But you may say--Very likely that is true; but why need we take so
much care to believe it?
It is always worth while to know what is true. You are children of
the Light, and of the Truth, adopted by the God of truth, that you
may know the truth and do it, and no mistake or falsehood can, by
any possibility, do anything for you, but harm you. Always,
therefore, try to find out and believe what is true concerning
everything; and, above all, concerning God, on whom all depend, in
whom you live, and move, and have your being. For all things in
heaven and earth depend on God; and, therefore, if you have wrong
notions about God, you will sooner or later have wrong notions about
everything else.
For see, now, how this false notion of God's justice and love being
different things, leads people into a worse error still. A man goes
on to fancy, that while God the Son is full of love towards sinners,
God the Father is (or at least was once) only full of justice and
wrath against sinners; but if a man thinks that God the Son loves
him better than God the Father does, then, of course, he will love
God the Son better than he loves God the Father. He will think of
Christ the Son with pleasure and gratitude, because he says to
himself, Christ loves me, cares for me; I can have pity and
tenderness from him, if I do wrong.
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