Sunday, August 28, 2011

God Is Benevolent to All His Creation


Deuteronomy 10:17
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
Matthew 5:45
For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
The Lord of all is not capricious, but bestows his lovingkindness on all his creation whether or not gratitude is shown.

Is the King of the universe solicited by any libation or sacrifice to grant to the races of men all the comforts of life?  Does God not impart the sun’s fertilizing warmth, and the season of night, the winds, the rains, the fruits, to all alike,—the good and the bad, the unjust and the just, the free-born and the slave, the poor and the rich?  For this belongs to the true and mighty God, to show kindness, unasked, to that which is weary and feeble, and always encompassed by misery, of many kinds.  For to grant your prayers on the offering of sacrifices, is not to bring help to those who ask it, but to sell the riches of their beneficence.

Arnobius of Sicca, The Case against the Pagans, Book III, cap. 24

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