 Section 7 of Pensei. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Derek McLaughlin, London, Ontario, Canada. Latin language reading by Lenny Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pensei by Blaise Pascal. Translated by W. F. Trotter. Section 7. Morality and Doctrine. Part 2. 450. If we do not know ourselves to be full of pride, ambition, lust, weakness, misery, and injustice, we are indeed blind. And if, knowing this, we do not desire deliverance, what can we say of a man? What then can we have but esteem for a religion which knows so well the defects of man, and desire for the truth of a religion which promises remedies so desirable? 451. All men naturally hate one another. They employ lust as far as possible in the service of the public wheel. But this is only a pretense and a false image of love, for at bottom it is only hate. 452. To pity the unfortunate is not contrary to lust. On the contrary we can quite well give such evidence of friendship and acquire the reputation of kindly feeling without giving anything. 453. From lust men have found and extracted excellent rules of policy, morality, and justice, but in reality this vile root of man, this... 454. Injustice. They have not found any other means of satisfying lust without doing injury to others. 455. Self is hateful. You, Métan, conceal it. You do not for that reason destroy it. 456. You are, then, always hateful. No, for enacting as we do to oblige everybody we give no more occasion for hatred of us. 457. That is true if we only hated in self the vexation which comes to us from it, but if I hate it because it is unjust, and because it makes itself the center of everything, I shall always hate it. 458. In a word the self has two qualities. It is unjust in itself, since it makes itself the center of everything. It is inconvenient to others, since it would enslave them. 459. For each self is the enemy, and would like to be the tyrant of all others. You take away its inconvenience, but not its injustice, and so you do not render it lovable to those who hate injustice. 456. You render it lovable only to the unjust, who do not any longer find in it an enemy, and thus you remain unjust, and can please only the unjust. 456. It is a perverted judgment that makes every one place himself above the rest of the world, and prefer his own good, and the continuance of his own good fortune and life, to that of the rest of the world. 457. Each one is all in all to himself, for he being dead, all is dead to him. Hence it comes that each believes himself to be all in all to everybody. We must not judge of nature by ourselves, but by it. 458. All that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, or the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. 459. Rebedo sentiendi, rebedo schiendi, rebedo dominandi. 459. Wretched is the cursed land which these three rivers of fire inflame, rather than water. 459. Happy they who, on these rivers, are not overwhelmed, nor carried away, but are immovably fixed, not standing, but seated on a low and secure base. 459. Once they do not rise before the light, but, having rested in peace, stretch out their hands to him, who must lift them up, and make them stand upright and firm in the porches of the Holy Jerusalem. 459. Their pride can no longer assail them, nor cast them down, and yet they weep, not to see all those perishable things swept away by the torrents, but at the remembrance of their loved country, the heavenly Jerusalem, which they remember without ceasing during their prolonged exile. 459. The rivers of Babylon rush and fall, and sweep away. 459. O holy Zion, where all is firm and nothing falls. 459. We must sit upon the waters, not under them, or in them, but on them, and not standing, but seated, being seated to be humble, and being above them to be secure. 459. But we shall stand in the porches of Jerusalem. 459. Let us see if this pleasure is stable or transitory. If it pass away, it is a river of Babylon. 459. 460. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, pride, etc. 459. There are three orders of things, the flesh, the spirit, and the will. 459. The carnal are the rich and kings, they have the body as their object. 459. Inquirers and scientists, they have the mind as their object. 459. The wise, they have righteousness as their object. 459. God must reign over all, and all men must be brought back to him. 459. In things of the flesh, lust reigns specially. 459. In intellectual matters, inquiry specially. 459. In wisdom, pride specially. 459. Not that a man cannot boast of wealth or knowledge, but it is not the place for pride. 459. For in granting to a man that he is learned, it is easy to convince him that he is wrong to be proud. 459. The proper place for pride is in wisdom, for it cannot be granted to a man that he has made himself wise, and that he is wrong to be proud. For that is right. 459. Now God alone gives wisdom, and not as why. 459. We gloriatur, indomino gloriatur. Footnote. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 31. 459. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. End of footnote. 461. The three lusts have made three sects, and the philosophers have done no other thing than follow one of the three lusts. 462. Search for the true good. 463. Ordinary men place the good in fortune and external goods, or at least in amusement. Philosophers have shown the vanity of all this, and have placed it where they could. 463. Against the philosophers who believe in God without Jesus Christ. Philosophers. They believe that God alone is worthy to be loved and admired, and they have desired to be loved and admired of men, and do not know their own corruption. 472. If they feel full of feelings of love and adoration, and find therein their chief delight, very well let them think themselves good. 473. But if they find themselves averse to him, if they have no inclination but the desire to establish themselves in the esteem of men, and if their whole perfection consists only in making men, but without constraint, find their happiness in loving them, I declare that this perfection is horrible. 474. What? They have known God and have not desired solely that men should love him, but that men should stop short at them. They have wanted to be the object of the voluntary delight of men. 464. Philosophers. We are full of things which take us out of ourselves. 475. Our instinct makes us feel that we must seek our happiness outside ourselves. Our passions impel us outside, even when no objects present themselves to excite them. External objects tempt us of themselves and call to us, even when we are not thinking of them. 476. And thus philosophers have said in vain, retire within yourselves, you will find your good there. We do not believe them, and those who believe them are the most empty and the most foolish. 465. The Stoics say, retire within yourselves, it is there you will find your rest, and that is not true. Others say go out of yourselves, seek happiness in amusement, and this is not true. Illness comes. 476. Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us. 466. Had depicted us seen the way perfectly he would have said to men, you follow a wrong road. He shows that there is another, but he does not lead to it. It is the way of willing what God wills. 477. Jesus Christ alone leads to it. 488. We are weddipus. 146. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one cometh unto the Father but by me. End of footnote. The vices of Zeno himself. 467. The reason of effects. Epictetus. Those who say, you have a headache, this is not the same thing. We are assured of health and not of justice, and in fact his own was nonsense. And yet he believed it demonstrable when he said, it is either in our power or it is not. But he did not perceive that it is not in our power to regulate the heart, and he was wrong to infer this from the fact that there were some Christians. 468. No other religion has proposed to men to hate themselves. No other religion then can please those who hate themselves and to seek a being truly lovable. And these, if they had never heard of the religion of a God humiliated, would embrace it at once. 469. I feel that I might not have been, for the ego consists in my thoughts. Therefore I, who think, would not have been if my mother had been killed before I had life. I am not then a necessary being. In the same way I am not eternal or infinite, but I see plainly that there exists in nature a necessary being, eternal and infinite. 