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 we perceive within ourselves ineffaceable
marks of excellence? And is it not equally true that we experience every
hour the results of our deplorable condition? What does this chaos and
monstrous confusion proclaim to us but the truth of these two states,
with a voice so powerful that it is impossible to resist it?

436

_Weakness._--Every pursuit of men is to get wealth; and they cannot have
a title to show that they possess it justly, for they have only that of
human caprice; nor have they strength to hold it securely. It is the
same with knowledge, for disease takes it away. We are incapable both of
truth and goodness.

437

We desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty.

We seek happiness, and find only misery and death.

We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty
or happiness. This desire is left to us, partly to punish us, partly to
make us perceive wherefrom we are fallen.

438

If man is not made for God, why is he only happy in God? If man is made
for God, why is he so opposed to God?

439

_Nature corrupted._--Man does not act by reason, which constitutes his
being.

440

The corruption of reason is shown by the existence of so many different
and extravagant customs. It was necessary