monk? For both are equally under obedience and dependent,
both engaged in equally painful exercises. But the soldier always hopes
to command, and never attains this, for even captains and princes are
ever slaves and dependants; still he ever hopes and ever works to attain
this. Whereas the Carthusian monk makes a vow to be always dependent. So
they do not differ in their perpetual thraldom, in which both of them
always exist, but in the hope, which one always has, and the other
never.

539

The hope which Christians have of possessing an infinite good is mingled
with real enjoyment as well as with fear; for it is not as with those
who should hope for a kingdom, of which they, being subjects, would have
nothing; but they hope for holiness, for freedom from injustice, and
they have something of this.

540

None is so happy as a true Christian, nor so reasonable, virtuous, or
amiable.

541

The Christian religion alone makes man altogether _lovable and happy_.
In honesty, we cannot perhaps be altogether lovable and happy.

542

_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._[200]

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.

543

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.

544

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.

545

Without J