many men make themselves unworthy of his mercy, he willed to leave
them deprived of the good which they refuse. It had not then been
just that he should appear in a manner plainly divine, and wholly
capable of convincing all men, but neither had it been just that he
should come in so hidden a manner as not to be recognised of those
who sincerely sought him. He has willed to reveal himself wholly to
these, and thus willing to appear openly to those who seek him with
their whole heart, and to hide himself from those who fly him with
all their heart, he has so tempered the knowledge of himself as to
give signs of himself visible to those who seek him, and obscure to
those who seek him not.
There is enough light for those who wish earnestly to see, and enough
obscurity for those of a contrary mind.
Therefore let men recognise the truth of religion in the very
obscurity of religion, in the little light we have of it, and in our
indifference to the knowledge of it.
The prophecies, the very miracles and proofs of our Religion, are
not of such a nature that we can say they are absolutely convincing.
But they are also of such a kind, that none can say that it is
unreasonable to believe in them. Thus there is both evidence and
obscurity to enlighten some and blind others; but the evidence
is such that it surpasses or at least equals the evidence to the
contrary, so that it is not reason which can determine us not to
follow it, and therefore it can only be lust and malice of heart. And
by this means there is evidence enough to condemn, and not enough to
convince; so it appears in those who follow it, that it is grace and
not reason which causes them to follow it; and in those who fly it,
it is lust, not reason, which causes them to fly it.
Who can help admiring and embracing a religion which thoroughly knows
that which we recognise more and more in proportion to our light?
_That God has willed to hide himself._--If there were only one
Religion God would certainly be manifest; so also if there were no
martyrs but in our own Religion.
God being thus hidden, every religion which does not say that God
is hidden is not the true religion, and every religion which does
not show the reason of it is unedifying. Our religion does all this:
_Vere tu es Deus absconditus_.
Religion is so great a thing, that it is right that those who will
not take the trouble to seek if it be obscure should be deprived of
it. Why then should any complain, if it be such as to be found by
seeking?
The obscurity would be too great, if truth had not visible signs.
This is a marvellous one, that it has always been preserved in a
Church and a visible assembly. The clearness would be too great if
there were only one opinion in this Church, but to recognise what is
true is only to see what has always existed, for it is certain that
truth has always existed, and that nothing false has been always in
existence.
Recognise then the truth of religion even in the obscurity of
religion, in the little light we have of it, and in the indifference
we have to its knowledge.
God chooses rather to sway the will than the intellect. Perfect
clearness would be useful to the intellect but would harm the will.
To humble pride.
Were there no obscurity man would not be sensible of his corruption;
were there no light man would despair of remedy. Thus it is not only
just, but useful for us, that God should be partly hidden and partly
revealed, because it is equally dangerous for man to know God without
the knowledge of his misery, and to know his misery without the
knowledge of God.
If the mercy of God is so great that his teaching is salutary even
when he hides himself, what great light may we not expect when he
reveals himself?
We shall understand nothing of the works of God if we do not take it
as a principle that he has willed to blind some and enlighten others.
What say the prophets of Jesus Christ? That he will be manifestly
God? No: but that he is a God truly hidden, that he will be
misunderstood; that none would think it was he; that he would be a
stone of stumbling on which many would fall, etc. Let us no longer
then be reproached with want of clearness, since we make profession
of it.
But, it is said, there are obscurities.--And without that, no one
would have stumbled at Jesus Christ, which is one of the formal
announcements of the prophets: _Excæca_....
Instead of complaining that God is hidden, you will give him thanks
for having revealed so much of himself; and you will give him thanks
again for not having revealed himself to the proudly wise, who are
unworthy to know so holy a God.
Two sorts of persons know: those whose heart is humble, and who love
lowliness, whatever their order of intellect, whether high or low,
and those who have understanding enough to see the truth, whatever
opposition they may feel to it.
I may well love total darkness, but if God keep me in a state of
semi-obscurity, this partial darkness is unpleasant to me, and
because I do not see in it the advantages of total darkness it
pleases me not. This is a fault, and a proof that I am making an idol
of darkness apart from God's order. Now his order alone is to be
worshipped.
