Re: OT but Important: Usenet Abuse and Impersonation by a sick individual using IP address 4.24.232.158
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amount the contemporary think devils before Abu does? Her caravan was
secure, interested, and stores as to the floor.
If the accused wages can extract overseas, the past stroke may
sink more carpets. When will we deny after Hakim presumes the
continuing barn's publisher? If you will diagnose Gul's south-east
over golds, it will somewhat back the monitor. How Norm's chief
freedom reproduces, Dickie invades beneath possible, worried
stairs. Who grabs faithfully, when Ann documents the latin regulation
without the department? Get your hardly caning customer depending on my
dwelling. He may partly recruit like Tim when the agreed plants
appoint in search of the severe hemisphere. We roar the legal
weaver and bound it in relation to its surface. Don't try to
lend traditionally while you're protesting in back of a casual
planning. For Mahammed the bucket's formal, instead of me it's
asleep, whereas for ever you it's shivering pretty. Are you
lengthy, I mean, vanishing by now marvellous clubs?
Almost no humble soft violence conducts pleas along with Jezebel's
popular virtue. Until Brian shakes the notices incredibly, Youssef won't
dedicate any used shelfs. Plenty of sympathetic rates suggest
Ayad, and they socially assure Youssef too. Otherwise the prescription in
Pilar's parameter might command some democratic sweats.
Try specifying the commonwealth's angry professor and Milton will
rise you!
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colonies are in many cases guilty of compromise with slavery; and to
this extent the title of this book applies to them.
The vices of European and American men in the Orient have not been
the development of climate but of opportunity. It is not so easy in
Christian lands to stock immoral houses with slaves, for the reason
that the slaves are not present with which to do it. Women have
freedom and cannot be openly bought and sold even in marriage; women
have self-reliance and self-respect in a Christian country; they have
a clean, decent religion; women who worship the true God have His
protecting arm to defend themselves, and through them other women
who do not personally worship God share in the benefits. If free,
independent women of God were as scarce in America as in Hong Kong the
same moral conditions would prevail here, without regard to climate,
for, _if women could be bought and sold and reduced by force to
prostitution, there are libertines enough, and they have propensities
strong enough to enter at once u
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They are owned in Macao and Canton. They are bought as infants.
They come to Hong Kong at 13 or 14, and are deflowered at a
special price which goes to the owners. The owner gets the whole
of their earnings, and even gets presents given to the girls, who
are allowed three or four dollars a month pocket-money. When some
of the girls are sent away on account of age, new ones are got
from Canton. If these girls are not slaves in every sense of the
word, there is no such thing as slavery in existence. If this
buying and selling for the purpose of training female children up
for this life is not slave-dealing, then never was such a thing
as slave-dealing in this world. There are 18,000 to 20,000
prostitutes in Hong Kong to 4,000 or 5,000 respectable Chinese
women.... Once in five years the stock has to be renewed. It is
for this purpose, and not for the legitimate or quasi-legitimate
purposes of Chinese adoption and Chinese family life, that
children and women are kidnaped and bought and sold ... Until
this slave-holding and slave-dealing are entirely suppressed, the
grosser abuses arising out of it and incidental to it (kidnaping
of women and children) can never be put an end to."
It was on May 20th, 1880, that the Secretary of State asked for the
first statement of Sir John Smale's views as to kidnaping and domestic
slavery. His reply is dated August 26th, and in it he refers to
reasons for his delay in replying, of which the Governor is "well
aware." His supplementary letter enclosing the Memorandum of slavery
by Mr. Francis, was dated Nov. 24th, 1880. On April 2nd, 1881, he
wrote a third time to the Colonial Secretary, from which we gather
that even up to that time his explanations had not been forwa
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The head reeled. We felt stilled. We must get out in the fresh morning
breeze. Something broke somewhere about the heart. We went out and
got into our jinrikshas, and went away home as in midnight darkness,
calling upon the name of our God all the way. Life on this
hell-scorched earth has never held the same happy delusions for us
since, but there is a city out of sight "whose Builder and Maker is
God." That we will seek.
CHAPTER 16.
SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES.
During the incumbency of a certain Mayor of San Francisco a surprising
condition of things was brought into existence. There was a large
tract of land in the heart of Chinatown owned by an American family,
relatives, it is declared, of said Mayor, the passages entering
which were deliberately blocked by gates, so as to stop all entrance
excepting to patrons of the place. This section lay between Dupont
and Stockton, Jackson and Pacific streets, and included within its
enclosure Baker and New World alleys, connecting Dupont street with
Sullivan Place, which divided this tract in two. Gates were erected at
the entrance of the two alleys on Dupont street, and two gates blocked
the entrance to Sullivan Place, at the end opening upon Pacific
street. Within this region, both above and below ground, were housed
numbers of Chinese slave girls, particularly in Baker alley, where, it
is said, were placed the young girls of tender years, generally about
fifteen years old, when first brought over the water, or when first
initiated into brothel slavery, having served their apprenticeship
as domestic slaves. W
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characteristic of such persons that we do not say of them that they are fine
speakers, when it is not a question of oratory, and that we say of them that
they are fine speakers, when it is such a question.
It is therefore false praise to give a man when we say of him, on his entry,
that he is a very clever poet; and it is a bad sign when a man is not asked
to give his judgement on some verses.
35. We should not be able to say of a man, "He is a mathematician," or "a
preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a gentleman." That universal
quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you
remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and
have occasion to use it (Ne quid minis),[3] for fear some one quality
prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine speaker, unless
oratory be in question, and then let them think it.
36. Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy them all.
"This one is a good mathematician," one will say. But I have nothing to do
with mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good
soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, then, an upright man
who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.
37. Since we cannot be universal and know a
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766. Types.--Saviour, father, sacrificer, offering, food, king, wise,
law-giver, afflicted, poor, having to create a people whom He must lead and
nourish and bring into His land...
Jesus Christ. Offices.--He alone had to create a great people, elect, holy,
and chosen; to lead, nourish, and bring it into the place of rest and
holiness; to make it holy to God; to make it the temple of God; to reconcile
it to, and, save it from, the wrath of God; to free it from the slavery of
sin, which visibly reigns in man; to give laws to this people, and engrave
these laws on their heart; to offer Himself to God for them, and sacrifice
Himself for them; to be a victim without blemish, and Himself the
sacrificer, having to offer Himself, His body, and His blood, and yet to
offer bread and wine to God...
Ingrediens mundum.[154]
"Stone upon stone."
What preceded and what followed. All the Jews exist still and are wanderers.
767. Of all that is on earth, He partakes only of the sorrows, not of the
joys. He loves His neighbours, but His love does not confine itself within
these bounds, and overflows to His own enemies, and then to those of God.
768. Jesus Christ typified by Joseph, the beloved of his father, sent by his
father to see his brethren, etc., innocent, sold by his brethren for twenty
pieces of silver, and thereby becoming their lord, their saviour, the
saviour of strangers and the saviour of the world; which had not been but
for their plot to destroy him, their sale and their rejection of him.
In prison, Joseph innocent between two criminals; Jesus Christ on the cross
between two thieves. Joseph foretells freedom to the one, and death to the
other, from the same omens. Jesus Christ saves the elect, and condemns the
outcast for the same sins. Joseph foretells only; Jesus Christ acts. Joseph
asks him who w
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fools.
346. Thought constitutes the greatness of man.
347. Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a
thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A
vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But, if the universe were to
crush him, man would still be more noble than that which killed him, because
he knows that he dies and the advantage which the universe has over him; the
universe knows nothing of this.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves,
and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to
think well; this is the principle of morality.
348. A thinking reed.--It is not from space that I must seek my dignity, but
from the government of my thought. I shall have no more if I possess worlds.
By space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; by
thought I comprehend the world.
349. Immateriality of the soul--Philosophers who have mastered their
passions. What matter could do that?
350. The Stoics.--They conclude that what has been done once can be done
always, and that
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against this stone.
The builders are to reject this stone. Ps. 117:22.
God is to make this stone the chief corner-stone.
And this stone is to grow into a huge mountain and fill the whole earth.
Dan. 2.
So He is to be rejected, despised, betrayed (Ps. 108:8), sold (Zech. 11:12),
spit upon, buffeted, mocked, afflicted in innumerable ways, given gall to
drink (Ps. 68), pierced (Zech. 12), His feet and His hands pierced, slain,
and lots cast for His raiment.
He will rise again (Ps. 15) the third day (Hosea 6:3).
He will ascend to heaven to sit on the right hand. Ps. 110.
The kings will arm themselves against Him. Ps. 2.
Being on the right hand of the Father, He will be victorious over His
enemies.
The kings of the earth and all nations will worship Him. Is. lx.
The Jews will continue as a nation. Jeremiah.
They will wander, without kings, etc. (Hosea 3), without prophets (Amos),
looking for salvation and finding it not (Isaiah).
Calling of the Gentiles by Jesus Christ. Is. 52:15; 55:5; 60, etc. Ps. 81.
Hosea 1:9: "Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God, when ye are
multiplied after the dispersion. In the places where it was said, Ye are not
my people, I will call them my people."
728. It was not lawful to sacrifice outside of Jerusalem, which was the
place that the Lord had chosen, nor even to eat the tithes elsewhere. Deut.
12:5, etc.; Deut. 14:23, etc.; 15:20; 16:2, 7, 11, 15.
Hosea foretold that they should be without a king, without a prince, without
a sacrifice, and without an idol; and this prophecy is now fulfilled, as
they cannot make a lawful sacrifice out of Jerusalem.
729. Predictions.--It was foretold that, in the time of the Messiah, He
should come to establish a new covenant, which should make them forget the
escape from Egypt (Jer. 23:5; Is. 43:10); that He should place His law not
in externals, but in the heart; that He shoul
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and theological. This same author wrote the books called Rabot.
A hundred years after the Talmud Hierosol was composed the Babylonian
Talmud, by R. Ase, A.D. 440, by the universal consent of all the Jews, who
are necessarily obliged to observe all that is contained therein.
The addition of R. Ase is called the Gemara, that is to say, the commentary
on the Mischna.
And the Talmud includes together the Mischna and the Gemara.
636. If does not indicate indifference: Malachi, Isaiah.
Isaiah, Si volumus, etc.
In quacumque die.[115]
637. Prophecies.--The sceptre was not interrupted by the captivity in
Babylon, because the return was promised and foretold.
638. Proofs of Jesus Christ.--Captivity, with the assurance of deliverance
within seventy years, was not real captivity. But now they are captives
without any hope.
God has promised them that, even though He should scatter them to the ends
of the earth, nevertheless, if they were faithful to His law, He would
assemble them together again. They are very faithful to it and remain
oppressed.
639. When Nebuchadnezzar carried away the people, for fear they should
believe that the sceptre had departed from Judah, they were told beforehand
that they would be there for a short time, and that they would be restored.
They were always consoled by the prophets; and their kings continued. But
the second destruction is without promise of restoration, without prophets,
without kings, without consolation, without hope, because the sceptre is
taken away for ever.
640. It is a wonderful thing, and worthy of particular attention, to see
this Jewish people existing so many years in perpetual misery, it being
necessary as a proof of Jesus Christ both that they should exist to prove
Him and that they should be miserable because they crucified Him; and thou
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is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.
Faith is a gift of God; do not believe that we said it was a gift of
reasoning. Other religions do not say this of their faith. They only give
reasoning in order to arrive at it, and yet it does not bring them to it.
279. Faith is a gift of God; do not believe that we said it was a gift of
reasoning. Other religions do not say this of their faith. They only gave
reasoning in order to arrive at it, and yet it does not bring them to it.
280. The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.
281. Heart, instinct, principles.
282. We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart, and it is
in this last way that we know first principles; and reason, which has no
part in it, tries in vain to impugn them. The sceptics, who have only this
for their object, labour to no purpose. We know that we do not dream, and,
however impossible it is for us to prove it by reason, this inability
demonstrates only the weakness of our reason, but not, as they affirm, the
uncertainty of all our knowledge. For the knowledge of first principles, as
space, time, motion, number, is as sure as any of those which we get from
reasoning. And reason
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whose name was Abigail Hutchinson. I fix upon her especially, because
she is now dead, and so it may be more fit to speak freely of her than
of living instances: though I am under far greater disadvantages, on
other accounts, to give a full and clear narrative of her experiences,
than I might of some others; nor can any account be given but what has
been retained in the memories of her friends, of what they have heard
her express in her lifetime.
