t numerical
proportions are immaterial truths, eternal and dependent on a first
truth, in which they subsist, and which is called God, I should not
think him far advanced towards his own salvation.

The God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of
mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view
of heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a God who exercises His
providence over the life and fortunes of men, to bestow on those who
worship Him a long and happy life. That was the portion of the Jews. But
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of
Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul
and heart of those whom He possesses, a God who makes them conscious of
their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to
their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence
and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself.

All who seek God without Jesus Christ, and who rest in nature, either
find no light to satisfy them, or come to form for themselves a means of
knowing God and serving Him without a mediator. Thereby they fall either
into atheism, or into deism, two things which the Christian religion
abhors almost equally.

Without Jesus Christ the world would not exist; for it should needs be
either that it would be destroyed or be a hell.

If the world existed to instruct man of God, His divinity would shine
through every part in it in an indisputable manner; but as it exists
only by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ, and to teach men both their
corruption and their redemption, all displays the proofs of these two
truths.

All appearance indicates neither a total exclusion nor a manifest
presence of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides Himself.
Everything bears this character.

... Shall he alone who knows his nature know it only to be miserable?
Shall he alone who knows it be alone unhappy?

... He must not see nothing at all, nor must he see sufficient for him
to believe he possesses it; but he must see enough to know that he has
lost it. For to know of his loss, he must see and not see; and that is
exactly the state in which he naturally is.

... Whatever part he takes, I shall not leave him at rest ...

556

... It is then true that everything teaches man his condition, but he
must understand this well. For it is not true that all reveals God, and
it is not t