Re: Google Put to bed for good.
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543. Preface.--The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the
reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression; and
if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the moment
that they see such demonstration; but an hour afterwards they fear they have
been mistaken.
Quod curiositate cognoverunt superbia amiserunt.91
This is the result of the knowledge of God obtained without Jesus Christ; it
is communion without a mediator with the God whom they have known without a
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 t
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slater," says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, "They are perfect
fools." But others affirm, "There is nothing great but war; the rest of men
are good for nothing." We choose our callings according as we hear this or
that praised or despised in our childhood, for we naturally love truth and
hate folly. These words move us; the only error is in their application. So
great is the force of custom that, out of those whom nature has only made
men, are created all conditions of men. For some districts are full of
masons, others of soldiers, etc. Certainly nature is not so uniform. It is
custom then which does this, for it constrains nature. But sometimes nature
gains the ascendancy and preserves man's instinct, in spite of all custom,
good or bad.
98. Bias leading to error.--It is a deplorable thing to see all men
deliberating on means alone, and not on the end. Each thinks how he will
acquit himself in his condition; but as for the choice of condition, or of
country, chance gives them to us.
It is a pitiable
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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 is in you, grant us all
grace that truth may not be overcome in my hands, and that falsehood...
922. Probable.--Let us see if we seek God sincerely, by comparison of the
things which we love. It is probable that this food will not poison me. It
is probable that I shall not lose my action by not prosecuting it...
923. It is not absolution only which remits sins by the sacrament of
penance, but contrition, which is not real if it does not seek the
sacrament.
924. Peo
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55Seneca, Epistles, cvi. "Wisdom does not demand much teaching."
56Cicero, De finibus bonorum et malorum. "What is not shameful begins to
become so when it is approved by the multitude."
57Terence, Heauton Timorumenos, I. i. 21. "That is how I use it; you must do
as you wish."
58Quintillian, x. 7. "It is rare that one sufficiently respects one's self."
59Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae, i. 4. "So many gods are busy around a single
head."
60Cicero, Academica, i. 45. "Nothing is more shameful than to affirm before
knowing."
61Cicero, Disputationes Tusculanae, i. 25. "I have not shame, as they do, to
admit that I know not what I do not know."
62Seneca, Epistles, lxxii. "It is easier not to begin....
63Lam. 3:1. "I am the man that hath seen."
64"What you seek without knowing, religion will announce to you." Pascal
misquotes Acts 17:23. "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I
unto you."
65Prov. 8:31. "And my delights were with the sons of men."
66Joel 2:28. "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh."
67Ps. 82:6. "Ye are gods."
68Is. 40:6. "All flesh is grass."
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 Sa