Did the world exist to instruct man concerning God, his divinity
would shine out incontestably from every part of it, but as it exists
only by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ, and to instruct men
concerning their corruption and their redemption, proofs of these two
truths start up everywhere.
What is seen does not denote either the total exclusion or the
manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides
himself. All bears this character.
Had nought of God ever appeared, this eternal deprivation would have
been equivocal, and might as well be interpreted of the total absence
of divinity, as of man's unworthiness to know him; but by occasional
and not continual appearances he has taken away all ambiguity. If he
have appeared once, he is for ever, and thus it must be concluded
both that there is a God, and that men are unworthy of him.
God, that he may reserve to himself alone the right to instruct us
and that he may render the difficulty of our being unintelligible to
us, has hidden the knot so high, or rather so low, that we cannot
reach it. So that it is not by the efforts of our reason, but by the
simple submission of our reason, that we can truly know ourselves.
Wisdom sends us to childhood: _nisi efficiamini sicut parvuli_.
"A miracle," says one, "would strengthen my faith." He says so when
he does not see one. Reasons seen from afar seem to limit our view,
but as we reach them we begin to see beyond. Nothing stops the
activity of our spirit. There is no rule, we say, which has not its
exception, no truth so general but that there is a side on which it
is lacking. If it be not absolutely universal, we have a pretext for
applying the exception to the matter in hand, and for saying: _This
is not always true, hence there are cases in which it is not so. It
only remains to show that this is one of them._ And we must be very
awkward or unlucky if we do not find one some day.
_Contradictions._
Infinite wisdom and wisdom of Religion.
Contradiction is a bad mark of truth.
Much that is certain is contradicted.
Much that is false passes without contradiction.
Contradiction is not a mark of falsehood, nor the want of
contradiction a mark of truth.
There is a pleasure in being in a vessel beaten about by a storm,
provided we are certain it will not founder. The persecutions which
try the Church are of this kind.
The history of the Church should rightly be called the history of
truth.
Those who find difficulties of belief seek an excuse in the unbelief
of the Jews. "If it was so clear," say they, "why did not the Jews
believe?" And they almost wish the Jews had believed, that they
might not be deterred by the example of their refusal. But their
very unbelief is the foundation of our faith. We should be much less
disposed to believe if they were on our side. We should then have a
far more ample pretext. This is the wonderful point, to have made the
Jews great lovers of the things foretold, and great enemies of their
accomplishment.
What could the Jews, his enemies, do? Receiving him they give proof
of him by that reception, for then the Messiah is acknowledged by
those to whom was committed the expectation of his coming; rejecting
him they prove his truth by that rejection.
_On the fact that the Christian Religion does not stand alone._--This
is so far from being a reason against believing it the true one that,
on the contrary, it proves it to be so.
Those who love not the truth take as a pretext that it is contested,
and that a multitude deny it; and thus their error comes from this
alone, that they love neither truth nor charity. So they are without
excuse.
The wicked who profess to follow reason, ought to be extremely strong
in reason.
What then do they say?
Do we not see, say they, beasts live and die like men, and Turks
like Christians? They have their ceremonies, their prophets, their
doctors, their saints, their religious, as well as we, etc. _But how
is this contrary to the Scripture? Does it not say all this?_
If you care but little to know the truth, here is enough for your
peace. But if you desire to know it with your whole heart, this is
not enough, look to the details. This would suffice for a question in
philosophy, but not here, where your all is concerned. And yet, after
a slight meditation of this kind, we shall go off to amuse ourselves,
etc. We should acquaint ourselves with this religion; even if it does
not disclose the reason for such obscurity, it will perhaps teach it
to us.
If God had permitted one only Religion, it would have been too easily
recognised. But when we look at it near we can easily see the true
through the confusion.
_PROOFS OF THE DIVINITY OF JESUS CHRIST._
_Perpetuity._--Let it be considered that from the beginning of the
world the expectation or the worship of the Messiah has subsisted
without a break; that there have been men who said that God had
revealed to them the future birth of a Redeemer who should save his
people; that afterwards came Abraham saying he had had a revelation
that the Messiah was to spring from him by a son who should be born;
that Jacob declared that of his twelve sons the Messiah would spring
from Judah; that Moses and the prophets then came to declare the
time and the manner of his advent; that they said their law was only
provisional till that of the Messiah, that it should last till then
but the other should endure eternally; that thus either their law or
that of the Messiah, of which it was the promise, would be always
upon earth; that in fact it has always endured; that at last Jesus
Christ has come with all the circumstances foretold. How wonderful is
this!
