Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: Weird bare spots on pit's legs

it strange that the first law of the world
happens to be the most perfect; so that the greatest legislators have
borrowed their laws from it, as is apparent from the law of the Twelve
Tables at Athens, afterwards taken by the Romans, and as it would be easy to
prove, if Josephus and others had not sufficiently dealt with this subject.
620. Advantages of the Jewish people.--In this search the Jewish people at
once attracts my attention by the number of wonderful and singular facts
which appear about them.
I first see that they are a people wholly composed of brethren, and whereas
all others are formed by the assemblage of an infinity of families, this,
though so wonderfully fruitful, has all sprung from one man alone, and,
being thus all one flesh, and members one of another, they constitute a
powerful state of one family. This is unique.
This family, or people, is the most ancient within human knowledge, a fact
which seems to me to inspire a peculiar veneration for it, especially in
view of our present inquiry; since if God had from all time revealed himself
to men, it is to these we must turn for knowledge of the tradition.
This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also singular
by their duration, which h

And particularly they speak with
exceeding admiration of the superlative excellency of that pleasure and
delight which they sometimes enjoy; how a little of it is sufficient to
pay them for all the pains and trouble they have gone through in seeking
salvation; and how far it exceeds all earthly pleasures. Some express
much of the sense which these spiritual views give them of the vanity of
earthly enjoyments, how mean and worthless all these things appear to
them.
Many, while their minds have been filled with spiritual delights, have
as it were forgot their food; their bodily appetite has failed, while
their minds have been entertained with meat to eat that others knew not
of. The light and comfort which some of them enjoy, give a new relish to
their common blessings, and cause all things about them to appear as it
were beautiful, sweet, and pleasant. All things abroad, the sun, moon,
and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and earth, appear as it were
with a divine glory and sweetness upon them. Though this joy includes in
it a delightful sense of the safety of their own state, yet frequently,
in times of their highest spiritual entertainment, this seems not to be
the chief object of their fixed thought and meditation. The supreme
attention of their minds is to the glorious excellencies of God and
Christ; and there is very often a ravishing sense of God's love
accompanying a sense of His excellency. They rejoice in a sense of the
faithfulness of God's promises, as they respect the future eternal
enjoyment of Him.
The unparalleled joy that many of them speak of, is what they find when
they are lowest in the dust, emptied most of themselves, and as it were
annihilating themselves before God; when they are nothing, and God is
all; seeing their own unworthiness, depending not at all on themselves,
but alone on Christ, and ascribing all glory to God. Then their souls
are most in the enjoyment of satisfying rest; excepting that, at such
times, the

"What suits each one best is what is to him
the most natural."
54Virgil, The Georgics, ii. "Nature gave them first these limits."
55Seneca, Epistles, cvi. "Wisdom does not demand much teaching."
56Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum. "What is not shameful begins to
become so when it is approved by the multitude."
57Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, I. i. 21. "That is how I use it; you must do
as you wish."
58Quintillian, x. 7. "It is rare that one sufficiently respects one's self."
59Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae, i. 4. "So many gods are busy around a single
head."
60Cicero, Academica, i. 45. "Nothing is more shameful than to affirm before
knowing."
61Cicero, Disputationes Tusculanae, i. 25. "I have not shame, as they do, to
admit that I know not what I do not know."
62Seneca, Epistles, lxxii. "It is easier not to begin....
63Lam. 3:1. "I am the man that hath seen."
64"What you seek without knowing, religion will announce to you." Pascal
misquotes Acts 17:23. "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I
unto you."
65Prov. 8:31. "And my delights were with the sons of men."
66Joel 2:28. "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh."
67Ps. 82:6. "Ye are gods."
68Is. 40:6. "All flesh is grass."
69Ps. 49:12, 13. "He is like the beasts that perish; this their way is their
folly."
70Eccles. 3:18. "I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of
men."
[71]1 Cor. 1:25 "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness
of God is stronger than men."
[72]Ovid, Metamorphoses, iii. "No one is happy before death."
[73]1 John 2:16.
74Cor. 1:31. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."

as we
draw near it; and that, as there are no more woes for those who have
complete assurance of eternity, so there is no more happiness for those who
have no insight into it.
Surely then it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at least an
indispensable duty to seek when we are in such doubt; and thus the doubter
who does not seek is altogether completely unhappy and completely wrong. And
if besides this he is easy and content, professes to be so, and indeed
boasts of it; if it is this state itself which is the subject of his joy and
vanity, I have no words to describe so silly a creature.
How can people hold these opinions? What joy can we find in the expectation
of nothing but hopeless misery? What reason for boasting that we are in
impenetrable darkness? And how can it happen that the following argument
occurs to a reasonable man?
"I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I
myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body
is, nor my senses, nor my soul, not even tha

deeply in his spirit, and saith, why doth this generation
seek after a sign?"
201"Mark 6:5. "And he could there do no mighty work."
202John 4:48. "Except ye see... ye will not believe."
2039. "In signs and lying wonders."
204II Thess. 2:9-11 "After the working of Satan... and with all
deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, because they received
not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God
shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."
205Deut. 13:3. "for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love
the Lord."
206Matt. 24:25-26. "Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall
say unto you, Behold."
207Is. 5:4. Quis est quod debui ultra facere vineae meae, et non faci ei?
"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?"
[208]Gal. 1:8. "But though an angel."
209Ps. 41:4. "Where is thy God?"
[210]Ps. 111:4. "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness."
211"The yes and the no."
212Is. 10:1. "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees."
213John 15:24. "If he had not done."
214John 15:24. "If he had not done among them the works which none other man
did."
215Prov. 26. 4-5. "Answer... Answer not."
[216]Epistle 63. "Priest of the Lord."
[217]Luke 22:26. "But ye shall not be so."
[218]John 10:30. "I and my father are one."
219John 5:7. "And these three agree in one."
220"The strictest law is the greatest injustice." Terrence, Heauton
Timorumenus, iv. 5. 47; and Cicero, De officiis, i. 10.
221John 21:17. "Feed my sheep." Not "yours."
222"The Church will never be reformed."