ”

“ I. A Divine institution may become an abomination to the Divine Being. The right use of the gifts of God makes them blessings to men, but the abuse of them turns them into curses. So with the ordinances of worship, both under the Old Testament dispensation and in the New—that which is designed to bless men may by misuse add to their guilt before God, and that which, done in a right spirit, is most acceptable to Him, will, when joined to a sinful motive, be most abhorrent to His holy nature. ”

“ Princes may make laws and repeal them, but they can neither make nor destroy virtue, and how indeed should they be able to do what is impossible to the Deity himself? Virtue being as immutable in its nature as the divine will which is the ground of it.*
* Virtue did not derive its nature merely from the omnipotent will of God, but also from the eternal truth and moral fitness of things; ”

“ The spirit must be clothed as He is, or it never can be glorified with him. He must of necessity subject his children to the same, through a strict observance of the ordinances and rules of salvation. To attain to this glory, it is required that we love and honor his name, reverence his character and the ordinances of his house, and never speak lightly of him, of his Son Jesus Christ, or of those who bear His Priesthood; never speaking evil of dignities, who are clothed with the authority of Heaven ”

“ And so the New Theology objects to all moral views of the atonement which make provisions for waiving any legal process or infliction of penalty, and holds that no new provision of grace or special scheme of redemption for the recovery of man from the power and dominion of sin was necessary; that all the elements for the restoration from sin to righteousness are included in the provisions of Nature, and are sufficient when quickened and invigorated by the Divine Spirit to reinstate men in holiness and in the favor of God. ”

“ The paying divine adoration to angels and saints, expressly contrary to God's commands, and derogatory to his honour, who alone ought to be worshipped in heaven and earth; and to worship any other, either saint or angel, or any creature, is idolatry, and a breach of the second commandment. ”

“ Where conviction of sin already exists, our aim should be, not, in the first instance, to secure the performance of external religious duties, such as prayer, or Scripture-reading, or uniting with the church, but to induce the sinner, as his first and all-inclusive duty, to accept Christ as his only and sufficient sacrifice and Savior, and, committing himself and the matter of his salvation entirely to the hands of Christ, to manifest this trust and submission by entering at once upon a life of obedience to Christ's commands. ”

“ How, then, could God the Father admit one into his Kingdom, who has always refused to do his will, - who, instead of learning to do the will of God, the full doctrine of Christ, through the Catholic Church, was himself his own teacher, his own lawgiver, his own judge, in all religious matters! ”

“ When we say, Hallowed be Thy Name, we also desire our own sanctification. We cannot sanctify God as He is in Himself, nor can we increase His eternal and infinite glory; but when we sanctify God, sanctity is added to, and increases in, ourselves, that is to say, holy faith, holy charity, the holy worship of God. By these things we are sanctified inwardly, and we hallow God outwardly, because by means of our holiness the holiness of God is glorified and made known among men. ”

“ IV, 24: “Put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.”1051 The Tridentine Council explicitly mentions sanctity as an effect of sanctifying grace: “Justification ... is not remission of sins merely, but also the sanctification and renewal of the inward man through the voluntary reception of the grace and of the gifts whereby man from unjust becomes [pg 348] just.”1052 It follows that the two elements of active justification, viz.: remission of sin and sanctification, are also constitutive elements of habitual or sanctifying grace. ”

“ For those miracles commend the worship of a plurality of gods, who deserve worship the less the more they demand it; but these of ours commend the worship of the one God, who, both by the testimony of His own Scriptures, and by the eventual abolition of sacrifices, proves that He needs no such offerings. If, therefore, any angels demand sacrifice for themselves, we must prefer those who demand it, not for themselves, but for God, the Creator of all, whom they serve. ”