478. Had I seen a miracle, say men, I should become converted. How can they be sure that they would do a thing of the nature of which they are ignorant? They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God, which is like commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to themselves. True religion consists in annihilating self before that universal being, whom we have so often provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time, in recognizing that we can do nothing without him, and have deserved nothing from him but his displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator there can be no communion with him. 471. It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they do it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I had created this desire, for I am not the end of any, and I have not the wherewithal to satisfy them. Am I not about to die, and thus the object of their attachment will die? Therefore, as I would be blamable in causing a falsehood to be believed, though I should employ gentle persuasion, though it should be believed with pleasure, and though it should give me pleasure, even so I am blamable in making myself loved, and if I attract persons to attach themselves to me. I ought to warn those who are ready to consent to a lie that they ought not to believe it, whatever advantage comes to me from it, and likewise that they ought not to attach themselves to me, for they ought to spend their life and their care in pleasing God or in seeking him. 472. Self-will will never be satisfied, though it should have command of all it would, but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without it we cannot be discontented. With it we cannot be content. 473. Let us imagine a body full of thinking members. 474. Members, to commence with that. To regulate the love which we owe to ourselves we must imagine a body full of thinking members, for we are members of the whole, and must see how each member should love itself, etc. 475. If the feet and the hands had a will of their own, they could only be in their order in submitting this particular will to the primary will which governs the whole body. Apart from that they are in disorder and mischief, but in willing only the good of the body they accomplish their own good. 476. We must love God only, and hate self only. 477. If the foot had always been ignorant that it belonged to the body, and that there was a body on which it depended, if it had only the knowledge and love of self, and if it came to know that it belonged to a body on which it depended, what regret, what shame for its past life, for having been useless to the body which inspired its life, which would have annihilated it if it had rejected it and separated it from itself, as it kept itself apart from the body. 477. What prayer is for its preservation in it? And with what submission would it allow itself to be governed by the will which rules the body, even to consenting if necessary to be cut off, or it would lose its character as a member? For every member must be quite willing to perish for the body, for which alone the whole is. 477. It is false that we are worthy of the love of others. It is unfair that we should desire it. If we were born reasonable and impartial, knowing ourselves and others, we should not give this bias to our will. However, we are born with it, we are therefore born unjust, for all tends to self. 489. This is contrary to all order. We must consider the general good, and their propensity to self is the beginning of all disorder, in war, in politics, in economy, and in the particular body of man. The will is therefore depraved. If the members of natural and civil communities tend towards the wheel of the body, the communities themselves ought to look to another more general body of which they are members. We ought therefore to look to the whole. We are therefore born unjust and depraved. 478. When we want to think of God, is there nothing which turns us away, and tempts us to think of something else? All this is bad, and is born in us. 479. If there is a God, we must love him only, and not the creatures of a day. The reasoning of the ungodly in the Book of Wisdom is only based upon the non-existence of God. On that supposition, they say, let us take delight in the creatures. That is the worst that can happen. But if there were a God to love, they would not have come to this conclusion, but to quite the contrary. And this is the conclusion of the wise. There is a God, let us therefore not take delight in the creatures. Therefore all that incites us to attach ourselves to the creatures is bad, since it prevents us from serving God if we know him, or from seeking him if we know him not. Now we are full of lust, therefore we are full of evil, therefore we ought to hate ourselves, and all that excites us to attach ourselves to any other object than God only. 481. To make the members happy, they must have one will, and submit it to the body. 481. The examples of the noble deaths of the Lacedemonians and others scarce touch us. For what good is it to us? But the example of the death of the martyrs touches us, for they are our members. We have a common tie with them. Their resolution can form ours, not only by example, but because it has perhaps deserved ours. There is nothing of this in the examples of the heathen. We have no tie with them, as we do not become rich by seeing a stranger who is so, but in fact by seeing a father or a husband who is so. 482. Morality. God, having made the heavens and the earth which do not feel the happiness of their being, he has willed to make beings who should know it, and who should compose a body of thinking members. For our members do not feel the happiness of their union, of their wonderful intelligence, of the care which nature has taken to infuse into them minds, and to make them grow and endure. How happy they would be if they saw and felt it. But for this they would need to have intelligence to know it, and goodwill to consent to that of the universal soul. But if, having received intelligence, they employed it to retain nourishment for themselves, without allowing it to pass to the other members, they would be not only unjust, but also miserable, and would hate rather than love themselves, their blessedness as well as their duty consisting in their consent to the guidance of the whole soul to which they belong, which loves them better than they love themselves. 483. To be a member is to have neither life, being, nor movement, except through the spirit of the body, and for the body. The separate member, seeing no longer the body to which it belongs, has only a perishing and dying existence. Yet it believes it is a whole, and seeing not the body on which it depends, it believes it depends only on self, and desires to make itself both center and body. But not having in itself a principle of life, it only goes astray, and is astonished in the uncertainty of its being, perceiving in fact that it is not a body and still not seeing that it is a member of a body. In short, when it comes to know itself, it has returned as it were to its own home, and loves itself only for the body. It deplores its past wanderings. It cannot by its nature love any other thing except for itself, and to subject it to self, because each thing loves itself more than all. But in loving the body, it loves itself, because it only exists in it, by it, and for it. Footnote. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 17. But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. End of footnote. The body loves the hand, and the hand, if it had a will, should love itself in the same way as it is loved by the soul. All love which goes beyond this is unfair. We love ourselves, because we are members of Jesus Christ. We love Jesus Christ, because he is the body of which we are members. All is one. One is in the other, like the three persons. 484. Two laws suffice to rule the whole Christian Republic better than all the laws of statecraft. 485. The true and only virtue then is to hate self, for we are hateful on account of lust, and to seek a truly lovable being to love. But as we cannot love what is outside ourselves, we must love a being who is in us, and is not ourselves, and that is true of each and all men. Now only the universal being is such. The kingdom of God is within us. The universal good is within us, is ourselves, and not ourselves. 486. The dignity of man in his innocence consisted in using and having dominion over the creatures, but now in separating himself from them and subjecting himself to them. 487. Every religion is false, which, as to its faith, does not worship one God as the origin of everything, and which, as to its morality, does not love one only God as the object of everything. 488. But it is impossible that God should ever be the end if he is not the beginning. We lift our eyes on high but lean upon the sand, and the earth will dissolve, and we shall fall whilst looking at the heavens. 