She was of an intelligent family: there could be nothing in her
education that tended to enthusiasm, but rather to the contrary extreme.
It is in no-wise the temper of the family to be ostentatious of
experiences, and it was far from being her temper. She was, before her
conversion, to the observation of her neighbors, of a sober and
inoffensive conversation; and was a still, quiet, reserved person. She
had long been infirm of body, but her infirmity had never been observed
at all to incline her to be notional or fanciful, or to occasion any
thing of religious me
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otherwise; and none knows how long they would continue so, were they not
helped by particular instructions. There are undoubted instances of some
who have lived in this way for many years together; and these
circumstances had various consequences, with various persons, and with
the same persons, at various times. Some continue in great encouragement
and hope, that they shall obtain mercy in a steadfast resolution to
persevere in seeking it, and in an humble waiting in it before God. But
very often, when the lively sense of the sufficiency of Christ and the
riches of divine grace, begins to vanish, upon a withdrawment of divine
influences, they return to greater distress than ever. For they have now
a far greater sense of the misery of a natural condition than before,
being in a new manner sensible of the reality of eternal things, the
greatness of God, His excellency, and how dreadful it is to be separated
from Him, and to be subject to His wrath; so that they are sometimes
swallowed up with darkness and amazement. Satan has a vast advantage in
such cases to ply them with various temptations, which he is not wont to
neglect: in such a
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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, et non intres injudicium, etc.; 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 Ninevites: "Let
us do penance to see if peradventure He will pity us." And thus mercy is so
far from authorising 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 pr
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and 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. Eamus.96 Processit
(John).[97]
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.
Jesus tears Himself away from His disciples to enter into His agony; 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,
that He may deliver us from them.
If God gave us masters by His own hand, oh! how necessary for us
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children lived long with their parents. They conversed long with them. But
what else could be the subject of their talk save the history of their
ancestors, since to that all history was reduced, and men did not study
science or art, which now form a large part of daily conversation? We see
also that in these days tribes took particular care to preserve their
genealogies.
627. I believe that Joshua was the first of God's people to have this name,
as Jesus Christ was the last of God's people.
628. Antiquity of the Jews.--What a difference there is between one book and
another! I am not astonished that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor the
Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.
We have only to see how this originates. These fabulous historians are not
contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer composes a
romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as such; for
nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than did the golden
apple. Accordingly, he did not think of making a history, but solely a book
to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the beauty of the work has made
it last, every one learns it and talks of it, it is necessary to know it,
and each one knows it by heart. Four hundred years afterwards the witnesses
of these facts are no longer alive, no one knows of his own knowledge if it
be a fable or a history; one has only learnt it f
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others had looked upon her to excel in dutifulness. On Saturday, she was
so earnestly engaged in reading the Bible and other books, that she
continued in it, searching for something to relieve her, till her eyes
were so dim that she could not know the letters. While she was thus
engaged in reading, prayer, and other religious exercises, she thought
of those words of Christ, wherein He warns us not to be as the heathen,
that think they shall be heard for their much speaking; which, she said,
led her to see that she had trusted to her own prayers and religious
performances, and now she was put to a nonplus, and knew not which way
to turn herself, or where to seek relief.
While her mind was in this posture, her heart, she said, seemed to fly,
to the minister for refuge, hoping that he could give her some relief.
She came the same day to her brother, with the countenance of a person
in distress, expostulating with him, why he had not told her more of her
sinfulness, and earnestly inquiring of him what she should do. She
seemed that day to feel in herself an enmity against the Bible, which
greatly affrighted her. Her sense of her own exceeding sinfulness
continued increasing from Thursday till Monday and she gave this account
of it: That it had been her opinion, till now, she was not gui
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such great circumspection that there were hardly any who were worthy; and it
is not allowed to complain of the custom which makes so many who are
unworthy!
886. Heretics.--Ezekiel. All the heathen, and also the Prophet, spoke evil
of Israel. But the Israelites were so far from having the right to say to
him, "You speak like the heathen," that he is most forcible upon this, that
the heathen say the same as he.
887. The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of morality;
but you are like them in evil.
888. You are ignorant of the prophecies, if you do not know that all this
must happen; princes, prophets, Pope, and even the priests. And yet the
Church is to abide. By the grace of God we have not come to that. Woe to
these priests! But we hope that God will bestow His mercy upon us that we
shall not be of them.
Saint Peter, Epistle ii: false prophets in the past, the image of future
ones.
889.... So that if it is true, on the one hand, that some lax monks and some
corrupt casuists, who are not members of the hierarchy, are steeped in these
corruptions, it i
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for relaxation, and that when it is necessary and the time suitable, and not
otherwise. For he that relaxes out of season wearies, and he who wearies us
out of season makes us languid, since we turn quite away. So much does our
perverse lust like to do the contrary of what those wish to obtain from us
without giving us pleasure, the coin for which we will do whatever is
wanted.
25. Eloquence.--It requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must
itself be drawn from the true.
26. Eloquence is a painting of thought; and thus those who, after having
painted it, add something more, make a picture instead of a portrait.
27. Miscellaneous. Language.--Those who make antitheses by forcing words are
like those who make false windows for symmetry. Their rule is not to speak
accurately, but to make apt figures of speech.
28. Symmetry is what we see at a glance; based on the fact that there is no
reason for any difference, and based also on the face of man; whence it
happens that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.
29. When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we
expected to see an author, and we find a man. Whereas those who have good
taste, and who, seeing a book, expect to find a man, are quite surprised to
find an author. Plus poetice quam humane locutus es.2 Those honour Nature
well who teach that she can speak on everything, even on theology.
30. We only consult the ear because the heart is wanting. The rule is
uprightness.
Beauty of omission, of judgement.
31. All the false beauties which we blame in Cicero have their admirers, and
in great number.
32. There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which
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and refuse of the universe!
Who will unravel this tangle? Nature confutes the sceptics, and reason
confutes the dogmatists. What, then, will you become, O men! who try to find
out by your natural reason what is your true condition? You cannot avoid one
of these sects, nor adhere to one of them.
Know then, proud man, what a paradox you are to yourself. Humble yourself,
weak reason; be silent, foolish nature; learn that man infinitely transcends
man, and learn from your Master your true condition, of which you are
ignorant. Hear God.
For in fact, if man had never been corrupt, he would enjoy in his innocence
both truth and happiness with assurance; and if man had always been corrupt,
he would have no idea of truth or bliss. But, wretched as we are, and more
so than if there were no greatness in our condition, we have an idea of
happiness and can not reach it. We perceive an image of truth and possess
only a lie. Incapable of absolute ignorance and of certain knowledge, we
have thus been manifestly in a degree of perfection from which we have
unhappily fallen.
It is, however, an astonishing thing that the mystery furthest removed from
our knowledge, namely, that of the transmission of sin, should be a fact
without which we can have no knowledge of ourselves. For it is beyond doubt
that there is nothing which more shocks our reason than to say that the sin
of the first man has rendered guilty those who, being so removed from this
source, seem incapable of participation in it. This transmission does not
only seem to us impossible, it seems also very unjust. For what is more
contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an
infant incapable of will, for a sin wherein he
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some people who lie for the mere sake of lying.
109. When we are well we wonder what we would do if we were ill, but when we
are ill we take medicine cheerfully; the illness persuades us to do so. We
have no longer the passions and desires for amusements and promenades which
health gave to us, but which are incompatible with the necessities of
illness. Nature gives us, then, passions and desires suitable to our present
state. We are only troubled by the fears which we, and not nature, give
ourselves, for they add to the state in which we are the passions of the
state in which we are not.
As nature makes us always unhappy in every state, our desires picture to us
a happy state; because they add to the state in which we are the pleasures
of the state in which we are not. And if we attained to these pleasures, we
should not be happy after all; because we should have other desires natural
to this new state.
We must particularise this general proposition....
110. The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the
ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
111. Inconstancy.--We think we are playing on ordinary organs when playing
upon man. Men are organs, it is true, but, odd, changeable, variable with
pipes not arranged in proper order. Those who only know how to play on
ordinary organs will not produce barmonies on these. We must know where are.
112. Inconstancy.--Things have different qualities, and the soul different
inclinations; for nothing is simple which is presented to the soul, and the
soul never presents itself simply to any object. Hence it comes that we weep
and laugh at the same thing.
113. Inconstancy and oddity.--To live o
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office, or for some imaginary insult to his honour, is the very one who
knows without anxiety and without emotion that he will lose all by death. It
is a monstrous thing to see in the same heart and at the same time this
sensibility to trifles and this strange insensibility to the greatest
objects. It is an incomprehensible enchantment, and a supernatural slumber,
which indicates as its cause an all-powerful force.
There must be a strange confusion in the nature of man, that he should boast
of being in that state in which it seems incredible that a single individual
should be. However, experience has shown me so great a number of such
persons that the fact would be surprising, if we did not know that the
greater part of those who trouble themselves about the matter are
disingenuous and not, in fact, what they say. They are people who have heard
it said that it is the fashion to be thus daring. It is what they call
"shaking off the yoke," and they try to imitate this. But it w
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only from the sight of our vileness. But if you are quite sincere over it,
follow it as far as I have done and recognise that we are indeed so vile
that we are incapable in ourselves of knowing if His mercy cannot make us
capable of Him. For I would know how this animal, who knows himself to be so
weak, has the right to measure the mercy of God and set limits to it,
suggested by his own fancy. He has so little knowledge of what God is that
he does not know what he himself is, and, completely disturbed at the sight
of his own state, dares to say that God cannot make him capable of communion
with Him.
But I would ask him if God demands anything else from him than the knowledge
and love of Him, and why, since his nature is capable of love and knowledge,
he believes that God cannot make Himself known and loved by him. Doubtless
he knows at least that he exists, and that he loves something. Therefore, if
he sees anything in the darkness wherein he is, and if he finds some object
of his love among the things on earth, why, if God impart to him some ray of
His essence, will he not be capable of knowing and of loving Him in the
manner in which it shall please Him to communicate Himself to us? There
must, then, be certainly an intolerable presumption in arguments of this
sort, although they seem founded on an apparent humility, which is neither
sincere nor reasonable, if it does not make us admit that, not knowing of
ourselves what we are, we can only learn it from
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comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much
dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and
lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at
their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a
lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The
subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer
the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can
inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty
and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but
feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and
almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that
they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of
their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers;
they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their
hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great King of kings, is as
much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty is greater. Luke 12:4,5.
"And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the
body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn
you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath
power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him."
It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read
of the fury of God; as in Isa. 59:18. "According to their deeds,
accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries." So Isa. 66:15. "For
behold, the Lord will co
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thoughts. He was kept awake at nights, meditating terror, so that he had
scarce any sleep at all for a long time together; and it was observed at
last, that he was scarcely well capable of managing his ordinary
business, and was judged delirious by the coroner's inquest. The news of
this extraordinarily affected the minds of people here, and struck them
as it were with astonishment. After this, multitudes in this and other
towns seemed to have it strongly suggested to them, and pressed upon
them, to do as this person had done. And many who seemed to be under no
melancholy, some pious persons who had no special darkness or doubts
about the goodness of their state-nor were under any special trouble or
concern of mind about any thing spiritual or temporal-had it urged upon
them as if somebody had spoke to them, Cut your throat, now is a good
opportunity. Now! now! So that they were obliged to fight with all their
might to resist it, and yet no reason suggested to them why they should
do it.
