become despondent at the sight of their present weakness? For, not
seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some
considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape
either pride or sloth, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but
either abandon themselves to it through cowardice, or escape it by pride.
For if they knew the excellence of man, they were ignorant of his
corruption; so that they easily avoided sloth, but fell into pride. And if
they recognized the infirmity of nature, they were ignorant of its dignity;
so that they could easily avoid vanity, but it was to fall into despair.
Thence arise the different schools of the Stoics and Epicureans, the
Dogmatists, Academicians, etc.

The Christian religion alone has been able to cure these two vices, not by
expelling the one through means of the other according to the wisdom of the
world, but by expelling both according to the simplicity of the Gospel. For
it teaches the righteous that it raises them even to a participation in
divinity itself; that in this lofty state they still carry the source of all
corruption, which renders them during all their life subject to error,
misery, death, and sin; and it proclaims to the most ungodly that they are
capable of the grace of their Redeemer. So making those tremble whom it
justifies, and consoling those whom it condemns, religion so justly tempers
fear with hope through that double capacity of grace and of sin, common to
all, that it humbles infinitely more than reason alone can do, but without
despair; and it exalts infinitely more than natural pride, but without
inflating; thus making it evident that alone being exempt from error and
vice, it alone fulfils the duty of instructing and correcting men.

Who, then, can refuse to believe and adore this heavenly light? For is it
not clearer than day that