489. If there is one sole source of everything, there is one sole end of everything. Everything through him, everything for him. The true religion, then, must teach us to worship him only, and to love him only. But as we find ourselves unable to worship what we know not, and to love any other object but ourselves, the religion which instructs us in these duties must instruct us also of this inability, and teach us also the remedies for it. It teaches us that by one man all was lost, and the bond broken between God and us, and that by one man the bond is renewed. We are born so averse to this love of God, and it is so necessary that we must be born guilty, or God would be unjust. 490. Men, not being accustomed to form merit, but only to recompense it where they find it formed, judge of God by themselves. 491. The true religion must have, as a characteristic, the obligation to love God. This is very just, and yet no other religion has commanded this. It must also be aware of human lust and weakness. Ours is so. It must have adduced remedies for this. One is prayer. No other religion has asked of God to love and follow him. 492. He who hates not in himself his self-love, and that instinct which leads him to make himself God, is indeed blinded. Who does not see that there is nothing so opposed to justice and truth? For it is false that we deserve this, and it is unfair and impossible to attain it, since all demand the same thing. It is then a manifest injustice which is innate in us, of which we cannot get rid, and of which we must get rid. Yet no religion has indicated that this was a sin, or that we were born in it, or that we were obliged to resist it, or has thought of giving us remedies for it. 493. The true religion teaches our duties, our weaknesses, pride and lust, and the remedies, humility and mortification. 494. The true religion must teach greatness and misery, must lead to the esteem and contempt of self, to love and to hate. 495. If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life while believing in God. 496. Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness. 497. Against those who, trusting to the mercy of God, live heedlessly without doing good works. As the two sources of our sins are pride and sloth, God has revealed to us two of his attributes to cure them, mercy and justice. The property of justice is to humble pride, however holy may be our works. 498. At non-interest in you deem him. Etc. Footnote. Psalm 143, verse 2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight no man living is righteous. End of footnote. And the property of mercy is to combat sloth by exhorting to good works according to that passage the goodness of God leadeth to repentance, and that other of the Ninephites let us do penance to see if per adventure he will pity us. And thus mercy is so far from authorizing slackness that it is on the contrary the quality which formally attacks it, so that instead of saying, if there were no mercy in God we should have to make every kind of effort after virtue, we must say on the contrary that it is because there is mercy in God that we must make every kind of effort. 498. It is true there is difficulty in entering into godliness, but this difficulty does not arise from the religion which begins in us, but from the irreligion which is still there. If our senses were not opposed to penitence, and if our corruption were not opposed to the purity of God, there would be nothing in this painful to us. We suffer only in proportion as the vice which is natural to us resists supernatural grace. Our heart feels torn asunder between these opposed efforts, but it would be very unfair to impute this violence to God who is drawing us on instead of to the world which is holding us back. It is as a child which a mother tears from the arms of robbers in the pain it suffers should love the loving and legitimate violence of her who procures its liberty, and detest only the impetuous and tyrannical violence of those who detain it unjustly. The most cruel war which God can make with men in this life is to leave them without that war which he came to bring. I came to send war, he says, and to teach them of this war. I came to bring fire and the sword. Before him the world lived in this false peace. 499. Eternal works. There is nothing so perilous as what pleases God and man. For those states which please God and man have one property which pleases God, and another which pleases men, as the greatness of St. Teresa. What pleased God was her deep humility in the midst of her revelations. What pleased men was her light, and so we torment ourselves to imitate her discourses, thinking to imitate her conditions, and not so much to love what God loves, and to put ourselves in the state which God loves. It is better not to fast and be thereby humbled than to fast and be self-satisfied therewith. The Pharisee and the Publican. What use will memory be to me if it can alike hurt and help me, and all depends upon the blessing of God who gives only to things done for him, according to his rules and in his ways, the manner being thus as important as the thing, and perhaps more. Since God can bring forth good out of evil, and without God we bring forth evil out of good. 500. The meaning of the words good and evil. 501. First step, to be blamed for doing evil and praised for doing good. Second step, to be neither praised nor blamed. 502. Abraham took nothing for himself but only for his servants. So the righteous man takes for himself nothing of the world, nor of the applause of the world, but only for his passions which he uses as their master, saying to the one, go, and to another, come. 503. Subte eri da petitus tuus. Footnote. Genesis chapter 4 verse 7. If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up? And if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, but do thou rule over it? End of footnote. The passions thus subdued are virtues. Even God attributes to himself avarice, jealousy, anger, and these are virtues as well as kindness, pity, constancy, which are also passions. We must employ them as slaves, and, leaving to them their food, prevent the soul from taking any of it. For when the passions become masters, they are vices, and they give their nutriment to the soul, and the soul nourishes itself upon it, and is poisoned. 503. Philosophers have consecrated the vices by placing them in God himself. Christians have consecrated the virtues. 504. The just man acts by faith in the least things. When he reproves his servants, he desires their conversion by the Spirit of God, and prays God to correct them, and he expects as much from God as from his own reproofs, and prays God to bless his corrections. And so, in all his other actions, he proceeds with the Spirit of God, and his actions deceive us by reason of the—or suspension of the Spirit of God in him, and he repents in his affliction. 505. All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us, as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us if we do not walk circumspectly. 506. The least movement affects all nature. The entire sea changes because of a rock. Thus in grace the least action affects everything by its consequences, therefore everything is important. 507. In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious. 506. Let God not impute to us our sins, that is to say all the consequences and results of our sins, which are dreadful, even those of the smallest faults, if we wish to follow them out mercilessly. End of Section 7, Part 2. Section 7 of Pancé. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Derek McLaughlin, London, Ontario, Canada. Latin language reading by Lenny, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pancé by Blaise Pascal. Translated by W. F. Trotter. Section 7, Morality and Doctrine, Part 3. 507. The spirit of grace, the hardness of the heart, external circumstances. 508. Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint, and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a man is. 509. Philosophers. A fine thing to cry to a man who does not know himself, that he should come of himself to God, and a fine thing to say so to a man who does know himself. 510. Man is not worthy of God, but he is not incapable of being made worthy. It is unworthy of God to unite himself to wretched man, but it is not unworthy of God to pull him out of his misery. 