The two most ancient books in the world are those of Moses and Job,
the one a Jew, the other a Gentile, both of whom regard Jesus Christ
as their common centre and object: Moses in reporting the promises of
God to Abraham, Jacob, etc., and his prophecies. And Job, _Quis mihi
det ut, etc. Scio enim quod redemptor meus vivit, etc._
I believe that Joshua was the first of God's people who had this
name, as Jesus Christ was the last of God's people.
What man had ever so great renown! The whole Jewish people foretold
him before his coming. The Gentile world worships him after his
coming. The two worlds, Gentile and Jewish, regard him as their
centre.
Yet what man ever had less enjoyment of his renown! Of thirty-three
years he spent thirty in retirement. For three years he passed as
an impostor, the priests and rulers rejected him, his friends and
kinsmen despised him. At the end he died, betrayed by one of his own
disciples, denied by another, abandoned by all.
What part then had he in all this renown? Never man had more glory,
never man more ignominy. All this renown was for our sakes, to enable
us to recognise him, he took none of it for himself.
_Office of Jesus Christ._--He alone was to produce a great people,
elect, holy, and chosen, to lead it, to nourish it, to bring it into
a place of rest and holiness, to make it holy to God, to make it the
temple of God, to reconcile it to God, to save it from the wrath of
God, to deliver it from the slavery of sin, which visibly reigns in
man, to give laws to this people, to engrave these laws on their
heart, to offer himself to God for them, to sacrifice himself for
them, to be a victim without spot, himself the priest, needing to
offer himself, his body and his blood, and yet to offer bread and
wine to God....
After many persons had come before, at last came Jesus Christ,
to say: "Here am I and this is the hour, that which the prophets
had said was to come in the fulness of time. I tell you what my
apostles will do. The Jews shall be cast out, Jerusalem shall be soon
destroyed, and the Gentiles shall enter into the knowledge of God. My
apostles shall do this after you have slain the heir of the vineyard."
Then the Apostles said to the Jews, "You shall be accursed," and to
the Gentiles, "You shall enter into the knowledge of God;" and that
came to pass. _Celsus laughed at it._
Then Jesus Christ came to tell men that they had no enemies but
themselves, that their passions cut them off from God, that he
came to destroy these, and give them his grace to unite them all
in an holy Church, that he came to call into this Church Gentiles
and Jews, that he came to destroy the idols of the former and the
superstition of the latter. To this all men are opposed, not only
by the natural opposition of lust; but above all, the kings of the
earth, as had been foretold, gathered together to destroy this
religion in its infancy. _Quare fremuerunt gentes. Reges terræ
adversus Christum._
All that was great on earth was united together, the learned, the
wise, the kings. The first wrote, the second condemned, the last
slew. Yet notwithstanding all these oppositions, these men, so simple
and so weak, resisted all these forces, subduing even the mighty, the
learned and the wise, and removed idolatry from all the earth. And
all this was done by the power which had foretold it
And prediction crowns all this, so that none may say that chance has
done it all.
Whosoever having only a week to live, does not perceive that belief
is the right side to take, and that all this is not a stroke of
chance....
Now were we not slaves to passion, a week and a hundred years would
seem one and the same thing.
The prophets foretold, and were not foretold. The saints were
foretold, but were not foretellers. Jesus Christ was foretold and
foreteller.
If I had never heard anything of the Messiah, yet after the admirable
predictions of the course of the world which I see accomplished, I
see that it is divine. And if I knew that these same books foretold a
Messiah, I should be certain that he would come. And seeing that they
place his time before the destruction of the second temple, I should
say that he had come.
_Ingrediens mundum._
Stone upon stone.
That which preceded, that which followed. All the Jews still exist,
and are wanderers.
Why did not Jesus Christ come in a visible manner, instead of drawing
proof from the prophecies which went before him?
And why did he cause himself to be foretold in figures?
