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 Saviour 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 sapientiam ... placuit Deo per stultitiam praedicationis salvos facere.[201]

547

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.

548

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 ...

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 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 weakness, 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.

550

Dignior plagis quam osculis non timeo quia amo.