Dloyd Lavies...Speak no truth, Hear no truth, See no truth is no man

[k***@yahool.com]

to
rule, and not all being able to do so, but some being able.

Let us, then, imagine we see society in the process of formation. Men will
doubtless fight till the stronger party overcomes the weaker, and a dominant
party is established. But when this is once determined, the masters, who do
not desire the continuation of strife, then decree that the power which is
in their hands shall be transmitted as they please. Some place it in
election by the people, others in hereditary succession, etc.

And this is the point where imagination begins to play its part. Till now
power makes fact; now power is sustained by imagination in a certain party,
in France in the nobility, in Switzerland in the burgesses, etc.

These cords which bind the respect of men to such and such an individual are
therefore the cords of imagination.

305. The Swiss are offended by being called gentlemen, and prove themselves
true plebeians in order to be thought worthy of great office.

306. As duchies, kingships, and magistracies are real and necessary, because
might rules all, they exist everywhere and always. But since only caprice
makes such and such a one a ruler, the principle is not constant, but
subject to variation, etc.

307. The chancellor is grave and clothed with ornaments, for his position is
unreal. Not so the king; he has power and has nothing to do with the
imagination. Judges, physicians, etc., appeal only to the imagination.

308. The habit of seeing kings accompanied by guards, drums, officers, and
all the paraphernalia which mechanically inspire respect and awe, makes
t

[k***@yahool.com]

witnesses, martyrs, established kings as David, and Isaiah, a
prince of the blood, and so great in science, after having displayed all her
miracles and all her wisdom, rejects all this, and declares that she has
neither wisdom nor signs, but only the cross and foolishness.

For those, who, by these signs and that wisdom, have deserved your belief,
and who have proved to you their character, declare to you that nothing of
all this can change you, and render you capable of knowing and loving God,
but the power of the foolishness of the cross without wisdom and signs, and
not the signs without this power. Thus our religion is foolish in respect to
the effective cause and wise in respect to the wisdom which prepares it.

588. Our religion is wise and foolish. Wise, because it is the most learned
and the most founded on miracles, prophecies, etc. Foolish, because it is
not all this which makes us belong to it. This makes us, indeed, condemn
those who do not belong to it; but it does not cause belief in those who do
belong to it. It is the cross that makes them

[k***@yahool.com]

that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord:
look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye
are digged. Look unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah that bare you:
for I called him alone, when childless, and increased him. Behold, I have
comforted Zion, and heaped upon her blessings and consolations.

"Hearken unto me, my people, and give ear unto me; for a law shall proceed
from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the Gentiles."

Amos viii. The prophet, having enumerated the sins of Israel, said that God
had sworn to take vengeance on them.

He says this: "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I
will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the
clear day; and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs
into lamentation.

"You all shall have sorrow and suffering, and I will make this nation mourn
as for an only son, and the end therefore as a bitter day. Behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of
bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And
they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they
shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

"In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. They
that have followed the idols of Samaria, and sworn b

[k***@yahool.com]

to be the true and only way. And then it was, in the latter part of
December, that the Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in, and
wonderfully to work amongst us; and there were very suddenly, one after
another, five or six persons, who were to all appearances savingly
converted, and some of them wrought upon in a very remarkable manner.

Particularly, I was surprised with relation of a young woman, who had
been one of the greatest company-keepers in the whole town. When she
came to me, I had never heard that she was become in any wise serious,
but by the conversation I then had with her, it appeared to me, that
what she gave an account of, was a glorious work of God's infinite power
and sovereign grace; and that God had given her a new heart, truly
broken and sanctified. I could not then doubt of it, and have seen much
in my acquaintance with her since to confirm it.

Though the work was glorious, yet I was filled with concern about the
effect it might have upon others. I was ready to conclude (though too
rashly), that some would be hardened by it in carelessness and looseness
of life;