Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 4.djvu/83

Rh way of righteousness, when His wrath has quickly kindled. Blessed are all they who put their trust in Him." But already the Lord, in His surpassing pity, has inspired the song of salvation, sounding like a battle march, "Sons of men, how long will ye be slow of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek after a lie?" What, then, is the vanity, and what the lie? The holy apostle of the Lord, reprehending the Greeks, will show thee: "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful: but became vain in their imaginations, and changed the glory of God into the likeness of corruptible man, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator." And verily this is the God who "in the beginning made the heaven and the earth." But you do not know God, and worship the heaven, and how shall you escape the guilt of impiety? Hear again the prophet speaking: "The sun shall suffer eclipse, and the heaven be darkened; but the Almighty shall shine for ever: while the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and the heavens stretched out and drawn together shall be rolled as a parchment-skin (for these are the prophetic expressions), and the earth shall flee away from before the face of the Lord."