The Collected Writings of Edward Irving, Vol. 4 of 5 (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book The Collected Writings of Edward Irving, Vol. 4 of 5 (Classic Reprint) written by Edward Irving and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-01-21 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Collected Writings of Edward Irving, Vol. 4 of 5 Idolatry, therefore, hath its origin in the honest faith and conviction of the mind that there is a form Of being more noble than itself, and the character of the idol dependeth upon the nature of that idea which the mind hath formed concerning the most perfect forms Of being. Amongst the Egyptians, who followed after the arts of peace and the cul ture of the earth, those were exalted into the rank of gods who had been the greatest inventors in agriculture and the arts, and under whose government the land had flourished most. Amongst the Greeks, who followed after the perfection and elegance of life, those were raised to the condition Of gods who had reclaimed the earth from the power Of wild beasts and savage men, and laid the rude foundations of the state. Among the northern nations, whose whole soul was bent on war, and who viewed it as a bondage to till the ground or labour in the arts Of peace, the gods were invested with the fearful attributes of power and strength, and their blessedness placed in the strife Of battle, the glory of revenge, and the red cup of victory. And it would be found universally, if we could trace the history of idolatry to its sources, that the gods which the blinded nations worship were at first the deifi cations Of men who excelled the rest Of their kind in physical and moral power, who afterwards became symbolical of what ever more enlarged and ennobled thoughts men afterwards attained unto in that class of the ideal region to which each of these personifications belonged. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.