511. If we would say that man is too insignificant to deserve communion with God, we must indeed be very great to judge of it. 512. It is, in peculiar phraseology, wholly the body of Jesus Christ, but it cannot be said to be the whole body of Jesus Christ. The union of two things without change does not enable us to say that one becomes the other, the soul thus being united to the body, the fire to the timber, without change. But change is necessary to make the form of the one become the form of the other, thus the union of the word to man. Because my body without my soul would not make the body of a man, therefore my soul united to any matter whatsoever will make my body. It does not distinguish the necessary condition from the sufficient condition, the union is necessary but not sufficient. The left arm is not the right. Impenetrability is a property of matter. Identity of number in regard to the same time requires the identity of matter. Thus if God united my soul to a body in China, the same body would be in China. The same river which runs there is as that which runs at the same time in China, 513. Why God has established prayer? 1. To communicate to His creatures the dignity of causality. 2. To teach us from whom our virtue comes. 3. To make us deserve other virtues by work. But to keep His own preeminence He grants prayer to whom He pleases. Objection. But we believe that we hold prayer of ourselves. This is absurd. For since, though having faith, we cannot have virtues, how should we have faith? Is there a greater distance between infidelity and faith than between faith and virtue? Merit. This word is ambiguous. Meruit habere, redem torem. Footnote. He deserved to have a redeemer. End of footnote. Meruit tam sacra membra tangere. Footnote. He deserved to touch members so sacred. End of footnote. Digno tam sacra membra tangere. Footnote. I deem Him worthy to touch, etc. End of footnote. Non sum dignus. Footnote. I am not worthy. Luke chapter 7 verse 6. End of footnote. Huimandukat indignus. Footnote. He who unworthy eats. First Corinthians chapter 11 verse 27. End of footnote. Dignus est accipere. Footnote. He is worthy to receive. Revelation chapter 4 verse 11. End of footnote. Dignare me. Footnote. To deem me worthy. End of footnote. God is only bound according to His promises. He has promised to grant justice to prayers. He has never promised prayer only to the children of promise. Saint Augustine has distinctly said that strength would be taken away from the righteous. But it is by chance that he said it, for it might have happened that the occasion of saying it did not present itself. But his principles make us see that when the occasion for it presented itself, it was impossible that he should not say it or that he should say anything to the contrary. It is then rather that he was forced to say it when the occasion presented itself than that he said it when the occasion presented itself, the one being of necessity, the other of chance. But the two are all that we can ask. 514. Work out your own salvation with fear. Proofs of prayer. Petenti d'abitur. Footnote. Matthew chapter 7 verse 7. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. End of footnote. Therefore it is in our power to ask. On the other hand there is God. So it is not in our power, since the obtaining of the grace to pray to Him is not in our power. For since salvation is not in us, and the obtaining of such grace is from Him, prayer is not in our power. The righteous man should then hope no more in God, for he ought not to hope, but to strive to obtain what he wants. Let us conclude then that, since man is now unrighteous since the first sin, and God is unwilling that he should thereby not be estranged from Him, it is only by a first effect that he is not estranged. Therefore those who depart from God have not this first effect to which they are not estranged from God, and those who do not depart from God have this first effect. Therefore those whom we have seen possessed for some time of grace by this first effect cease to pray for want of this first effect. Then God abandons the first in this sense. 515. The elect will be ignorant of their virtues and the outcast of the greatness of their sins. Lord, when saw we thee unhungered, thirsty, etc. 516. Romans chapter 3 verse 27. Boasting is excluded. By what law of works? Nay, but by faith. Then faith is not within our power like the deeds of the law, and it is given to us in another way. 517. Comfort yourselves. It is not from yourselves that you should expect grace, but on the contrary it is in expecting nothing from yourselves that you must hope for it. 518. Every condition and even the martyrs have to fear according to scripture. The greatest pain of purgatory is the uncertainty of the judgment. There are those absconded. Footnote. A hidden God. End of footnote. 519. John chapter 8. There is a great difference between disciples and true disciples. We recognize them by telling them that the truth will make them free, for if they answer that they are free, and that it is in their power to come out of slavery to the devil, they are indeed disciples, but not true disciples. 520. The law has not destroyed nature, but has instructed it. Grace has not destroyed the law, but has made it act. Faith received at baptism is the source of the whole life of Christians and of the converted. 521. Grace will always be in the world and nature also, so that the former is in some sort natural, and thus there will always be Pelagians, and always Catholics, and always strife, because the first birth makes the one, and the grace of the second birth, the other. 522. The law imposed what it did not give. Grace gives what it imposes. 523. All faith consists in Jesus Christ and in Adam, and all morality in lust and in grace. 524. There is no doctrine more appropriate to man than this which teaches him his double capacity of receiving and of losing grace, because of the double peril to which he is exposed, of despair or of pride. 525. The philosophers did not prescribe feelings suitable to the two states. They inspired feelings of pure greatness and that is not man's state. They inspired feelings of pure littleness and that is not man's state. There must be feelings of humility, not from nature, but from penitence, not to rest in them, but to go on to greatness. There must be feelings of greatness, not from merit, but from grace, and after having passed through humiliation. 526. Misery induces despair. Pride induces presumption. The incarnation shows man the greatness of his misery by the greatness of the remedy which he required. 527. The knowledge of God without that of man's misery causes pride. The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair. The knowledge of Jesus Christ constitutes the middle course, because in him we find both God and our misery. 528. Jesus Christ is a God whom we approach without pride and before whom we humble ourselves without despair. 529. Not a degradation which renders us incapable of good, nor a holiness exempt from evil. 530. A person told me one day that on coming from confession he felt great joy and confidence. Another told me he remained in fear, whereupon I thought that these two together would make one good man and that each was wanting and that he had not the feeling of the other. The same often happens in other things. 531. He who knows the will of his master will be beaten with more blows because of the power he has by his knowledge. 532. We used to zest, usedificated ad hoc. Footnote Revelation 22 verse 11 He that is unrighteous let him do unrighteousness still, and he that is filthy let him be made filthy still, and he that is righteous let him do righteousness still, and he that is holy let him be made holy still. End of footnote. Because of the power he has by justice From him who has received most will the greatest reckoning be demanded because of the power he has by this help. 532. Scripture has provided passages of consolation and of mourning for all conditions. Nature seems to have done the same thing by her two infinites, natural and moral, for we shall always have the higher and the lower, the more clever and the less clever, the most exalted and the meanest in order to humble our pride and exalt our humility. 533. Cominutum cor. Footnote. A broken heart. End of footnote. St. Paul. This is the Christian character. Alba has named you. I know you no more. Cornet. That is the inhuman character. The human character is the opposite. 534. There are only two kinds of men, the righteous who believe themselves sinners, the rest sinners who believe themselves righteous. 535. We owe a great debt to those who point out faults, for they mortify us. They teach us that we have been despised. They do not prevent our being so in the future, for we have many other faults for which we may be despised. They prepare us for the exercise of correction and freedom from fault. 536. Man is so made that by continually telling him he is a fool, he believes it. And by continually telling it to himself he makes himself believe it. For man holds an inward talk with his self alone, which it behooves him to regulate well. 537. Corum punt moris bônus hola cuya praua. Footnote. First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 33. Be not deceived, evil companionships corrupt good morals. End of footnote. We must keep silent as much as possible and talk with ourselves only of God, whom we know to be true. And thus we convince ourselves of the truth. 