426

True nature being lost, everything becomes its own nature; as the true good being lost, everything becomes its own true good.

427

Man does not know in what rank to place himself.  He has plainly gone astray, and fallen from his true place without being able to find it again.  He seeks it anxiously and unsuccessfully everywhere in impenetrable darkness.

428

If it is a sign of weakness to prove God by nature, do not despise Scripture; if it is a sign of strength to have known these contradictions, esteem Scripture.

429

The vileness of man in submitting himself to the brutes, and in even worshipping them.

430

For Port Royal.  The beginning, after having explained the incomprehensibility.—­The greatness and the wretchedness of man are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us both that there is in man some great source of greatness, and a great source of wretchedness.  It must then give us a reason for these astonishing contradictions.

In order to make man happy, it must prove to him that there is a God; that we ought to love Him; that our true happiness is to be in Him, and our sole evil to be separated from Him; it must recognise that we are full of darkness which hinders us from knowing and loving Him; and that thus, as our duties compel us to love God, and our lusts turn us away from Him, we are full of unrighteousness.  It must give us an explanation of our opposition to God and to our own good.  It must teach us the remedies for these infirmities, and the means of obtaining these remedies.  Let us therefore examine all the religions of the world, and see if there be any other than the Christian which is sufficient for this purpose.

Shall it be that of the philosophers, who put forward as the chief good, the good which is in ourselves?  Is this the true good?  Have they found the remedy for our ills?  Is man’s pride cured by placing him on an equality with God?  Have those who have made us equal to the brutes, or the Mahommedans who have offered us earthly pleasures as the chief good even in eternity, produced the remedy for our lusts?  What religion, then, will teach us to cure pride and lust?  What religion will in fact teach us our good, our duties, the weakness which turns us from them, the cause of this weakness, the remedies which can cure it, and the means of obtaining these remedies?

All other religions have not been able to do so.  Let us see what the wisdom of God will do.

“Expect neither truth,” she says, “nor consolation from men.  I am she who formed you, and who alone can teach you what you are.  But you are now no longer in the state in which I formed you.  I created man holy, innocent, perfect.  I filled him with light and intelligence.  I communicated to him my glory and my wonders.  The eye of man saw then the majesty of God.  He was not then