esus 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.

546

We know God only by Jesus Christ. Without this mediator all communion
with God is taken away; through Jesus Christ we know God. All those who
have claimed to know God, and to prove Him without Jesus Christ, have
had only weak proofs. But in proof of Jesus Christ we have the
prophecies, which are solid and palpable proofs. And these prophecies,
being accomplished and proved true by the event, mark the certainty of
these truths, and therefore the divinity of Christ. In Him then, and
through Him, we know God. Apart from Him, and without the Scripture,
without original sin, without a necessary Mediator promised and come, we
cannot absolutely prove God, nor teach right doctrine and right
morality. But through Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, we prove God,
and teach morality and doctrine. Jesus Christ is then the true God of
men.

But we know at the same time our wretchedness; for this God is none
other than the Saviour of our wretchedness. So we can only know God well
by knowing our iniquities. Therefore those who have known God, without
knowing their wretchedness, have not glorified Him, but have glorified
themselves. _Quia ... non cognovit per sapientiam ... placuit Deo per
stultitiam praedicationis salvos facere._[201]

547

Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves
only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ.
Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death,
nor God, nor ourselves.

Thus without the Scripture, which has Jesus Christ alone for its object,
we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of
God, and in our own nature.

548

It is not only impossible but useless to know God without Jesus Christ.
They have not departed from Him, but approached; they have not humbled
themselves, but ...

_Quo quisque optimus est, pessimus, si hoc ipsum, quod optimus est,
adscribat sibi._

549

I love poverty because He loved it. I love riches because they afford me
the means of helping the very poor. I keep faith with everybody; I do
not render evil to those who wrong me, but I wish them a lot like mine,
in which I receive neither evil nor good from men. I try to be just,
true, sincere, and f