537. Christianity is strange. It bids man recognize that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject. 538. With how little pride does a Christian believe himself united to God? With how little humiliation does he place himself on a level with the worms of earth? A glorious manner to welcome life and death, good and evil. 539. What difference in point of obedience is there between a soldier and a Carthusian monk? For both are equally under obedience and dependent, both engage in equally painful exercises. But the soldier always hopes to command and never attains this, for even captains and princes are ever slaves and dependents. Still he ever hopes and ever works to attain this. Whereas the Carthusian monk makes a vow to be always dependent. So they do not differ in their perpetual thralldom, in which both of them always exist, but in the hope, which one always has, and the other never. 540. The hope which Christians have of possessing an infinite good is mingled with real enjoyment as well as with fear. For it is not as with those who should hope for a kingdom, of which they, being subjects, would have nothing, but they hope for holiness, for freedom from injustice, and they have something of this. 541. None is so happy as a true Christian, nor so reasonable, virtuous, or amiable. 542. The Christian religion alone makes man altogether lovable and happy. In honesty, we cannot, perhaps, be altogether lovable and happy. 543. Preface. The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression, and if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the moment that they see such demonstration, but an hour afterwards they fear they have been mistaken. 544. How curiously they were, they were surprised to see such demonstration. 545. The God of the Christians is a God who makes the soul feel that he is her only good, that her only rest is in him, that her only delight is in loving him, and who makes her at the same time abhor the obstacles which keep her back, and prevent her from loving God with all her strength. 648. Self-love and lust, which hinder us, are unbearable to her. Thus God makes her feel that she has this root of self-love which destroys her, and which he alone can cure. 545. Jesus Christ did nothing but teach men that they loved themselves, that they were slaves, blind, sick, wretched, and sinners, that he must deliver them, enlighten, bless, and heal them, that this would be effected by hating self, and by following him through suffering and the death on the cross. 546. Without Jesus Christ, man must be in vice and misery, with Jesus Christ, man is free from vice and misery. In him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair. 547. We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion with God is taken away. Through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who have claimed to know God and to prove him without Jesus Christ have had only weak proofs. But in proof of Jesus Christ we have the prophecies which are solid and palpable proofs, and these prophecies being accomplished and proved true by the event mark the certainty of these truths and therefore the divinity of Christ. In him then, and through him, we know God. Apart from him and without the Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary mediator promised and come, we cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right morality. But through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ we prove God and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is then the true God of men. But we know at the same time our wretchedness, for this God is none other than the Savior of our wretchedness. So we can only know God well by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known God without knowing their wretchedness have not glorified him, but have glorified themselves. Quia non cognovit per sapientium placuit deo per stutitium pedicationi salvos faccheri. Footnote 1 Corinthians 1 verse 21 For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. End of footnote 548 Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. Thus without the scripture which has Jesus Christ alone for its object we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of God and in our own nature. 549 It is not only impossible, but useless to know God without Jesus Christ. They have not departed from him, but approached. They have not humbled themselves, but... Note, in the text, the thought is incomplete. End of note. Quakuisque optimus est Pessimus si hoc ipsum quant optimus est ad scribat cibi. Footnote 2 The quality which makes anyone best if he claims it for himself. End of footnote. 550 I love poverty because he loved it. I love riches because they afford me the means of helping the very poor. I keep faith with everybody. I do not render evil to those who wrong me, but I wish them a lot, like mine, in which I receive neither evil nor good from men. I try to be just, true, sincere and faithful to all men. I have a tender heart for those to whom God has more closely united me, and whether I am alone or seen of men, I do all my actions in the sight of God, who must judge of them, and to whom I have consecrated them all. These are my sentiments, and every day of my life I bless my Redeemer, who has implanted them in me, and who, of a man full of weaknesses, of miseries, of lust, of pride, and of ambition, has made a man free from all these evils by the power of his grace, to which all the glory of it is due, as of myself I have only misery and error. 551 Footnote. Though I deserve blows rather than kisses, I do not fear because I love. End of footnote. 552 The sepulchre of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was dead, but seen on the cross. He was dead and hidden in the sepulchre. Jesus Christ was buried by the saints alone. Jesus Christ wrought no miracle at the sepulchre. Only the saints entered it. It is there, not on the cross, that Jesus Christ takes a new life. It is the last mystery of the passion and the redemption. Jesus Christ had nowhere to rest on earth but in the sepulchre. His enemies only ceased to persecute him at the sepulchre. 553 The mystery of Jesus. Jesus suffers in his passion the torments which men inflict upon him, but in his agony he suffers the torments which he inflicts on himself. TURBALIS SENIT IPSUM Footnote. John chapter 11 verse 33. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the Jews also weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled. End of footnote. This is a suffering from no human but an almighty hand, for he must be almighty to bear it. Jesus seeks some comfort at least in his three dearest friends, and they are asleep. He prays them to bear with him for a little and they leave him with entire indifference, having so little compassion that it could not prevent their sleeping even for a moment, and thus Jesus was left alone to the wrath of God. Jesus is alone on the earth without anyone not only to feel and share his sufferings but even to know of it. He and heaven were alone in that knowledge. Jesus is in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam where he lost himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony where he saved himself and the whole human race. He suffers this affliction and this desertion in the horror of night. I believe that Jesus never complained but on this single occasion, but then he complained as if he could no longer bear his extreme suffering. My soul is sorrowful even unto death. Jesus seeks companionship and comfort from men. This is the sole occasion in all his life as it seems to me, but he receives it not for his disciples are asleep. Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time. Jesus, in the midst of this universal desertion, including that of his own friends chosen to watch with him, finding them asleep, is vexed because of the danger to which they expose not him but themselves. He cautions them for their own safety and their own good with a sincere tenderness for them during their ingratitude and warns them that the spirit is willing and the flesh weak. Jesus finding them still asleep without being restrained by any consideration for themselves or for him has the kindness not to awaken them but leaves them in repose. Jesus prays, uncertain of the will of his father and fears death, but when he knows it he goes forward to offer himself to death. Footnote John chapter 18 verse 4 Jesus therefore knowing all the things that were coming upon him went forth and saith unto them, Whom seek ye? End of footnote. Jesus asked of men and was not heard. Jesus, while his disciples slept wrought their salvation. He has wrought that of each of the righteous while they slept both in their nothingness before their birth and in their sins after their birth. He prays only once that the cup pass away and then with submission and twice that it come if necessary. Jesus is weary. Jesus seeing all his friends asleep and all his enemies wakeful commits himself entirely to his father. Jesus does not regard in Judas his enmity but the order of God which he loves and admits since he calls him friend. We must tear ourselves away from our nearest and dearest to imitate him. Jesus being in agony and in the greatest affliction let us pray longer. We implore the mercy of God not that he may leave us at peace in our vices but that he may deliver us from them. If God gave us masters by his own hand oh how necessary for us to obey them with a good heart necessity and events follow infallibly console thyself thou wouldst not seek me if thou hadst not found me I thought of thee in mine agony I have sweated such drops of blood for thee it is tempting me rather than proving thyself to think if thou wouldst do such and such a thing on an occasion which has not happened I shall act in thee if it occur Let thyself be guided by my rules see how well I have led the virgin and the saints who have let me act in them The Father loves all that I do Does thou wish that it always cost me the blood of my humanity without thy shedding tears Thy conversion is my affair fear not and pray with confidence as for me I am present with thee by my word in scripture, by my spirit in the church and by inspiration by my power in the priests by my prayer in the faithful Physicians will not heal thee for thou wilt die at last but it is I who heal thee and make the body immortal Suffer bodily chains in servitude I deliver thee at present only from spiritual servitude I am more a friend to thee than such and such in one for I have done for thee more than they They would not have suffered but I have suffered from thee as I have done in the time of thine infidelities and cruelties and as I am ready to do and do among my elect and at the holy sacrament If thou newest thy sins thou wouldst lose heart I shall lose it then lord for on thy assurance I believe they're malice No, for I by whom thou learnest can heal thee of them and what I say to thee is a sign that I will heal thee a portion to thy expiation of them thou wilt know them and it will be said to thee behold, thy sins are forgiven thee repent then for thy hidden sins and for the secret malice of those which thou knowest Lord, I give thee all I love thee more ardently than thou hast loved thine abominations with immundus froluto footnote as foul with clay end of footnote to me be the glory not to thee, worm of the earth ask thy confessor when my own words are to the occasion of evil, vanity or curiosity I see in me depths of pride, curiosity and lust there is no relation between me and God nor Jesus Christ the righteous but he has been made sin for me all thy scourges are fallen upon him he is more abominable than I and far from abhorring me he holds himself honored that I go to him and succour him but he has healed himself and still more so will he heal me I must add my wounds to his and join myself to him and he will save me in saving himself but this must not be postponed to the future footnote Genesis chapter 3 verse 5 for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as God knowing good and evil each one creates his God when judging this is good or bad and men mourn or rejoice too much at events do little things as though they were great because of the majesty of Jesus Christ who does them in us and who lives our life as though they were little and easy because of his omnipotence 554 it seems to me that Jesus Christ only allowed his wounds to be touched after his resurrection not limitangere footnote John chapter 20 verse 17 Jesus saith to her touch me not for I am not yet ascended unto the Father but go unto my brethren and say to them I ascend unto my Father and your Father end of footnote we must unite ourselves only to his sufferings at the last supper he gave himself in communion as about to die to the disciples at Emmaus as risen from the dead to the whole church as ascended into heaven 555 compare not thyself with others but with me if thou dost not find me in those with whom thou compares thyself to one who is abominable if thou findest me in them compare thyself to me but whom wilt thou compare thyself or me in thee if it is thyself it is one who is abominable if it is I thou compares me to myself now I am God in all I speak to thee and often counsel thee because thy director cannot speak to thee for I do not want thee to lack a guide and perhaps I do so at his prayers and thus he leads thee without thy seeing it thou wouldst not seek me if thou didst not possess me be not therefore troubled end of section 7 section 8 of Pensei this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Derek McLaughlin London, Ontario, Canada Latin language reading by Lenny Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Pensei by Blaise Pascal translated by W.F. Trotter section 8 the fundamentals of the Christian religion 556 men blaspheme what they do not know the Christian religion consists in two points it is of equal concern to men to know them and it is equally dangerous to be ignorant of them and it is equally of God's mercy that he has given indications of both and yet they take occasion to conclude that one of these points does not exist from that which should have caused them to infer the other the sages who have said there is only one God have been persecuted the Jews were hated and still more the Christians they have seen by the light of nature that if there be a true religion on earth the course of all things must tend to it as to a center the whole course of things must have for its object the establishment and the greatness of religion men must have within them feelings suited to what religion teaches us and finally religion must so be the object and center to which all things tend that whoever knows the principles of religion can give an explanation both of the whole nature of man in particular and of the whole course of the world in general and on this ground they take occasion to revile the Christian religion because they misunderstand it they imagine that it consists simply in the worship of a God considered as great, powerful and eternal which is strictly deism almost as far removed from the Christian religion as atheism which is exact opposite and thence they conclude that this religion is not true because they do not see that all things concur to the establishment of this point that God does not manifest himself to men with all the evidence which he could show but let them conclude what they will against deism they will conclude nothing against the Christian religion which properly consists in the mystery of the Redeemer who, uniting in himself the two natures human and divine has redeemed men from the corruption of sin in order to reconcile them in his divine person to God the Christian religion then teaches men these two truths that there is a God whom men can know and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of him it is equally important to men to know both these points and it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness and to know his own wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can free him from it the knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers and not their own wretchedness or to the despair of atheists who know their own wretchedness but not the Redeemer and as it is alike necessary to man to know these two points so is it alike merciful of God to have made us know them the Christian religion does this it is in this that it consists let us hear in examine the order of the world and see if all things do not tend to establish these two chief points of this religion Jesus Christ is the end of all and the center to which all tends whoever knows him knows the reason of everything those who fall into error err only through failure to see one of these two things we can then have an excellent knowledge of God without that of our own wretchedness and of our own wretchedness without that of God but we cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing at the same time both God and our own wretchedness therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either the existence of God or the trinity or the immortality of the soul or anything of that nature not only because I should not feel myself sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hard and atheists but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and barren though a man should be convinced that numerical proportions are immaterial truths eternal and dependent on a