534
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 for us the exercise of correction and freedom from fault.
535
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 behoves him to regulate well: _Corrumpunt bonos mores colloquia prava_.[199] We must keep silent as much as possible and talk with ourselves only of G.o.d, whom we know to be true; and thus we convince ourselves of the truth.
536
Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like G.o.d. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject.
537
With how little pride does a Christian believe himself united to G.o.d!
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!
538
What difference in point of obedience is there between a soldier and a Carthusian monk? For both are equally under obedience and dependent, both engaged in equally painful exercises. But the soldier always hopes to command, and never attains this, for even captains and princes are ever slaves and dependants; 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 thraldom, in which both of them always exist, but in the hope, which one always has, and the other never.
539
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.
540
None is so happy as a true Christian, nor so reasonable, virtuous, or amiable.
541
The Christian religion alone makes man altogether _lovable and happy_.
In honesty, we cannot perhaps be altogether lovable and happy.
542
_Preface._--The metaphysical proofs of G.o.d 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.
_Quod curiositate cognoverunt superbia amiserunt._[200]
This is the result of the knowledge of G.o.d obtained without Jesus Christ; it is communion without a mediator with the G.o.d whom they have known without a mediator. Whereas those who have known G.o.d by a mediator know their own wretchedness.
543
The G.o.d of the Christians is a G.o.d 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 G.o.d with all her strength. Self-love and l.u.s.t, which hinder us, are unbearable to her.
Thus G.o.d makes her feel that she has this root of self-love which destroys her, and which He alone can cure.
544
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.
545
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.
546
We know G.o.d only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion with G.o.d is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know G.o.d. All those who have claimed to know G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture, without original sin, without a necessary Mediator promised and come, we cannot absolutely prove G.o.d, nor teach right doctrine and right morality. But through Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, we prove G.o.d, and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is then the true G.o.d of men.
But we know at the same time our wretchedness; for this G.o.d is none other than the Saviour of our wretchedness. So we can only know G.o.d well by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known G.o.d, without knowing their wretchedness, have not glorified Him, but have glorified themselves. _Quia ... non cognovit per sapientiam ... placuit Deo per stult.i.tiam praedicationis salvos facere._[201]
547
Not only do we know G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, and in our own nature.
548
It is not only impossible but useless to know G.o.d without Jesus Christ.
They have not departed from Him, but approached; they have not humbled themselves, but ...
_Quo quisque optimus est, pessimus, si hoc ipsum, quod optimus est, adscribat sibi._
549
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 G.o.d has more closely united me; and whether I am alone, or seen of men, I do all my actions in the sight of G.o.d, 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 weakness, of miseries, of l.u.s.t, 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.