elf to them.

487

Every religion is false, which as to its faith does not worship one God
as the origin of everything, and which as to its morality does not love
one only God as the object of everything.

488

... But it is impossible that God should ever be the end, if He is not
the beginning. We lift our eyes on high, but lean upon the sand; and the
earth will dissolve, and we shall fall whilst looking at the heavens.

489

If there is one sole source of everything, there is one sole end of
everything; everything through Him, everything for Him. The true
religion, then, must teach us to worship Him only, and to love Him only.
But as we find ourselves unable to worship what we know not, and to love
any other object but ourselves, the religion which instructs us in these
duties must instruct us also of this inability, and teach us also the
remedies for it. It teaches us that by one man all was lost, and the
bond broken between God and us, and that by one man the bond is renewed.

We are born so averse to this love of God, and it is so necessary that
we must be born guilty, or God would be unjust.

490

Men, not being accustomed to form merit, but only to recompense it where
they find it formed, judge of God by themselves.

491

The true religion must have as a characteristic the obligation to love
God. This is very just, and yet no other religion has commanded this;
ours has done so. It must also be aware of human lust and weakness; ours
is so. It must have adduced remedies for this; one is prayer. No other
religion has asked of God to love and follow Him.

492

He who hates not in himself his self-love, and that instinct which leads
him to make himself God, is indeed blinded. Who does not see that there
is nothing so opposed to justice and truth? For it is false that we
deserve this, and it is unfair and impossible to attain it, since all
demand the same thing. It is, then, a manifest injustice which is innate
in us, of which we cannot get rid, and of which we must get rid.

Yet no religion has indicated that this was a sin; or that we were born
in it; or that we were obliged to resist it; or has thought of giving us
remedies for it.

493

The true religion teaches our duties; our weaknesses, pride, and lust;
and the remedies, humility and mortification.

494

The true religion must teach greatness and misery; must lead to the
esteem and contempt of self, to love and to hate.