first truth in which they subsist and which is called God I should not think him far advanced towards his own salvation the God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of mathematical truths or of the order of the elements that is the view of heathens and epicureans he is not merely a God who exercises his providence over the life and fortunes of men to bestow on those who worship him along a happy life that was the portion of the Jews but the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob the God of Christians is a God of love and comfort a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness and his infinite mercy who unites himself to their inmost soul who fills it with humility and joy with confidence and love who renders them incapable all who seek God without Jesus Christ and who rest in nature either find no light to satisfy them or come to form for themselves a means of knowing God and serving him without a mediator thereby they fall either into atheism or into deism two things which the Christian religion abhors almost equally without Jesus Christ the world would not exist for it should needs be either that it would be destroyed or be a hell if the world existed to instruct man of God his divinity would shine through every part in it in an indisputable manner but as it exists only by Jesus Christ and for Jesus Christ and to teach men both their corruption and their redemption all displays the proofs of these two truths all appearance indicates neither a total exclusion nor a manifest presence of divinity but the presence of a God who hides himself and bears this character shall he alone who knows his nature know it only to be miserable shall he alone who knows it be alone unhappy he must not see nothing at all nor must he see sufficient for him to believe he possesses it but he must see enough to know that he has lost it for to know of his loss he must see and not see and that is exactly the state in which he naturally is for what he takes I shall not leave him at rest 557 it is then true that everything teaches man his condition but he must understand this well for it is not true that all reveals God and it is not true that all conceals God but it is at the same time true that he hides himself from those who tempt him and that he reveals himself to those who seek him because men are both unworthy and capable of God capable by their original nature 558 what shall we conclude from all our darkness but our unworthiness 559 if there had never been any appearance of God this eternal deprivation would have been equivocal and might have as well corresponded with the absence of all divinity as with the unworthiness of men to know him but his occasional though not continual appearances is the ambiguity if he appeared once he exists always and thus we cannot but conclude both that there is a God and that men are unworthy of him 560 we do not understand the glorious state of Adam nor the nature of his sin nor the transmission of it to us these are matters which took place under conditions of a nature altogether different from our own and which transcend our present understanding the knowledge of all this is useless to us as a means of escape from it and all that we are concerned to know is that we are miserable corrupt separated from God but ransomed by Jesus Christ whereof we have wonderful proofs on earth so the two proofs of corruption and redemption are drawn from the ungodly who live in indifference to religion and from the Jews who are irreconcilable enemies 561 there are two ways of proving the truths of our religion one by the power of reason the other by the authority of him who speaks we do not make use of the latter but of the former we do not say this must be believed for scripture which says it is divine but we say that it must be believed for such and such a reason which are feeble arguments as reason may be bent to everything 562 there is nothing on earth that does not show either the wretchedness of man or the mercy of God either the weakness of man without God or the strength of man with God 563 it will be one of the confusions of the damned to see that they are condemned by their own reason by which they claimed to condemn the Christian religion 564 the prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our religion are not of such a nature they cannot be said to be absolutely convincing but they are also of such a kind that it cannot be said that it is unreasonable to believe them thus there is both evidence and obscurity to enlighten some and confuse others but the evidence is such that it surpasses or at least equals the evidence to the contrary so that it is not reason which can determine men not to follow it and thus it can only be lust or malice of heart and by this means there is sufficient evidence to condemn and insufficient to convince so that it appears in those who follow it that it is grace and not reason which makes them follow it and in those who shun it that it is lust not reason which makes them shun it where it is kipuli where it is vailita where it is limeri where it is kibus footnote in allusion to John chapter 8 verse 31 chapter 1 verse 47 verse 32 verily disciples verily an Israelite verily children verily food end of footnote 565 recognized then the truth of religion in the very obscurity of religion in the little light we have of it and in the indifference which we have to knowing it 566 we understand nothing of the works of God if we do not take as a principle then some and enlighten others 567 the two contrary reasons we must begin with that without that we understand nothing and all is heretical and we must even add at the end of each truth that the opposite truth is to be remembered 568 objection the scripture is plainly full of matters not dictated by the Holy Spirit answer then they do not harm faith objection but the church has decided that all is of the Holy Spirit answer I answer two things first the church has not so decided secondly if she should so decide it could be maintained do you think that the prophecies cited in the gospel are related to make you believe? no it is to keep you from believing 569 canonical the heretical books in the beginning of the church prove the canonical 570 to the chapter on the fundamentals must be added that on typology touching the reason of types why Jesus Christ was prophesied as to his first coming why prophesied obscurely as to the manner 571 the reason why types they had to deal with the carnal people and to render them the depository of the spiritual covenant by the Messiah it was necessary there should have been precedent prophecies and that these should be conveyed by persons above suspicion diligent, faithful, unusually zealous and known to all the world to accomplish this God chose this carnal people to whom he entrusted the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a deliverer and as a dispenser of those carnal goods which this people loved and thus they have had an extraordinary passion for their prophets and that the people of the whole world have had charge of these books which foretell their Messiah assuring all nations that he should come and in the way foretold in the books which they held open to the whole world yet this people deceived by the poor and ignominious advent of the Messiah have been his most cruel enemies so that they the people least open to suspicion in the world of favoring us the most strict and most zealous that can be named for their law have kept the books incorrupt hence those who have rejected and crucified Jesus Christ who has been to them on offense are those who have charge of the books which testify of him and state that he will be in offense and rejected therefore they have shown it was he by rejecting him and he has been alike proved both by the righteous Jews who received him and by the unrighteous who rejected him both facts having been foretold prophecies have a hidden and spiritual meaning to which this people were hostile under the carnal meaning which they loved if the spiritual meaning had been revealed they would not have loved it and unable to bear it they would not have been zealous of the preservation of their books and their ceremonies and if they had loved these spiritual promises and had preserved them incorrupt till the time of the Messiah their testimony would have had no force because they had been his friends therefore it was well that the spiritual meaning should be concealed but on the other hand if this meaning had been so hidden as not to appear at all it could not have served as a proof of the Messiah what then was done in a crowd of passages it has been hidden under the temporal meaning and in a few has been clearly revealed besides that the time and the state of the world have been so clearly foretold that it is clear