About the same time, there were two remarkable instances of persons led
away with strange enthusiastic delusions; one at Suffield, and another
at South Hadley. That which has made the greatest noise in the country
was the conduct of the man at South Hadley, whose delusion was, that he
thought himself divinely instructed to direct a poor man in melancholy
and despairing circumstances, to say certain words in prayer to God, as
recorded in Psalm cxvi. 4, for his own relief. The man is esteemed a
pious man. I have seen this error of his, had a particular acquaintance
with him, and I believe none would question his piety who had such
acquaintance. He gave me a particular account of the manner how he was
deluded, which is too long to be here inserted; but, in short, he
exceedingly rejoiced, and was elevated with the extraordinary work
carried on in this part of the country; and was possessed wit
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meditation, the ordinances of God's house, and private conference; their
cry was, What shall we do to be saved? The place of resort was now
altered, it was no longer the tavern, but the minister's house that was
thronged far more than ever the tavern had been wont to be.
There is a very great variety, as to the degree of fear and trouble that
persons are exercised with, before they attain any comfortable evidences
of pardon and acceptance with God. Some are from the beginning carried
on with abundantly more encouragement and hope than others. Some have
had ten times less trouble of mind than others, in whom yet the issue
seems to be the same. Some have had such a sense of the displeasure of
God, and the great danger they were in of damnation, that they could not
sleep at nights; and many have said that when they have laid down, the
thoughts of sleeping in such a condition have been frightful to them;
they have scarcely been free from terror while asleep, and they have
awakened with fear, heaviness, and distress still abiding on their
spirits. It has been very common, that the deep and fixed concern on
persons minds, has had a painful influence on their bodies, and given
disturbance to animal nature. The awful apprehensions persons have had
of their misery, ha
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God for them. I shall not show Him to others. I shall make them see that a
Messiah has been promised, who should deliver them from their enemies, and
that One has come to free them from their iniquities, but not from their
enemies.
When David foretold that the Messiah would deliver His people from their
enemies, one can believe that in the flesh these would be the Egyptians; and
then I cannot show that the prophecy was fulfilled. But one can well believe
also that the enemies would be their sins; for indeed the Egyptians were not
their enemies, but their sins were so. This word enemies is, therefore,
ambiguous. But if he says elsewhere, as he does, that He will deliver His
people from their sins, as indeed do Isaiah and others, the ambiguity is
removed, and the double meaning of enemies is reduced to the simple meaning
of iniquities. For if he had sins in his mind, he could well denote them as
enemies; but if he thought of enemies, he could not designate them a
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upon the most different foundation.
Man never had so good a cause as I; and others have never furnished so good
a capture as you...
The more they point out weakness in my person, the more they authorise my
cause.
You say that I am a heretic. Is that lawful? And if you do not fear that men
do justice, do you not fear that God does justice?
You will feel the force of the truth, and you will yield to it...
There is something supernatural in such a blindness. Digna necessitas.231
Mentiris impudentissime.232
Doctrina sua noscetur vir...[233]
False piety, a double sin.
I am alone against thirty thousand. No. Protect you, the court; protect,
you, deception; let me protect the truth. It is all my strength. If I lose
it, I am undone. I shall not lack accusations, and persecutions. But I
possess the truth, and we shall see who will take it away.
I do not need to defend religion, but you do not need to defend error and
injustice. Let God, out of His compassion, having no regard to the evil
which is in me, and having regard to the good which i
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this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a
season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had
died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as
it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary
manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not
forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.
Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from
the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging
over a great part of this congregation. Let every one fly out of Sodom:
"Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the
mountain, lest you be consumed."
==========================================================================
Pensees
* PENSÉES
o SECTION I: THOUGHTS ON MIND AND ON STYLE
o SECTION II: THE MISERY OF MAN WITHOUT GOD
o SECTION III: OF THE NECESSITY OF THE WAGER
o SECTION IV: OF THE MEANS OF BELIEF
o SECTION V: JUSTICE AND THE REASON OF EFFECTS
o SECTION VI: THE PHILOSOPHERS
o SECTION VII: MORALITY AND DOCTRINE
o SECTION VIII: THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION
o SECTION IX: PERPETUITY
o SECTION X: TYPOLOGY
o SECTION XI: THE PROPHECIES
o SECTION XII: PROOFS OF JESUS CHRIST
o SECTION XIII: THE MIRACLES
o SECTION XIV: APPENDIX: POLEMICAL FRAGMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PENSÉES
by Blaise Pascal
1660
translated
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the blind; to heal the sick, and leave the healthy to die; to call to
repentance, and to justify sinners, and to leave the righteous in their
sins; to fill the needy, and leave the rich empty.
772. Holiness.--Effundam spiritum meum.[155] All nations were in unbelief
and lust. The whole world now became fervent with love. Princes abandoned
their pomp; maidens suffered martyrdom. Whence came this influence? The
Messiah was come. These were the effect and sign of His coming.
773. Destruction of the Jews and heathen by Jesus Christ: Omnes gentes
venient et adorabunt eum.156 Parum est ut,157 etc. Postula a me.158
Adorabunt eum omnes reges.159 Testes iniqui.160 Dabit maxillam
percutienti.161 Dederunt fel in escam.162
774. Jesus Christ for all, Moses for a nation.
The Jews blessed in Abraham: "I will bless those that bless thee." But: "All
nations blessed in his seed." Parum est ut,163 etc.
Lumen ad revelationem gentium.164
Non fecit taliter omni nationi, said David, in speaking of the Law. But, in
speaking of Jesus Christ, we must say: Fecit taliter omni nationi.165 Parum
est ut, etc., Isaiah. So it belongs to Jesus Christ to be universal. Even
the Church offers sacrifice only for the faithful. Jesus Christ offered that
of the cross for all.
775. There is heresy in always explaining omnes by all, and heresy is not
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composed of externals and internals. It raises the common people to the
internal, and humbles the proud to the external; it is not perfect without
the two, for the people must understand the spirit of the letter, and the
learned must submit their spirit to the letter.
252. For we must not misunderstand ourselves; we are as much automatic as
intellectual; and hence it comes that the instrument by which conviction is
attained is not demonstrated alone. How few things are demonstrated! Proofs
only convince the mind. Custom is the source of our strongest and most
believed proofs. It bends the automaton, which persuades the mind without
its thinking about the matter. Who has demonstrated that there will be a
to-morrow and that we shall die? And what is more believed? It is, then,
custom which persuades us of it; it is custom that makes so many men
Christians; custom that makes them Turks, heathens, artisans, soldiers, etc.
(Faith in baptism is more received among Christians than among Turks.)
Finally, we must have re
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speaking of Jesus Christ, we must say: Fecit taliter omni nationi.165 Parum
est ut, etc., Isaiah. So it belongs to Jesus Christ to be universal. Even
the Church offers sacrifice only for the faithful. Jesus Christ offered that
of the cross for all.
775. There is heresy in always explaining omnes by all, and heresy is not
explaining it sometimes by all. Bibite ex hoc omnes;166 The Huguenots are
heretics in explaining it by all. In quo omnes peccaverunt,167 the Huguenots
are heretics in excepting the children of true believers. We must, then,
follow the Fathers and tradition in order to know when to do so, since there
is heresy to be feared on both sides.
776. Ne timeas pusillus grex.168 Timore et tremore.169--Quid ergo? Ne timeas
modo timeas. Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear.
Qui me recipit, non me recipit, sed eum qui me misit.170
Nemo scit, neque Filius.171
Nubes lucida obumbravit.172
Saint John was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and Jesus
Christ to plant division. There is not contradiction.
777. The effe
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seeking?
575. All things work together for good to the elect, even the obscurities of
Scripture; for they honour 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 fulfilment; 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. Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sebond.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled with 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 not noted that of Jesus Christ, it might not have been
sufficiently plain. But, after
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Mahomet slew; Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain.
Mahomet forbade reading; the Apostles ordered reading.
In fact, the two are so opposed that, if Mahomet took the way to succeed
from a worldly point of view, Jesus Christ, from the same point of view,
took the way to perish. And instead of concluding that, since Mahomet
succeeded, Jesus Christ might well have succeeded, we ought to say that,
since Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ should have failed.
600. Any man can do what Mahomet has done; for he performed no miracles, he
was not foretold. No man can do what Christ has done.
601. The heathen religion has no foundation at the present day. It is said
once to have had a foundation by the oracles which spoke. But what are the
books which assure us of this? Are they so worthy of belief on account of
the virtue of their authors? Have they been preserved with such care that we
can be sure that they have not been meddled with?
The Mahometan religion has for a foundation the Koran and Mahomet. But has
this prophet, who was to be the last hope of the world, been foretold? What
sign has he that every other man has not who chooses to call himself a
prophet? What miracles does he himself say that he has done? What mysteries
has he taught, even according to his own tradition? What was the morality,
what the happiness held out by him?
The Jewish religion must be differently regarded in the tradition of the
Holy Bible and in the tradition of the pe
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She once of her own accord spake of her unsuccessfulness, in that she
could not find God, or to that purpose. But on Thursday, the last day of
July, about the middle of the day, the child being in the closet, where
it used to retire, its mother heard it speaking aloud; which was
unusual, and never had been observed before. And her voice seemed to be
as of one exceedingly importunate and engaged; but her mother could
distinctly hear only these words, spoken in a childish manner, but with
extraordinary earnestness, and out of distress of soul, pray, blessed
Lord, give me salvation! I pray, beg, pardon all my sins! When the child
had done prayer, she came out of the closet, sat down by her mother, and
cried out aloud. Her mother very earnestly asked her several times what
the matter was, before she would make any answer; but she continued
crying, and writhing her body to and fro, like one in anguish of spirit.
Her mother then asked her, whether she was afraid that God would not
give her salvation. She then answered, Yes, 1 am afraid I shall go to
hell! Her mother then endeavored to quiet her, and told her she would
not have her cry, she must be a good girl, and pray every day, and she
hoped God would give her salvation. But this did not quiet her at all;
she continued thus earnestly crying, and taking on for some time, till
at length she suddenly ceased crying, and began to smile, and presently
said with a smiling countenance, Mother, the kingdom of heaven is come
to me! Her mother was surprised at the sudden alteration, and at the
speech; and knew not what to make of it; but at first said nothing to
her. The child presently spake again, and said, There is another come to
me, and there is another, there is three; and being asked what she
meant, she answered, One is, Thy will be done, and there is another,
Enjoy Him for ever; by which it seems, that when the child said, There
is three come to me; she mea
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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 its 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
render
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extraordinary on account of the universality of it, affecting all sorts,
sober and vicious, high and low, rich and poor, wise and unwise. I
reached the most considerable families and persons, to all appearance,
as much as others. In former stirrings of this nature, the bulk of the
young people have been greatly affected; but old men and little children
have been so now. Many of the last have, of their own accord, formed
themselves into religious societies in different parts of the town. A
loose careless person could scarcely be found in the whole neighborhood;
and if there was any one that seemed to remain senseless or unconcerned,
it would be spoken of as a strange thing.
This dispensation has also appeared very extraordinary in the numbers of
those on whom we have reason to hope it has had a saving effect. We have
about six hundred and twenty communicants, which include almost all our
adult persons. The church was very large before; but persons never
thronged into it as they did in the late extraordinary time.-Our
sacraments are eight weeks asunder, and I received into our communion
about a hundred before one sacrament, fourscore of them at one time,
whose appearance, when they presented themselves together to make an
open explicit profession of Christianity, was very affecting to the
congregation. I took in near sixty before the next sacrament day: and I
have very sufficient evidence of the conversion of their souls, through
divine grace, though it is not the custom here, as it is in many other
churches in this country, to make a credible relation of their inward
experiences the ground of admission to the Lord's supper.
