For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, I announce to you.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 23. It may be asked, why they had not implicit faith, worshipping the true, though unknown, God? [5] 1st. because the worship of the true God can never exist with the worship of idols; 2d. because an explicit faith in God is required of all; 3d. because it is repugnant to implicit faith, to admit any thing contrary to it, as comparing this unknown God with the pagan idols; for God to be at all, must be one. Lucan towards the end of his 2d book, hath these words:
—— Et dedita sacris
Incerti Judæa Dei.
—What, therefore, you improperly worship, that I preach to you, and instruct you in the true worship, far different from what you pay to your strange gods.