than the sun and in some places this spiritual meaning is so clearly expressed that it would require a blindness like that which the flesh imposes on the spirit when it is subdued by it not to recognize it see then what has been the prudence of God this meaning is concealed under another in an infinite number of passages and in some though rarely it is revealed but yet so that the passages in which it is concealed are equivocal and can suit both meanings whereas the passages where it is disclosed are unequivocal and can only suit the spiritual meaning so that this cannot lead us into error and could only be misunderstood by so carnal of people for when blessings are promised in abundance what was to prevent them from understanding the true blessings but their covetousness which limited the meaning to worldly goods but those whose only good was in God referred them to God alone for there are two principles which divide the wills of men covetousness and charity not that covetousness cannot exist along with faith in God nor charity with worldly riches but covetousness uses God and enjoys the world and charity is the opposite now the ultimate end gives names to things all which prevents us from attaining it is called an enemy to us thus the creatures however good are the enemies of the righteous when they turn them away from God the enemy of those whose covetousness he confounds thus as the significance of the word enemy is dependent on the ultimate end the righteous understood by it their passions and the carnal the Babylonians and so these terms were obscure only for the unrighteous and this is what Isaiah says footnote Isaiah chapter 8 verse 16 bind thou up the testimony of the law among my disciples end of footnote and that Jesus Christ shall be a stone of stumbling but blessed are they who shall not be offended in him Hosea says excellently where is the wise and he shall understand what I say the righteous shall know them for the ways of God are right but the transgressors shall fall therein 572 hypothesis that the apostles were imposters the time clearly the manner obscurity five typical proofs 2000 1600 prophets 400 scattered 573 blindness of scripture the scripture said the Jews says that we shall not know whence the Christ will come John chapter 7 verse 27 and chapter 12 verse 34 the scripture says that Christ abideth forever and he said that he should die therefore says St. John they believed not though he had done so many miracles that the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled he hath blinded them etc 574 greatness religion is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it if it be obscure should be deprived of it why then do any complain if it be such as can be found by seeking 575 all things work together for good to the elect even the obscurities of scripture for they honor them because of what is divinely clear and all things work together for evil to the rest of the world even what is clear for they revile such because of the obscurities which they do not understand 576 the general conduct of the world towards the church God willing to blind and to enlighten the event having proved the divinity of these prophecies the rest ought to be believed and thereby we see the order of the world to be of this kind the miracles of the creation and the deluge being forgotten God sends the law and the miracles of Moses the prophets who prophesied particular things and to prepare a lasting miracle he prepares prophecies and their fulfillment but as the prophecies could be suspected he desires to make them above suspicion etc 577 God has made the blindness of this people subservient to the good of the elect 578 there is sufficient clearness to enlighten the elect and sufficient obscurity to humble them there is sufficient obscurity to blind the reprobate and sufficient clearness to condemn them and make them inexcusable St. Augustine Montaigne the genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled by so many others that are useless that it cannot be distinguished if Moses had kept only the record of the ancestors of Christ that might have been too plain if he had noted that of Jesus Christ it might not have been sufficiently plain but after all whoever looks closely sees that of Jesus Christ expressly traced through Tamar, Ruth etc those who ordained these sacrifices knew their uselessness those who have declared their uselessness have not ceased to practice them if God had permitted only one religion it had been too easily known but when we look at it closely we clearly discern the truth amidst this confusion the premise Moses was a clever man if then he ruled himself by his reason he would say nothing clearly which was directly against reason thus all the very apparent weaknesses are strength for all the two genealogies in Saint Matthew and Saint Luke what can be clearer than that this was not concerted? 579 God and the apostles foreseeing that the seeds of pride would make heresies spring up and being unwilling to give them occasion to arise from correct expressions has put in scripture and the prayers of the church contrary words and sentences to produce their fruit in time so in morals he gives charity which produces fruits contrary to lust 580 nature has some perfections to show that she is the image of God and some defects to show that she is only his image 581 God prefers rather to incline the will than the intellect perfect clearness would be of use to the intellect and would harm the will to humble pride 582 make an idol of truth itself for truth apart from charity is not God but his image and idol which we must neither love nor worship and still last must we love our worship its opposite namely falsehood 583 I can easily love total darkness but if God keeps me in a state of semi-darkness such partial darkness displeases me and because I do not see therein the advantage of total darkness it is unpleasant to me this is a fault and a sign that I make for myself an idol of darkness apart from the order of God now only his order must be worshiped 583 the feeble-minded are people who know the truth but only affirm it so far as consistent with their own interest but apart from that they renounce it 584 the world exists for the exercise of mercy and judgment not as if men were placed in it out of the hands of God and to them he grants by grace sufficient light that they may return to him if they desire to seek and follow him and also that they may be punished if they refuse to seek or follow him 585 that God has willed to hide himself if there were only one religion God would indeed be manifest the same would be the case if there were no martyrs but in our religion God being thus hidden every religion which does not affirm that God is hidden is not true and every religion which does not give the reason of it is not instructive our religion does all this where it who has their own subsconditus footnote truly thou art a hidden God end of footnote 586 if there were no obscurity man would not be sensible of his corruption if there were no light man would not hope for a remedy not only fair but advantageous to us that God be partly hidden and partly revealed since it is equally dangerous to man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness and to know his own wretchedness without knowing God 587 this religion so great in miracles saints, blameless fathers learned and great witnesses martyrs, established kings as David and Isaiah a prince of the blood and so great in science after having displayed all her miracles and all her wisdom rejects all this and declares that she has neither wisdom nor signs but only the cross and foolishness for those who by these signs and that wisdom have deserved your belief and who have proved to you their character declare to you that nothing of all this can change you and render you capable of knowing and loving God but the power of the foolishness of the cross without wisdom and signs and not the signs without this power thus our religion is foolish in respect to the effective cause and wise in respect to the wisdom which prepares it 588 our religion is wise and foolish wise because it is the most learned and the most founded on miracles prophecies etc foolish because it is not all this which makes us belong to it this makes us indeed condemn those who do not belong to it and cause belief in those who do belong to it it is the cross that makes them believe Footnote 1 Corinthians 1 verse 17 for Christ sent me not to baptize but to preach the gospel not in wisdom of words lest the cross of Christ should be made void end of footnote and so St. Paul who came with wisdom and signs says that he has come neither with wisdom for he came to convert but those who come only to convince can say that they come with wisdom and with signs End of section 8