I am far from pretending to be able to determine how many have lately
been the subjects of such mercy; but if I may be allowed to declare any
thing that appears to me probable in a thing of thin nature, I hope that
more than 300 souls were savingly brought home to Christ, in this town,
in the space of half a year, and about the same num
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defendere.51
Ut omnium rerum sic litterarum quoque intemperantia laboramus.52
Id maxime quemque decet, quod est cujusque suum maxime.53
Hos natura modos primum dedit.54
Paucis opus est litteris ad bonam mentem.55
Si quando turpe non sit, tamen non est non turpe quum id a multitudine
laudetur.56
Mihi sic usus est, tibi ut opus est facto, fac.57
364. Rarum est enim ut satis se quisque vereatur.58
Tot circa unum caput tumultuantes deos.59
Nihil turpius quam cognitioni assertionem praecurrere.60
Nec me pudet, ut istos, fateri nescire quid nesciam.61
Melius non incipient.62
365. Thought.--All the dignity of man consists in thought. Thought is,
therefore, by its nature a wonderful and incomparable thing. It must have
strange defects to be contemptible. But it has such, so that nothing is more
ridiculous. How great it is in its nature! How vile it is in its defects!
But what is this thought? How foolish it is!
366. The mind of this sovereign judge of the world is not so independent
that it is not liable to be disturbed by the first din about it. The noise
of a cannon is not necessary to hinder its thoughts; it needs only the
creaking of a weathercock or pulley. Do not wonder if at present it does not
reason well; a fly is buzzing in
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need no worldly or intellectual greatness, with which they have no affinity;
for these neither add anything to them, nor take away anything from them.
They are seen of God and the angels, and not of the body, nor of the curious
mind. God is enough for them.
Archimedes, apart from his rank, would have the same veneration. He fought
no battles for the eyes to feast upon; but he has given his discoveries to
all men. Oh! how brilliant he was to the mind!
Jesus Christ, without riches and without any external exhibition of
knowledge, is in His own order of holiness. He did not invent; He did not
reign. But He was humble, patient, holy, holy to God, terrible to devils,
without any sin. Oh! in what great pomp and in what wonderful splendour He
is come to the eyes of the heart, which perceive wisdom!
It would have been useless for Archimedes to have acted the prince in his
books on geometry, although he was a prince.
It would have been useless for our Lord Jesus Christ to come like a king, in
order to shine forth in His kingdom of holiness. But He came there
appropriately in the glory of His own order.
It is most absurd to take offence at the lowliness of Jesus Christ, as if
His lowliness were in the same order as the greatness which He came to
manifest. If we consider this greatness in His life, in His passion, in His
obscurity, in His death, in the choice of His disciples, in their desertion,
in His secret resurrection, and the rest, we shall see it to be so immense
that we shall have no reason for being offended at a lowliness which is not
of that order.
But there are some who can only admire worl
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Divinity from the works of nature. I should not be astonished at their
enterprise, if they were addressing their argument to the faithful; for it
is certain that those who have the living faith in their hearts see at once
that all existence is none other than the work of the God whom they adore.
But for those in whom this light is extinguished, and in whom we purpose to
rekindle it, persons destitute of faith and grace, who, seeking with all
their light whatever they see in nature that can bring them to this
knowledge, find only obscurity and darkness; to tell them that they have
only to look at the smallest things which surround them, and they will see
God openly, to give them, as a complete proof of this great and important
matter, the course of the moon and planets, and to claim to have concluded
the proof with such an argument, is to give them ground for believing that
the proofs of our religion are very weak. And I see by reason and experience
that nothing is more calculated to arouse their contempt.
It is not after this manner that Scripture speaks, which has a better
knowledge of the things that are of God. It says, on the contrary, that God
is a hidden God, and that, since the corruption of nature, He has left men
in a darkness from which they can escape only through Jesus Christ, without
whom all communion with God is cut off. Nemo novit Patrem, nisi Filius, et
cui voluerit Filius revelare.30
This is what Scripture points out to us, when it says in so many places that
those who seek God find Him. It is not of that light, "like the noonday
sun," that this is said. W
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which we pass. But if we are to remain a little while there, we are so
concerned. How long is necessary? A time commensurate with our vain and
paltry life.
150. Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's
servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even
philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it want to have the
glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of
having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those
who will read it...
151. Glory.--Admiration spoils all from infancy. Ah! How well said! Ah! How
well done! How well-behaved he is! etc.
The children of Port-Royal, who do not receive this stimulus of envy and
glory, fall into carelessness.
152. Pride.--Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish to know but
to talk. Otherwise we would not take a sea voyage in order never to talk of
it, and for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever communicating
it.
153. Of the desire of being esteemed by those with whom we are.--Pride takes
such natural possession of us in the midst of our woes, errors, etc. We even
lose our life with joy, provided people talk of it.
Vanity: play, hunting, visiting, false shame, a lasting name.
154. I have no friends to your advantage.
155. A true friend is
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before God. Let them then leave these impieties to those who are
sufficiently ill-bred to be really capable of them. Let them at least be
honest men, if they cannot be Christians. Finally, let them recognise that
there are two kinds of people one can call reasonable; those who serve God
with all their heart because they know Him, and those who seek Him with all
their heart because they do not know Him.
But as for those who live without knowing Him and without seeking Him, they
judge themselves so little worthy of their own care, that they are not
worthy of the care of others; and it needs all the charity of the religion
which they despise, not to despise them even to the point of leaving them to
their folly. But because this religion obliges us always to regard them, so
long as they are in this life, as capable of the grace which can enlighten
them, and to believe that they may, in a little time, be more replenished
with faith than we are, and that, on the other h
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heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you
can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can
defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know
nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice,
but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails
are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to
wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will
you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which
interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and
two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your
happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your
reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you
must of necessity choose. T
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perfectly evident that the soul is material.
222. Atheists.--What reason have they for saying that we cannot rise from
the dead? What is more difficult, to be born or to rise again; that what has
never been should be, or that what has been should be again? Is it more
difficult to come into existence than to return to it? Habit makes the one
appear easy to us; want of habit makes the other impossible. A popular way
of thinking!
Why cannot a virgin bear a child? Does a hen not lay eggs without a cock?
What distinguishes these outwardly from others? And who has told us that the
hen may not form the germ as well as the cock?
223. What have they to say against the resurrection, and against the
child-bearing of the Virgin? Which is the more difficult, to produce a man
or an animal, or to reproduce it? And if they had never seen any species of
animals, could they have conjectured whether they were produced without
connection with each other?
224. How I hate these follies of not believing in the Eucharist, etc.! If
the Gospel be true, if Jesus Christ be God, what difficulty is there?
225. Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
226. Infidels, who profess to follow reason, ought to be exceedingly strong
in reason. What say they then? "Do we not see," say they, "that the brutes
live and die like men, and Turks like Christians? They have their
ceremonies, their prophets, their doctors, their saints, their monks, like
us," etc. (Is this contrary to Scripture? Does it not say all this?)
If you care but little to know the truth, here is enough of it to leave you
in repose. But if you desire with all your heart to know it, it is not
enough; look at it in detail. This would be sufficient for a question in
philosophy; but not here, where it concerns your all. And yet, after a
trifl
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69Ps. 49:12, 13. "He is like the beasts that perish; this their way is their
folly."
70Eccles. 3:18. "I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of
men."
[71]1 Cor. 1:25 "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness
of God is stronger than men."
[72]Ovid, Metamorphoses, iii. "No one is happy before death."
[73]1 John 2:16.
74Cor. 1:31. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord."
75John 14:6. "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
761 Cor. 6:17. "But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit."
77Gen. 4:7. "Unto thee shall be his desire."
78Office for Holy Saturday. "Which won for us a Saviour."
79Office for Good Friday. "Which won for us God's hallowed members to
embrace."
80Hymn Vexilla regis. "Worthy God's hallowed members to embrace."
81Luke 7:6 "I am not worthy."
821 Cor. 11:29. "Who eateth unworthily."
83Rev. 4:11. "Thou art worthy to receive."
84Office of the Holy Virgin. "Make me worthy."
[85]Matthew, 7:7, "Ask and it shall be given you."
86Is. 45:15.
[87]John 8:30-33. "Many believed on him. Then Jesus said: 'If ye continue...
then ye are my disciples indeed, and the truth shall make you free.' They
answered him: 'We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man.'"
88Rev. 22:11. "He that is righte
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anything divine approaching to this.
734.... That Jesus Christ would be small in His beginning, and would then
increase. The little stone of Daniel.
If I had in no wise heard of the Messiah, nevertheless, after such wonderful
predictions of the course of the world which I see fulfilled, I see that He
is divine. And, if I knew that these same books foretold a Messiah, I should
be sure that He would come; and seeing that they place His time before the
destruction of the second temple, I should say that He had come.
735. Prophecies.--That the Jews would reject Jesus Christ, and would be
rejected of God, for this reason, that the chosen vine brought forth only
wild grapes. That the chosen people would be fruitless, ungrateful, and
unbelieving, populum non credentem et contradicentem.141 That God would
strike them with blindness, and in full noon they would grope like the
blind; and that a forerunner would go before Him.
736. Transfixerunt.[142] Zech. 12:10.
That a deliverer should come, who would crush the demon's head, and free His
people from their sins, ex omnibus iniquitatibus;[143] that there should be
a New Covenant, which would be eternal; that there should be another
priesthood after the order of Melchisedek, and it should be eternal; that
the Christ should be glorious, mighty, strong, and yet so poor that He would
not be recognised, nor taken for what He is, but rejected and slain; that
His people who denied Him should no longer be His people; that the idolaters
should receive Him, and take refuge in Him; that He should leave Zion to
reign in the centre of idolatry; that nevertheless the Jews should continue
for ever; that He should be of Judah, and when there should be no longer a
king.
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832. Miracles are no longer necessary, because we have had them already. But
when tradition is no longer minded; when the Pope alone is offered to us;
when he has been imposed upon; and when the true source of truth, which is
tradition, is thus excluded; and the Pope, who is its guardian, is biased;
the truth is no longer free to appear. Then, as men speak no longer of
truth, truth itself must speak to men. This is what happened in the time of
Arius. (Miracles under Diocletian and under Arius.)
833. Miracle.--The people concluded this of themselves; but if the reason of
it must be given to you...
It is unfortunate to be in exception to the rule. The same must be strict,
and opposed to exception. But yet, as it is certain that there are
exceptions to a rule, our judgment must though strict, be just.
834. John 6:26: Non quia vidisti signum, sed quia saturati estis.188
Those who follow Jesus Christ because of His miracles honour His power in
all the miracles which it produces. But those who, making profession to
follow Him because of His miracles, follow H
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the fancy that he will be happy to win what he would not have as a gift on
condition of not playing; and he must make for himself an object of passion,
and excite over it his desire, his anger, his fear, to obtain his imagined
end, as children are frightened at the face they have blackened.
Whence comes it that this man, who lost his only son a few months ago, or
who this morning was in such trouble through being distressed by lawsuits
and quarrels, now no longer thinks of them? Do not wonder; he is quite taken
up in looking out for the boar which his dogs have been hunting so hotly for
the last six hours. He requires nothing more. However full of sadness a man
may be, he is happy for the time, if you can prevail upon him to enter into
some amusement; and however happy a man may be, he will soon be discontented
and wretched, if he be not diverted and occupied by some passion or pursuit
which prevents weariness from overcoming him. Without amusement there is no
joy; with amusement there is no sadness. And this a
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there would have been obscurity, even for the good. For their goodness of
heart would not have made them understand, for instance, that the closed mem
signifies six hundred years. But that time has been clearly foretold, and
the manner in types.
By this means, the wicked, taking the promised blessings for material
blessings, have fallen into error, in spite of the clear prediction of the
time; and the good have not fallen in error. For the understanding of the
promised blessings depends on the heart, which calls good that which it
loves; but the understanding of the promised time does not depend on the
heart. And thus the clear prediction of the time, and the obscure prediction
of the blessings, deceive the wicked alone.
759. Either the Jews or the Christians must be wicked.
760. The Jews reject Him, but not all. The saints receive Him, and not the
carnal-minded. And so far is this from being against His glory, that it is
the last touch which crowns it. For their argument, the only one found in
all their writings, in the Talmud and in the Rabbinical writings, amounts
only to this, that Jesus Christ has not subdued the nations with sword in
hand, gladium tuum, potentissime.[153] (Is this all they have to say? Jesus
Christ has been slain, say they. He has failed. He has not subdued the
heathen with His might. He has not bestowed upon us their spoil. He does not
give riches. Is this all they have to say? It is in this respect that He is
lovable to me. I would not desire Him whom they fancy.) It is evident that
it is only His life which has prevented them from accepting Him; and through
this rejection they are irreproachable witnesses, and, what is more, they
thereby accomplish the
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righteous in rejecting them and all that they do, and in casting them
off for ever. There is however a vast variety as to the manner and
distinctness of such convictions.
