The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

Multa sunt verba, quæ, quasi articuli, connectunt membra orationis, quæ formari similitudine nulla possunt: “There are many words (particles) which are like small joints, to connect the several sentences, which cannot be exhibited by any images.” (Cicero, De Oratore.) ↩

תפלה בלא כונה כגוף בלא נשמה: “A prayer, without the intention of the mind, is like a body without a soul.” (Isaac Abravanel, Nahalot Abot.) ↩

Second Alcibiades. The words of the Poet in Plato are these: “O Jupiter, our king, give us those things that are good for us, whether we ask for them or no; and command those things that are hurtful to be kept from us, though we pray for them.” ↩

דבור אדם חוא בכונה וכו׳: “When a man speaks distinctly, it is always with intenseness.” (Isaac Abravanel.) That in Sefer Haredim, quoted out of סמ״ק Sefer Mizwot Katan, “the lesser book of precepts,” explains this thus: ידקדק בכל מלה ומלה כאלו מונה זהובים: “He will consider every word exactly, as if he was looking over his debts.” (Eliezer Azkari.) ↩

… Ut eos [deos,] semper pura⁠ ⁠… mente et voce veneremur: “… That we may always worship them [the Gods, in the style of the Heathens] with a pure⁠ ⁠… mind, and with pure words.” (Cicero, De Natura Deorum.) Ὧ τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων ὑπὸ σοῦ, Δέσποτα κρείττονες γεγόναμεν, τούτῳ τὴν σὴν εὐλογεῖν μεγαλειότητα πρἑπει: “That as thou, O Lord, hast made us better than other creatures, so it becomes us the more to praise thy greatness,” says Solomon in his prayer (in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews). ↩

This we find often among the Dinim (“orders”) of the Jews. הברכות כולן צריך שישמיע לאזנו מה שהוא אומר: “It is necessary, in all our prayers, that we so speak as to be heard by ourselves.” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkot Berakhot I, 7.) And Rabbi Eliezer Azkari, having cited this passage, adds הסכימו רוב הפוסקים שאם לא השמיע לאזניו לא יצא וכו׳: “In general the judges agree in this, that if he does not hear his own self, he is guilty (of a crime).” (Sefer Haredim.) Maimonides, in another place, expresses himself thus: לא יתפלל בלבו [לבד] אלא מחתך הדברים בשפתיו ומשמיע לאזניו בלחש: “A man should not [only] pray in his mind, but pronounce the words distinctly with his lips, and whisper so as to hear himself” (Mishneh Torah, Hilkot Tefillah V, 9; that word לבד, “only,” I inserted from Joseph Caro’s Shulhan Aruk). The same occurs in Or Hadash, and other places. ↩

המתפלל⁠ ⁠… יחשיב כאילו שכינה כנגדו וכו׳: “He that prays⁠ ⁠… should think about it as much as if the divine presence could appear to him.” (Joseph Caro, Orah Hayyim.) ↩

Ἐν τῷ εἴσω οἷον νεῷ: “In a private retirement, as in a temple.” (Plotinus, Enneads.) ↩

St. Chrysostom says some are so unmindful of what they are about, that they know not so much as what they say themselves. Ἐἰσέρχονται πολλὸι ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ,⁠ ⁠… καὶ ἐξέρχονται, καὶ οὐκ οἴδασι τί εἶπον· τὰ χείλη κινεῖται, ἡ δὲ ἀκοὴ οὐκ ἀκούει: “A great many come to church,⁠ ⁠… and go home again, without so much as knowing what they have said. Their lips moved, but their words were not heard.” (De Chananaea.) ↩

The very Heathens thought that the Gods would not hear the prayers of wicked men. Bias, happening to be with some such, in the same ship, when a great storm arose and they (being now frighted) began to invoke their deities, cries out, Σιγᾶτε, μὴ ἄισθωνται ὑμᾶς ἐνθάδε πλέοντας: “Hold your tongues, they’ll take no notice of us while we sail here.” (Diogenes Laërtius, Life of Bias.) ↩

Caius Cestius, in Tacitus, says principes quidem instar deorum esse: sed neque a diis nisi justas supplicum preces audiri: “Princes indeed are like Gods, but the Gods themselves will not hear the prayers of the supplicant, unless they be just.” (Annals.) ↩

Sometimes πλέον ήμισυ παντός: “half is better than the whole”; that is, as Plato paraphrases those words of Hesiod, Τὸ ήμισυ τοῦ παντὸς πολλάκις ἐστὶ πλέον, ὁπόταν ᾖ τὸ μὲν ὁλον λαμβάνειν ζημιῶδες, κ.τ.λ.: “Many times half is better than the whole, and when it is so, to receive the whole is an injury to us.” (Laws.) ↩

Quid quod iste calculi candore laudatus dies originem mali habuit? Quam multos accepta afflixere imperia? quam multos bona perdidere, et ultimis mersere suppliciis? “What if that day, which came up lucky, should be the beginning of evil? How many, in great power, have been ruined by it? How many has prosperity destroyed, and subjected them to the greatest punishments?” (Pliny the Elder, Natural History.) ↩

Religion deorum cultu pio continetur: “Religion consists in a devout worshipping of the Gods.” Qui omnia, quæ ad cultum deorum pertinerent, diligenter retractarent, et tanquam religerent, sunt dicti religiosi, etc.: “They are called religious persons, because they are continually revolving, and repeating over and over again the things that belong to the worship of the Gods.” (Cicero, De Natura Deorum.) ↩

Particularly with respect to customary swearing, which, besides the ill consequences it has in making oaths cheap, etc., is a great instance of disregard and irreverence. For they, who use themselves to it, do, at least, make the