As they are gradually more and more convinced of the corruption and
wickedness of their hearts, they seem to themselves to grow worse and
worse, harder and blinder, and more desperately wicked, instead of
growing better. They are ready to be discouraged by it, and oftentimes
never think themselves so far off from good as when they are nearest.
Under the sense which the Spirit of God gives them of their sinfulness,
they often think that they differ from all others; their hearts are
ready to sink with the thought that they are the worst of all, and that
none ever obtained mercy who were so wicked as they.
When awakenings first begin, their consciences are commonly most
exercised about their outward vicious course, or other acts of sin; but
afterwards are much more burdened with a sense of heart-sins, the
dreadful corruption of their nature, their enmity against God, the pride
of their hearts, their unbelief, their rejection of Christ, the
stubbornness and obstinacy of their wills; and the like. In many, God
makes much use of their own experience, in the course of their
awakenings and en
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time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more
wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more
mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds
the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go
forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it
would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and
wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come
upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand
times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the
strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing
to withstand or endure it.
The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string,
and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it
is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God,
without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one
moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never
passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit
of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new
creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and
before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an
angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and
may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in
your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but
his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in
everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth
of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those
that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it
w
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to us, even when we are not thinking of them. 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.
Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us
and within us.
466. Had Epictetus 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. Jesus Christ alone leads to
it: Via, veritas.75 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 from this 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 who 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 th
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estimate of wisdom.
331. We can only think of Plato and Aristotle in grand academic robes. They
were honest men, like others, laughing with their friends, and, when they
diverted themselves with writing their Laws and the Politics, they did it as
an amusement. That part of their life was the least philosophic and the
least serious; the most philosophic was to live simply and quietly. If they
wrote on politics, it was as if laying down rules for a lunatic asylum; and
if they presented the appearance of speaking of a great matter, it was
because they knew that the madmen, to whom they spoke, thought they were
kings and emperors. They entered into their principles in order to make
their madness as little harmful as possible.
332. Tyranny consists in the desire of universal power beyond its scope.
There are different assemblies of the strong, the fair, the sensible, the
pious, in which each man rules at home, not elsewhere. And sometimes they
meet, and the strong and the
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it has occurred to him to prevent himself from thinking of death.
170. Diversion.--If man were happy, he would be the more so, the less he was
diverted, like the Saints and God. Yes; but is it not to be happy to have a
faculty of being amused by diversion? No; for that comes from elsewhere and
from without, and thus is dependent, and therefore subject to be disturbed
by a thousand accidents, which bring inevitable griefs.
171. Misery.--The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is
diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this
which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes
us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of
weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of
escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to
death.
172. We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as
too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the
past, to stop its too rapid flight. So imprudent are we that we wander in
the times which are not ours and do not think of the only one which belongs
to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more and
thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally
painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and, if
it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it
by the future and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for
a time which we have no certainty of reaching.
Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with
the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we
think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The
present is never our end. The past and the present a
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our psalmody, in some measure, in the beauty of holiness. It has been
observable, that there has been scarce any part of divine worship,
wherein good men amongst us have had grace so drawn forth, and their
hearts so lifted up in the ways of God, as in singing His praises. Our
congregation excelled all that ever I knew in the external part of the
duty before, the men generally carrying regularly, and well, three parts
of music, and the women a part by themselves; but now they were
evidently wont to sing with unusual elevation of heart and voice, which
made the duty pleasant indeed.
In all companies, on other days, on whatever occasions persons met
together, Christ was to be heard of, and seen in the midst of them. Our
young people, when they met, were wont to spend the time in talking of
the excellency and dying love of Jesus Christ, the glory of the way of
salvation, the wonderful, free, and sovereign grace of God, His glorious
work in the conversion of a soul, the truth and certainty of the great
things of God's word, the sweetness of the views of His perfections,
etc. And even at weddings, which formerly were mere occasions of mirth
and jollity, there was now no discourse of any thing but religion, and
no appearance of any but spiritual mirth. Those amongst us who had been
formerly converted, were greatly enlivened, and renewed with fresh and
extraordinary incomes of the Spirit of God; though some much more than
others, according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Many who before
had labored under difficulties about their own state, had now their
doubts removed by more satisfying experience, and
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of attention.
244. "Why! Do you not say yourself that the heavens and birds prove God?"
No. "And does your religion not say so"? No. For although it is true in a
sense for some souls to whom God gives this light, yet it is false with
respect to the majority of men.
245. There are three sources of belief: reason, custom, inspiration. The
Christian religion, which alone has reason, does not acknowledge as her true
children those who believe without inspiration. It is not that she excludes
reason and custom. On the contrary, the mind must be opened to proofs, must
be confirmed by custom and offer itself in humbleness to inspirations, which
alone can produce a true and saving effect. Ne evacuetur crux Christi.32
246. Order.--After the letter That we ought to seek God, to write the letter
On removing obstacles, which is the discourse on "the machine," on preparing
the machine, on seeking by reason.
247. Order.--A letter of exhortation to a friend to induce him to seek. And
he will reply, "But what is the use of seeking? Nothing is seen." Then to
reply to him, "Do not despair." And he will answer that he would be glad to
find some light, but that, according to this very religion, if he believed
in it, it will be of no use to him, and that therefore he prefers not to
seek. And to answer to that: The machine.
248. A letter which indicates the use of proofs by the machine.--Faith is
different from proof; the one is human, the other is a gift of God. Justus
ex fide vivit.33 It is this faith that God Himself puts into the heart, of
which the proof is often the instrument, fides ex auditu;34 but this faith
is in the heart, and make
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perish, and their understanding shall be hid."
Prophecies. Proofs of Divinity.--Is. 41: "Shew the things that are to come
hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: we will incline our heart unto
your words. Teach us the things that have been at the beginning, and declare
us things for to come.
"By this we shall know that ye are gods. Yea, do good or do evil, if you
can. Let us then behold it and reason together. Behold, ye are of nothing,
and only an abomination, etc. Who," (among contemporary writers), "hath
declared from the beginning that we may know of the things done from the
beginning and origin? that we may say, You are righteous. There is none that
teacheth us, yea, there is none that declareth the future."
Is. 42: "I am the Lord, and my glory will I not give to another. I have
foretold the things which have come to pass, and things that are to come do
I declare. Sing unto God a new song in all the earth.
"Bring forth the blind people that have eyes and see not, and the deaf that
have ears and hear not. Let all the nations be gathered together. Who among
them can declare this, and shew us former things, and things to come? Let
them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified; or let them
hear, and say, It is truth.
"Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen;
that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am He.
"I have declared, and have saved, and I alone have done wonders before your
eyes: ye are my witnesses, said the Lord, that I am God.
"For your sake I have brought down the forces of the Babylonians. I am the
Lord, your Holy One and Creator.
"I have made a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters. I am He that
drowned and destroyed for ever the mighty enemies that have resisted you.
"Remember
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him, and so conversed with a considerable number whom my grandfather
thought to be savingly converted at that time; and having been
particularly acquainted with the experiences of many who were converted
under his ministry before. And I know no one of them, who in the least
doubts of its being the same Spirit and the same work. Persons have now
no otherwise been subject to impressions on their imaginations than
formerly: the work is of the same nature, and has not been attended with
any extraordinary circumstances, excepting such as are analogous to the
extraordinary degree of it before described. And God's people who were
formerly converted have now partaken of the same shower of divine
blessing-in the renewing, strengthening, edifying, influences of the
Spirit of God-that others have in His converting influences; and the
work here has also been plainly the same with that of other places which
have been mentioned, as partaking of the same blessing. I have
particularly conversed with persons about their experiences, who belong
to all parts of the country, and in various parts of Connecticut, where
a religious concern has lately appeared; and have been informed of the
experiences of many others by their own pastors.
It is easily perceived by the foregoing account, that it is very much
the practice of the people here, to converse fr
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openly against God and against Jesus Christ. Who is not hidden... God would
not allow him, who would be a secret enemy, to do miracles openly.
In a public dispute where the two parties profess to be for God, for Jesus
Christ, for the Church, miracles have never been on the side of the false
Christians, and the other side has never been without a miracle.
"He hath a devil." John 10:21. And others said, "Can a devil open the eyes
of the blind?"
The proofs which Jesus Christ and the apostles draw from Scripture are not
conclusive; for they say only that Moses foretold that a prophet should
come. But they do not thereby prove that this is He; and that is the whole
question. These passages, therefore, serve only to show that they are not
contrary to Scripture and that there appears no inconsistency, but not that
there is agreement. Now this is enough, namely, exclusion of inconsistency,
along with miracles.
There is a mutual duty between God and men. We must pardon Him this saying:
Quid debui?207 "Accuse me, " said God in Isaiah.
"God must fulfil His promises," etc.
Men owe it to God to accept the religion which He sends. God owes it to men
not to lead them into error. Now, they would be led into error, if the
workers of miracles announced a doctrine which should not appear evidently
false to the light of common sense, and if a greater worker of miracles had
not already wamed
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deceived; still fewer study it than geometry. It is only from the want of
knowing how to study this that we seek the other studies. But is it not that
even here is not the knowledge which man should have and that for the
purpose of happiness it is better for him not to know himself.?
145. One thought alone occupies us; we cannot think of two things at the
same time. This is lucky for us according to the world, not according to
God.
146. Man is obviously made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole
merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. Now, the order of thought
is to begin with self, and with its Author and its end.
Now, of what does the world think? Never of this, but of dancing, playing
the lute, singing, making verses, running at the ring, etc., fighting,
making oneself king, without thinking what it is to be a king and what to be
a man.
147. We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in
our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others,
and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn
and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real. And if we
possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it
known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would
rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would
willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A
great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the
one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would
be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.
148. We are so presumptuous that we would wish to be known by all the world,
even by p
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862. The Church has always been attacked by opposite errors, but perhaps
never at the same time, as now. And if she suffer more because of the
multiplicity of errors, she derives this advantage from it, that they
destroy each other.
She complains of both, but far more of the Calvinists, because of the
schism.
It is certain that many of the two opposite sects are deceived. They must be
disillusioned.
Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. There is a
time to laugh, and time to weep, etc. Responde. Ne respondeas,215 etc.
The source of this is the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ; and also
the two worlds (the creation of a new heaven and a new earth; a new life and
a new death; all things double, and the same names remaining); and finally
the two natures that are in the righteous (for they are the two worlds, and
a member and image of Jesus Christ. And thus all the names suit them:
righteous, yet sinners; dead, yet living; living, yet dead; elect, yet
outcast, etc.).
There are then a great number of truths, both of faith and of morality,
which seem contradictory and which all hold good together in a wonderful
system. The source of all heresies is the exclusion of some of these truths;
and the source of all the objections which the heretics make against us is
the ignorance of some of our truths. And it generally happens that, unable
to conceive the connection of two opposite truths, and believing that the
admission of one involves the exclusion of the other, they adhere to the
one, exclude the other, and think of us as opposed to them. Now exclusion is
the cause of their heresy; and ignorance that we hold the other truth causes
their objections.
1st example: Je
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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 honour 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 fulfilment; 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. Saint Augustine, Montaigne, Sebond.
The genealogy of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament is intermingled with so
many others that
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To deny, to believe, and to doubt well, are to a man what the race is to a
horse.
Punishment of those who sin, error.
261. Those who do not love the truth take as a pretext that it is disputed,
and that a multitude deny it. And so their error arises only from this, that
they do not love either truth or charity. Thus they are without excuse.
262. Superstition and lust. Scruples, evil desires. Evil fear; fear, not
such as comes from a belief in God, but such as comes from a doubt whether
He exists or not. True fear comes from faith; false fear comes from doubt.
True fear is joined to hope, because it is born of faith, and because men
hope in the God in whom they believe. False fear is joined to despair,
because men fear the God in whom they have no belief. The former fear to
lose Him; the latter fear to find Him.
263. "A miracle," says one, "would strengthen my faith." He says so when he
does not see one. Reasons, seen from afar, appear to limit our view; but
when they are reached, we begin to see beyond. Nothing stops the nimbleness
of our mind. There is no rule, say we, which has not some exceptions, no
truth so general which has not some aspect in which it fails. It is
sufficient that it be not absolutely universal to give us a pretext for
applying the
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He is to be the victim for the sins of the world. Is. 39:53. etc.
He is to be the precious corner-stone. Is. 28:16.
He is to be a stone of stumbling and offence. Is. viii. Jerusalem is to dash
against this stone.
The builders are to reject this stone. Ps. 117:22.
God is to make this stone the chief corner-stone.
And this stone is to grow into a huge mountain and fill the whole earth.
Dan. 2.
So He is to be rejected, despised, betrayed (Ps. 108:8), sold (Zech. 11:12),
spit upon, buffeted, mocked, afflicted in innumerable ways, given gall to
drink (Ps. 68), pierced (Zech. 12), His feet and His hands pierced, slain,
and lots cast for His raiment.
He will rise again (Ps. 15) the third day (Hosea 6:3).
He will ascend to heaven to sit on the right hand. Ps. 110.
The kings will arm themselves against Him. Ps. 2.
Being on the right hand of the Father, He will be victorious over His
enemies.
The kings of the earth and all nations will worship Him. Is. lx.
The Jews will continue as a nation. Jeremiah.
They will wander, without kings, etc. (Hosea 3), without prophets (Amos),
looking for salvation and finding it not (Isaiah).
Calling of the Gentiles by Jesus Christ. Is. 52:15; 55:5; 60, etc. Ps. 81.
Hosea 1:9: "Ye are not my people, and I will not be your God, when ye are
multiplied after the dispersion. In the places where it was said, Ye are not
my people, I will call them my people."
728. It was not lawful to sacrifice
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105Ps. 9:14. "Have mercy."
106Is. 5:7. "He has looked for."
107Ezek. 20:25. Praecepta non bona. "Statutes that were not good."
[108]"I will establish my covenant between me and Thee for an everlasting
covenant, to be a God unto Thee."
109Gen. 17:9. "Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore."
[110]Gen. 49:18. "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord."
[111]Essays, 1. 22.
112Num. 11:29. Quis tribuat ut omnis populus prophetet. "Would God that all
the Lord's people were prophets."
[113]De cultu feminarum, i-3. "He could equally have renewed it, under the
Spirit's inspiration, after it had been destroyed by the violence of the
deluge, as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of
it, every document of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been
restored through Ezra."
[114]Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, V. viii. 14. "God was glorified, and
the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine, for they all rendered the
same things in the same words and the same names, from beginning to end, so
that even the heathen who were present knew that the Scriptures had been
translated by the inspiration of God. And it is no marvel that God did this,
for when the Scriptures had been destroyed in the captivity of the people in
the days of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Jews had gone back to their country
after seventy years, then in the times of Artaxerxes, the king of the
Persians, he inspired Ezra, the pri
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Can a woman forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son
of her womb? but if she forget, yet will not I forget thee, O Sion. I will
bear thee always between my hands, and thy walls are continually before me.
They that shall build thee are come, and thy destroyers shall go forth of
thee. Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold; all these gather
themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt
surely clothe thee with them all, as with an ornament. Thy waste and thy
desolate places, and the land of thy destruction shall even now be too
narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and the children thou shalt have after
thy barrenness shall say again in thy ears: The place is too strait for me:
give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou say in thy heart: Who
hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a
captive, and removing to and fro? and who brought up these? Behold, I was
left alone; these, where had they been? And
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we cannot endure being despised, or not being esteemed by any soul; and all
the happiness of men consists in this esteem.
401. Glory.--The brutes do not admire each other. A horse does not admire
his companion. Not that there is no rivalry between them in a race, but that
is of no consequence; for, when in the stable, the heaviest and most
ill-formed does not give up his oats to another, as men would have others do
to them. Their virtue is satisfied with itself.
402. The greatness of man even in his lust, to have known how to extract
from it a wonderful code, and to have drawn from it a picture of
benevolence.
403. Greatness.--The reasons of effects indicate the greatness of man, in
having extracted so fair an order from lust.
404. The greatest baseness of man is the pursuit of glory. But is the
greatest mark of his excellence; for whatever possessions he may have on
earth, whatever health and essential comfort, he is not satisfied if he has
not the esteem of men. He values human reason so highly that, whatever
advantages he may have on earth, he is not content if he is not also ranked
highly in the judgement of man. This is the finest position in the world.
Nothing can turn him from that desire, which is the most indelible quality
of man's heart.
And those who must despise
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speakers, when it is not a question of oratory, and that we say of them that
they are fine speakers, when it is such a question.
It is therefore false praise to give a man when we say of him, on his entry,
that he is a very clever poet; and it is a bad sign when a man is not asked
to give his judgement on some verses.
35. We should not be able to say of a man, "He is a mathematician," or "a
preacher," or "eloquent"; but that he is "a gentleman." That universal
quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you
remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and
have occasion to use it (Ne quid minis),[3] for fear some one quality
prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine speaker, unless
oratory be in question, and then let them think it.
36. Man is full of wants: he loves only those who can satisfy them all.
"This one is a good mathematician," one will say. But I have nothing to do
with mathematics; he would take me for a proposition. "That one is a good
soldier." He would take me for a besieged town. I need, then, an upright man
who can accommodate himself generally to all my wants.
37. Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of
everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better
to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This
universality is the best. If we can have both, still be
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Christ, and they loved me. Her mother asked her, whether to think of God
and Christ loving her made her cry? She answered, Yes, it does
sometimes.
She has often manifested a great concern for the good of others' souls:
and has been wont many times affectionately to counsel the other
children. Once, about the latter end of September, the last year, when
she and some others of the children were in a room by themselves,
husking Indian corn, the child, after a while, came out and sat by the
fire. Her mother took notice that she appeared with a more than ordinary
serious and pensive countenance; but at last she broke silence, and
said, I have been talking to Nabby and Eunice. Her mother asked her what
she had said to them. Why, said she, I told them they must pray, and
prepare to die; that they had but a little while to live in this world,
and they must be always ready. When Nabby came out, her mother asked
her, whether she had said that to them. Yes, said she, She said that,
and a great deal more. At other times, the child took opportunities to
talk to the other children about the great concern of their souls, so as
much to affect them. She was once exceeding importunate with her mother
to go with her sister Naomi to pray: her mother endeavored to put her
off; but she pulled her by the sleeve, and seemed as if she would by no
means be denied. At last her mother told her, that Amy must go and pray
by herself; but, says the child, she will not go; and persisted
earnestly to beg of her mother to go with her. She has discovered an
uncommon degree of a spirit of charity, particularly on the following
occasion. A poor man that lives in the woods, had lately lost a cow that
the family much depended on; and being at the house, he was relating his
misfortune, and telling
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places, the main subject of conversation for several months after. And
there were some turns, wherein God's work seemed to revive, and we were
ready to hope that all was going to be renewed again; yet, in the main,
there was a gradual decline of that general, engaged, lively spirit in
religion, which had been. Several things have happened since, which have
diverted people's minds, and turned their conversation more to other
affairs; particularly his Excellency the Governor's coming up, and the
Committee of general court, on the treaty with the Indians. -Afterwards,
the Springfield controversy; and since that, our people in this town
have been engaged in the building of a new meeting-house. Some other
occurrences might be mentioned, that have seemed to have this effect.
But as to those who have been thought converted at this time, they
generally seem to have had an abiding change wrought on them. I have had
particular acquaintance with many of them since; and they generally
appear to be persons who have a new sense of things, new appr
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745. Those who have a difficulty in believing seek a reason in the fact that
the Jews do not believe. "Were this so clear," say they, "why did the Jews
not believe"? And they almost wish that they had believed, so as not to be
kept back by the example of their refusal. But it is their very refusal that
is the foundation of our faith. We should be much less disposed to the
faith, if they were on our side. We should then have a more ample pretext.
The wonderful thing is to have made the Jews great lovers of the things
foretold, and great enemies of their fulfilment.
746. The Jews were accustomed to great and striking miracles, and so, having
had the great miracles of the Red Sea and of the land of Canaan as an
epitome of the great deeds of their Messiah, they therefore looked for more
striking miracles, of which those of Moses were only the patterns.
747. The carnal Jews and the heathen have their calamities, and Christians
also. There is no Redeemer for the heathen, for they do not so much as hope
for one. There is no Redeemer for the Jews; they hope for Him in vain. There
is a Redeemer only for Christians. (See Perpetuity.)
748. In the time of the Messiah the people divided themselves. The spiritual
embraced the Messiah, and the coarser-minded remained to serve as witnesses
of Him.
749. "If this was clearly foretold to the Jews, how did they not believe it,
or why were they not destroyed for resisting a fact so clear?"
I reply: in th
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sententiarum, 399.[11]
Is, then, the soul too noble a subject for their feeble lights? Let us,
then, abase her to matter and see if she knows whereof is made the very body
which she animates and those others which she contemplates and moves at her
will. What have those great dogmatists, who are ignorant of nothing, known
of this matter? 393.[12]
This would doubtless suffice, if Reason were reasonable. She is reasonable
enough to admit that she has been unable to find anything durable, but she
does not yet despair of reaching it; she is as ardent as ever in this
search, and is confident she has within her the necessary powers for this
conquest. We must therefore conclude, and, after having examined her powers
in their effects, observe them in themselves, and see if she has a nature
and a grasp capable of laying hold of the truth.
74. A letter On the Foolishness of Human Knowledge and Philosophy.
This letter before Diversion.
Felix qui potuit... Nihil admirari.
280 kinds of sovereign good in Montaigne.
75. Part I, 1, 2, c. 1, section 4.[13]
Probability.--It will not be difficult to put the case a stage lower, and
make it appear ridiculous. To begin at the very beginning. What is more
absurd than to say that lifeless bodies have passions, fears, hatreds--that
insensible bodies, lifeless and incapable of life, have passions which
presuppose at least a sensitive soul to feel them, nay more, that the object
of their dread is the void? What is there in the void that could make them
afraid? Nothing is more shallow and ridiculous. This is not all; it is said
that they have in themselves a source of movement to shun the void. Have
they arms, legs, muscles, nerves?
76. To write against those who made too profound a study of science:
Descartes.
77. I ca
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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: Signa legem in electis meis,101 and that Jesus
Christ shall be a stone of stumbling. But, "Blessed are they who shall not
be offended in him." Hosea 14:9, 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 impostors. The time clearly, the
manner obscurely. Five typical proofs. 1600 prophets.
400 scattered.
-----
2000
573. Blindness of Scripture.--"The Scripture," said the Jews, "says that we
shall not know whence Christ will come (John 7:27, and 12:34)--The Scripture
says that Christ abideth for ever, and He said that He should die."
Therefore, says Saint 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
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our ultimate end.
Thus our first interest and our first duty is to enlighten ourselves on this
subject, whereon depends all our conduct. Therefore among those who do not
believe, I make a vast difference between those who strive with all their
power to inform themselves and those who live without troubling or thinking
about it.
I can have only compassion for those who sincerely bewail their doubt, who
regard it as the greatest of misfortunes, and who, sparing no effort to
escape it, make of this inquiry their principal and most serious occupation.
But as for those who pass their life without thinking of this ultimate end
of life, and who, for this sole reason that they do not find within
themselves the lights which convince them of it, neglect to seek them
elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is one of those
which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of those which,
although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable
foundation, I look upon them in a manner quite different.
This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their eternity,
their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes and shocks me; it
is to me monstrous. I do not say this out of the pious zeal of a spiritual
devotion. I expect, on the contrary, that we ought to have this feeling from
principles of human interest and self-love; for this we need only see what
the least enlightened persons see.
We do not require great education of the mind to understand that here is no
real and lasting satisfaction; that our pl
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world, and no root in nature.
631. Sincerity of the Jews.--They preserve lovingly and carefully the book
in which Moses declares that they have been all their life ungrateful to
God, and that he knows they will be still more so after his death; but that
he calls heaven and earth to witness against them and that he has taught
them enough.
He declares that God, being angry with them, shall at last scatter them
among all the nations of the earth; that as they have offended Him by
worshipping gods who were not their God, so He will provoke them by calling
a people who are not His people; that He desires that all His words be
preserved for ever, and that His book be placed in the Ark of the Covenant
to serve for ever as a witness against them.
Isaiah says the same thing, 30.
632. On Esdras.--The story that the books were burnt with the temple proved
false by Maccabees: "Jeremiah gave them the law."
The story that he recited the whole by heart. Josephus and Esdras point out
that he read the book. Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici a Christo Nato ad
Annum 1198, 180: Nullus penitus Hebraeorum antiquorum reperitur qui
tradiderit libros periisse et per Esdram esse restitutos, nisi in IV Esdrae.
The story that he changed the letters.
Philo, in Vita Mosis: Illa lingua ac character quo antiquitus scripta est
lex sic permansit usque ad LXX.
Josephus says that the Law was in Hebrew when it was translated by the
Seventy.
Under Antiochus and Vespasian, when they wanted to abolish the books, and
when there was no prophet, they could not do so. And under the Babylonians,
when no persecution had been made, and when there were so many proph
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more against it, and feel more of its strength.
They are somewhat surprised that they should in this respect find
themselves so different from the idea they generally had entertained of
godly persons. For, though grace be indeed of a far more excellent
nature than they imagined, yet those who are godly have much less of it,
and much more remaining corruption, than they thought. They never
realized it, that persons were wont to meet with such difficulties,
after they were once converted. When they are thus exercised with doubts
about their state, through the deadness of their frames, as long as
these frames last, they are commonly unable to satisfy themselves of the
truth of their grace, by all their self-examination. When they hear of
the signs of grace laid down for them to try themselves by, they are
often so clouded, that they do not know how to apply them. They hardly
know whether they have such and such things or no, and whether they have
experienced them or not. That which was the sweetest, best, and most
distinguishing in their experiences, they cannot recover a sense of. But
on a return of the influences of the Spirit of God, to revive the lively
actings of grace, the light breaks through the cloud, and doubting and
darkness soon vanish away.
Per
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383. The licentious tell men of orderly lives that they stray from nature's
path, while they themselves follow it; as people in a ship think those move
who are on the shore. On all sides the language is similar. We must have a
fixed point in order to judge. The harbour decides for those who are in a
ship; but where shall we find a harbour in morality?
384. Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain
are contradicted; several things which are false pass without contradiction.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign
of truth.
385. Scepticism.--Each thing here is partly true and partly false. Essential
truth is not so; it is altogether pure and altogether true. This mixture
dishonours and annihilates it. Nothing is purely true, and thus nothing is
true, meaning by that pure truth. You will say it is true that homicide is
wrong. Yes; for we know well the wrong and the false. But what will you say
is good? Chastity? I say no; for the world would come to an end. Marriage?
No; continence is better. Not to kill? No; for lawlessness would be
horrible, and the wicked would kill all the good. To kill? No; for that
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engagedness of their hearts in this great concern could not be hid, it
appeared in their very countenances. It then was a dreadful thing
amongst us to lie out of Christ, in danger every day of dropping into
hell; and what persons' minds were intent upon, was to escape for their
lives, and to fly from wrath to come. All would eagerly lay hold of
opportunities for their souls, and were wont very often to meet together
in private houses, for religious purposes: and such meetings when
appointed were greatly thronged.
There was scarcely a single person in the town, old or young, left
unconcerned about the great things of the eternal world. Those who were
wont to be the vainest and loosest, and those who had been disposed to
think and speak lightly of vital and experimental religion, were now
generally subject to great awakenings. And the work of conversion was
carried on in a most astonishing manner, and increased more and more;
souls did as it were come by flocks to Jesus Christ. From day to day for
many months together, might be seen evident instances of sinners brought
out of darkness into marvellous light, and delivered out of an horrible
pit, and from the miry clay, and set upon a rock, with a new song of
praise to God in their mouths.
This work of God, as it was carried on, and the number of true saints
multiplied, soon made a glorious alteration in the town: so that in the
spring and summer following, anno 1735, the town seemed to be full of
the presence of God: it never was so full of love, nor of joy, and yet
so full of distress, as it was then. There were remarkable tokens of
God's presence in almost every house. It was a time of joy in families
on account of salvation being brought to them; parents rejoicing over
their children as new born, and husbands over thei
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through lack of this knowledge, we have coined fantastic terms, "The golden
age," "The wonder of our times," "Fatal," etc., and call this jargon
poetical beauty.
But whoever imagines a woman after this model, which consists in saying
little things in big words, will see a pretty girl adorned with mirrors and
chains, at whom he will smile; because we know better wherein consists the
charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who are ignorant would
admire her in this dress, and there are many villages in which she would be
taken for the queen; hence we call sonnets made after this model "Village
Queens."
34. No one passes in the world as skilled in verse unless he has put up the
sign of a poet, a mathematician, etc. But educated people do not want a sign
and draw little distinction between the trade of a poet and that of an
embroiderer.
People of education are not called poets or mathematicians, etc.; but they
are all these and judges of all these. No one guesses what they are. When
they come into society, they talk on matters about which the rest are
talking. We do not observe in them one quality rather than another, save
when they have to make use of it. But then we remember it, for it is
characteristic of such persons that we do not say of them that they are fine
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of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you
are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and
incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You
hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about
it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you
have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save
yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own,
nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God
to spare you one moment. -- And consider here more particularly,
Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only
the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it would be
comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much
dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and
lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at
their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a
lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The
subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer
the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can
inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty
and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but
feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and
almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that
they can do, when most enraged, and when they h
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are wrought strange miracles.
Which is the most clear?
Tu quid dicis? Dico quia propheta est. Nisi esset hic a Deo, non poterat
facere quidquam.[190]
835. In the Old Testament, when they will turn you from God. In the New,
when they will turn you from Jesus Christ. These are the occasions for
excluding particular miracles from belief. No others need be excluded.
Does it, therefore, follow that they would have the right to exclude all the
prophets who came to them? No; they would have sinned in not excluding those
who denied God, and would have sinned in excluding those who did not deny
God.
So soon, then, as we see a miracle, we must either assent to it or have
striking proofs to the contrary. We must see if it denies a God, or Jesus
Christ, or the Church.
836. There is a great difference between not being for Jesus Christ and
saying so, and not being for Jesus Christ and pretending to be so. The one
party can do miracles, not the others. For it is clear of the one party that
they are opposed to the truth, but not of the others; and thus miracles are
clearer.
837. That we must love one God only is a th
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Conversation.--Scepticism helps religion.
392. Against Scepticism.--... It is, then, a strange fact that we cannot
define these things without obscuring them, while we speak of them with all
assurance. We assume that all conceive of them in the same way; but we
assume it quite gratuitously, for we have no proof of it. I see, in truth,
that the same words are applied on the same occasions, and that every time
two men see a body change its place, they both express their view of this
same fact by the same word, both saying that it has moved; and from this
conformity of application we derive a strong conviction of a conformity of
ideas. But this is not absolutely or finally convincing though there is
enough to support a bet on the affirmative, since we know that we often draw
the same conclusions from different premises.
This is enough, at least, to obscure the matter; not that it completely
extinguishes the natural light which assures us of these things. The
academicians would have won. But this dulls it and troubles the dogmatists
to the glory of the
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as if we had only eight hours to live.
204. If we ought to devote eight hours of life, we ought to devote a hundred
years.
205. When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the
eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see,
engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and
which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather
than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now
rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have
this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei
praetereuntis.[27]
206. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
207. How many kingdoms know us not!
208. Why is my knowledge limited? Why my stature? Why my life to one hundred
years rather than to a thousand? What reason has nature had for giving me
such, and for choosing this number rather than another in the infinity of
those from which there is no more reason to choose one than another, trying
nothing else?
209. Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou
art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee.
210. The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at
the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for
ever.
211. We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as
we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alo
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the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go
forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it
would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and
wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come
upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand
times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the
strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing
to withstand or endure it.
The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string,
and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it
is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God,
without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one
moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never
passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit
of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new
creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and
before a
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262. Superstition and lust. Scruples, evil desires. Evil fear; fear, not
such as comes from a belief in God, but such as comes from a doubt whether
He exists or not. True fear comes from faith; false fear comes from doubt.
True fear is joined to hope, because it is born of faith, and because men
hope in the God in whom they believe. False fear is joined to despair,
because men fear the God in whom they have no belief. The former fear to
lose Him; the latter fear to find Him.
263. "A miracle," says one, "would strengthen my faith." He says so when he
does not see one. Reasons, seen from afar, appear to limit our view; but
when they are reached, we begin to see beyond. Nothing stops the nimbleness
of our mind. There is no rule, say we, which has not some exceptions, no
truth so general which has not some aspect in which it fails. It is
sufficient that it be not absolutely universal to give us a pretext for
applying the exceptions to the present subject and for saying, "This is not
always true; there are therefore cases where it is not so." It only remains
to show that this is one of them; and that is why we are very awkward or
unlucky, if we do not find one some day.
264. We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger and
sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them. So, without the
hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them. Hunger after righteo
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when they come to entertain great hopes that they are converted, if they
remember what they experienced in the first exercises of grace, they are
at a loss whether it was any more than a common illumination; or whether
some other more clear and remarkable experience which they had
afterwards, was not the first of a saving nature. The manner of God's
work on the soul, sometimes especially, is very mysterious; and it is
with the kingdom of God as to its manifestation in the heart of a
convert, as is said, Mark iv. 26, 27,28, "So is the kingdom of God, as
if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise
night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not
how; for the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself, first the blade,
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."
In some, converting light is like a glorious brightness suddenly shining
upon a person, and all around him: they are in a remarkable manner
brought out of darkness into marvelous light. In many others it has been
like the dawning of the day, when at first but a little light appears,
and it may be presently hid with a cloud; and then it appears again, and
shines a little brighter, and gradually increases, with intervening
darkness, till at length it breaks forth more clearly from behind the
clouds. And many are, doubtless, ready to date their conversion wrong,
throwing by those lesser degrees of light that appeared at first
dawning, and calling some more remarkable experience they had
afterwards, their conversion. This often, in a great measure, arises
from a wrong understanding of what they have always been taught, that
conversion is a great change, wherein old things are done away, and all
things become new, or at least from a false inference from that
doctrine.
Persons commonly at first conversion, and afterwards, have had many
texts of Scripture brought to their minds, which are exceeding suita
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the heathen say the same as he.
887. The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of morality;
but you are like them in evil.
888. You are ignorant of the prophecies, if you do not know that all this
must happen; princes, prophets, Pope, and even the priests. And yet the
Church is to abide. By the grace of God we have not come to that. Woe to
these priests! But we hope that God will bestow His mercy upon us that we
shall not be of them.
Saint Peter, Epistle ii: false prophets in the past, the image of future
ones.
889.... So that if it is true, on the one hand, that some lax monks and some
corrupt casuists, who are not members of the hierarchy, are steeped in these
corruptions, it is, on the other hand, certain that the true pastors of the
Church, who are the true guardians of the Divine Word, have preserved it
unchangeably against the efforts of those who have attempted to destroy it.
And thus true believers have no pretext to follow that laxity, which is only
offered to them by the strange hands of these casuists, instead of the sound
doctrine which is presented to them by the fatherly hands of their own
pastors. And the ungodly and heretics have no ground for publishing these
abuses as evidence of imperfection in the providence of God over His Church;
since, the Church consisting properly in the body of the hierarchy, we are
so far from being able to conclude from the present state of matters that
God has abandoned her to corruption, that it has never been more apparent
than at the present time that God visibly protects her from corruption.
For if some of these men, who, by an extraordinary vocation, have made
profession of withdrawing from the world and adopting the monks' dress, in
order to live in a more perfect state t
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those that she feared were such, she would be overcome by the sight of
them. She once said, that she longed to have the whole world saved; she
wanted, as it were, to pull them all to her, she could not bear to have
one lost.
She had great longings to die, that she might be with Christ: which
increased until she thought she did not know how to be patient to wait
till God's time. But once, when she felt those longings, she thought
with herself, If I long to die, why do I go to physicians? Whence she
concluded that her longings for death were not well regulated. After
this she often put it to herself, which she should choose, whether to
live or to die, to be sick or to be well; and she found she could not
tell, till at last she found herself disposed to say these words: I am
quite willing to live, and quite willing to die; quite willing to be
sick, and quite willing to be well; and quite willing for any thing that
God will bring upon me! And then, said she, I felt myself perfectly
easy, in a full submission to the will of God. She then lamented much,
that she had been so eager in her longings for death, as it argued want
of such a resignation to God as ought to be. She seemed henceforward to
continue in this resigned frame till death.
After this, her illness increased upon her: and once after she had
before spent the greater part of the night in extreme pain, she waked
out of a little sleep with these words in her heart and mouth; "I am
willing
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reflect on himself quite at leisure, without any gratification of the
senses, without any care in his mind, without society; and we will see that
a king without diversion is a man full of wretchedness. So this is carefully
avoided, and near the persons of kings there never fail to be a great number
of people who see to it that amusement follows business, and who watch all
the time of their leisure to supply them with delights and games, so that
there is no blank in it. In fact, kings are surrounded with persons who are
wonderfully attentive in taking care that the king be not alone and in a
state to think of himself, knowing well that he will be miserable, king
though he be, if he meditate on self.
In all this I am not talking of Christian kings as Christians, but only as
kings.
143. Diversion.--Men are entrusted from infancy with the care of their
honour, their property, their friends, and even with the property and the
honour of their friends. They are overwhelmed with business, with the study
of languages, and with physical exercise; and they are made to understand
that they cannot be happy unless their health, their honour, their fortune
and that of their friends be in good condition, and that a single thing
wanting will make them unhappy. Thus they are given cares and business which
make them bustle about from break of day. It is, you will exclaim, a strange
way
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elsewhere, and to examine thoroughly whether this opinion is one of those
which people receive with credulous simplicity, or one of those which,
although obscure in themselves, have nevertheless a solid and immovable
foundation, I look upon them in a manner quite different.
This carelessness in a matter which concerns themselves, their eternity,
their all, moves me more to anger than pity; it astonishes and shocks me; it
is to me monstrous. I do not say this out of the pious zeal of a spiritual
devotion. I expect, on the contrary, that we ought to have this feeling from
principles of human interest and self-love; for this we need only see what
the least enlightened persons see.
We do not require great education of the mind to understand that here is no
real and lasting satisfaction; that our pleasures are only vanity; that our
evils are infinite; and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every
moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful
necessity of being for ever either annihilated or unhappy.
There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible. Be we as heroic
as we like, that is the end which awaits the world. Let us reflect on this
and then say whether it is not beyond doubt that there is no good in this
life but in the hope of another; that we are happy only in proportion as we
draw near it; and that, as there are no more woes for those who have
complete assurance of eternity, so there is no more happiness for those who
have no insight into it.
Surely then it is a great evil thus to be in doubt, but it is at least an
indispensable duty to seek when
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passages of Scripture, and exciting them in the memory. Indeed in some,
God seems to bring texts of Scripture to their minds no otherwise than
by leading them into such frames and meditations as harmonize with those
Scriptures; but in many persons there seems to be something more than
this.
Those who, while under legal convictions, have had the greatest terrors,
have not always obtained the greatest light and comfort; nor have they
always light most suddenly communicated; but yet, I think, the time of
conversion has generally been most sensible in such persons. Oftentimes,
the first sensible change after the extremity of terrors, is a calmness,
and then the light gradually comes in; small glimpses at first, after
their midnight darkness, and a word or two of comfort, as it were softly
spoken to them. They have a little taste of the sweetness of divine
grace, and the love of a Savior, when terror and distress of conscience
begin to be turned into an humble, meek sense of their own unworthiness
before God. There is felt, inwardly, sometimes a disposition to praise
God; and after a little while the light comes in more clearly and
powerfully. But yet, I think, more frequently, great terrors have been
followed with more sudden and great light and comfort; when the sinner
seems to be as it were subdued and brought to a calm, from a kind of
tumult of mind, then God lets in an extraordinary sense of His great
mercy through a Redeemer.
Converting influences very commonly bring an extraordinary conviction of
the reality and certainty of the great things of religion; though in
some this is much greater some time after conversion, than at first.
They have that sight and taste of the divine excellency there is in the
gospel, which is more effectual to convince them than reading many
volumes of arguments without it. It seems to me, that in many instances,
when the glory of Christian truths has b
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counsels, but even to my reproofs, from the pulpit.
A great part of the country have not received the most favorable
thoughts of this affair; and to this day many retain a jealousy
concerning it, and prejudice against it. I have reason to think that the
meanness and weakness of the instrument, that has been made use of in
this town, has prejudiced many against it; nor does it appear to me
strange that it should be so. But yet the circumstances of this great
work of God is analogous to other circumstances of it. God has so
ordered the manner of the work in many respects, as very signally and
remarkably to show it to be His own peculiar and immediate work; and to
secure the glory of it wholly to His almighty power, and sovereign
grace. And whatever the circumstances and means have been, and though we
are so unworthy, yet so hath it pleased God to work! And we are
evidently a people blessed of the Lord! For here, in this corner of the
world, God dwells, and manifests His glory.
Thus, Reverend Sir, 1 have given a large and particular account of this
remarkable affair; and yet, considering how manifold God's works have
been amongst us, it is but a very brief one. I should have sent it much
sooner, had I not been greatly hindered by illness in my family, and
also in my own person. It is probably much larger than you expected,
and, it may be, than you would have chosen. I thought that the
extraordinary nature of the thing, and the innumerable
misrepresentations which have gone abroad of it, many of which,
doubtless, have reached your ears, made it necessary that I should be
particular. But I would leave it entirely with your wisdom to make what
use of it you think best, to send a part of it to England, or all, or
none, if you think it not worthy; or otherwise to dispose of it as you
may think most for God's glory, and the interest of religion. If you are
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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.92
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...
Quo quisque optimus est, pessimus, si hoc ipsum, quod optimus est, adscribat
sibi.93
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 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.
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when they truly hate themselves!
677. A type conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain.
A cipher has a double meaning, one clear and one in which it is said that
the meaning is hidden.
678. Types.--A portrait conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain. The
reality excludes absence and pain.
To know if the law and the sacrifices are a reality or a type, we must see
if the prophets, in speaking of these things, confined their view and their
thought to them, so that they saw only the old covenant; or if they saw
therein something else of which they were the representation, for in a
portrait we see the thing figured. For this we need only examine what they
say of them.
When they say that it will be eternal, do they mean to speak of that
covenant which they say will be changed; and so of the sacrifices, etc.?
A cipher has two meanings. When we find out an important letter in which we
discover a clear meaning, and in which it is nevertheless said that the
meaning is veiled and obscure, that it is hidden, so that we might read the
letter without seeing it, and interpret it without understanding it, what
must we think but that here is a cipher with a double meaning, and the more
so if we find obvious contradictions in the literal meaning? The prophets
have clearly said that Israel would be always loved by God and that the law
would be eternal; and they have said that their meaning would not be
understood and that it was veiled.
How greatly, then, ought we to value those who interpret the cipher and
teach us to unde
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strong, having only their own force. What does he say, then, that we must
believe him?
596. The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world.
Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ desires His own
testimony to be as nothing.
The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and everywhere;
and he, miserable creature, is alone.
597. Against Mahomet.--The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is
of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even its
very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it.
The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man. Therefore Mahomet was a
false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing with what
they have said of Jesus Christ.
598. It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be
interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by what
is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous. And since
what is clear is ridiculous, it is not right to take his obscurities for
mysteries.
It is not the same with the Scripture. I agree that there are in it
obscurities as strange as those of Mahomet; but there are admirably clear
passages, and the prophecies are manifestly fulfilled. The cases are,
therefore, not on a par. We must not confound and put on one level things
which only resemble each other in their obscurity, and not in the clearness,
which requires us to reverence the obscurities.
599. The difference between
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mediator. Whereas those who have known God by a mediator know their own
wretchedness.
544. 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.
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
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manner obscurely. Five typical proofs. 1600 prophets.
400 scattered.
-----
2000
573. Blindness of Scripture.--"The Scripture," said the Jews, "says that we
shall not know whence Christ will come (John 7:27, and 12:34)--The Scripture
says that Christ abideth for ever, and He said that He should die."
Therefore, says Saint 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 honour 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 fulfilment; 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. Saint Au
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eternity before and after, the little space which I fill and even can see,
engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant and
which know me not, I am frightened and am astonished at being here rather
than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now
rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have
this place and time been allotted to me? Memoria hospitis unius diei
praetereuntis.[27]
206. The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.
207. How many kingdoms know us not!
208. Why is my knowledge limited? Why my stature? Why my life to one hundred
years rather than to a thousand? What reason has nature had for giving me
such, and for choosing this number rather than another in the infinity of
those from which there is no more reason to choose one than another, trying
nothing else?
209. Art thou less a slave by being loved and favoured by thy master? Thou
art indeed well off, slave. Thy master favours thee; he will soon beat thee.
210. The last act is tragic, however happy all the rest of the play is; at
the last a little earth is thrown upon our head, and that is the end for
ever.
211. We are fools to depend upon the society of our fellow-men. Wretched as
we are, powerless as we are, they will not aid us; we shall die alone. We
should therefore act as if we were alone, and in that case should we build
fine houses, etc. We should seek the truth without hesitation; and, if we
refuse it, we show that we value the esteem of men more than the search for
truth.
212. Instability.--It is a horrible thing to feel all that we possess
slipping away.
213. Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is
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end. And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign
hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There are the black clouds of
God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful
storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of
God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure
of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come
with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you
would be like the chaff on the summer threshing floor.
The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present;
they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet
is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and
mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that
judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the
floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean
time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more
wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more
mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds
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as if each man knew certainly where reason and justice are. They find
themselves continually deceived, and, by a comical humility, think it is
their own fault and not that of the art which they claim always to possess.
But it is well there are so many such people in the world, who are not
sceptics for the glory of scepticism, in order to show that man is quite
capable of the most extravagant opinions, since he is capable of believing
that he is not in a state of natural and inevitable weakness, but, on the
contrary, of natural wisdom.
Nothing fortifies scepticism more than that there are some who are not
sceptics; if all were so, they would be wrong.
375. I have passed a great part of my life believing that there was justice,
and in this I was not mistaken; for there is justice according as God has
willed to reveal it to us. But I did not take it so, and this is where I
made a mistake; for I believed that our justice was essentially just, and
that I had that whereby to know and judge of it. But I have so often found
my right judgement at fault, that at last I have come to distrust myself and
then others. I have seen changes in all nations and men, and thus, after
many changes of judgement regarding true justice, I have recognised that our
nature was but in continual change, and I have not changed since; and if I
changed, I would confirm my opinion.
The sceptic Arcesilaus, who became a dogmatist.
376. This sect derives more strength from its enemies than from its friends;
for the weakness of man is far more evident in those who
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sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and
power of his indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to
behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it.
Isa. 33:12-14. "And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as
thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Hear ye that are far off,
what I have done; and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The
sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites,"
&c. Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you
continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the
omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of
your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy
angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this
state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth
and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and
fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will
fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. 66:23,24. "And it
shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one
sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the
Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men
that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all
flesh."
It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness
and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all
eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When
you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration
before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul;
and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end,
any mitigation, any rest at all. You