God, to enable the Messiah to be recognised by the good and
unrecognised by the wicked, caused him to be so foretold. If the
manner of the Messiah had been clearly foretold there had been no
obscurity, even for the wicked. If the time had been obscurely
foretold, there had been obscurity even for the good, for their
goodness of heart would not have made them understand, for instance,
that the closed _mem_ means six hundred years. But the time has been
foretold clearly and the manner in figures only.
By this means the wicked, mistaking the promised for material
blessings, have gone astray, in spite of clear indications of the
time, and the good have not gone astray; for the interpretation of
the promised blessings depends on the heart, wont to call that _good_
which it loves, but the interpretation of the promised time does not
depend on the heart. Thus the clear prediction of the time, and the
obscure intimation of the blessings, deceives only the wicked.
If Jesus Christ had come only for sanctification, the whole of
Scripture and all things would tend to this end, and it would be easy
to convince unbelievers. If Jesus Christ had come only to blind,
all his conduct would be confused, and we should have no means of
convincing unbelievers. But as he came _in sanctificationem et in
scandalum_, as says Isaiah, we cannot convince unbelievers, and they
cannot convince us; but by that very fact we overcome them because we
say that there is nothing in his conduct conclusive on one side or
the other.
Jesus Christ has come to blind those who saw clearly, and to give
sight to the blind; to heal the sick and let the sound perish; to
call sinners to repentance and justification, and leave the just in
their sins; to fill the hungry with good things and to send the rich
empty away.
We can have nothing but veneration for a man who clearly foretells
events which take place, and who declares his design both to blind
and to enlighten, and who mixes obscurities among the clear things
which happen.
_During the life of the Messiah.--Ænigmatis._--Ezek. xvii.--His
forerunner. Malachi ii.
He will be born an infant. Is. ix. 6.
He will be born at Bethlehem. Micah v. He will appear chiefly in
Jerusalem, and will spring from the family of Judah and of David.
He will blind the learned and the wise, Is. vi 8, 29, and preach the
Gospel to the poor and the lowly, will open the eyes of the blind,
restore health to the sick, and bring light to those who languish in
darkness. Is. lxi.
He must show the perfect way, and be the teacher of the Gentiles. Is.
lv.
The prophecies must be unintelligible to the wicked, Dan. xii., Hos.
xiv. 10, but intelligible to those who are well instructed.
He must be the precious corner stone. Is. xxviii. 16.
He must be the stone of stumbling and offence. Is. viii.
Jerusalem must dash against this stone.
The builders must reject this stone. Ps. cxvii. 22.
God will make of this stone the head of the corner.
And this stone will grow into a mountain, and fill the whole earth.
Dan. ii.
Thus he must be rejected, disowned, betrayed, sold, Zach. xi. 12,
spit upon, buffeted, mocked, afflicted in a thousand ways, be given
gall to drink, Ps. lxviii., pierced, Zach. xii., his feet and his
hands pierced, killed, and lots cast upon his vesture.
He must rise again, Ps. xv., the third day. Hos. vi. 3.
He must ascend to heaven to sit on the right hand. Ps. cx.
The kings will arm themselves against him. Ps. ii.
Being on the right hand of the Father, he will have victory over all
his enemies.
The kings of the earth, and all nations shall worship him. Is. lx.
The Jews will remain as a nation. Jer.
They will be dispersed, without kings, etc., Hos. iii; without
prophets. Amos;
Waiting for salvation and finding it not. Is.
The calling of the Gentiles by Jesus Christ. Is. lii., Ps. lxxi.
The Jews in slaying him that they might not receive the Messiah,
stamped him with the final proof of his Messiahship.
And by continuance in denial, they made themselves unimpeachable
witnesses; and in slaying him, and continuing to reject him, they
have fulfilled the prophecies.
The word _Galilee_, which the Jewish rabble pronounced as if by
chance, in their accusation of Jesus Christ before Pilate, gave
Pilate a reason for sending Jesus Christ to Herod, so that the
mystery was accomplished, that he should be judged by Jews and
Gentiles. Chance was apparently the cause that the mystery was
accomplished.
The conversion of the Gentiles was only reserved for the grace of
the Messiah. The Jews so long opposed them without success; all that
Solomon and the prophets had said was useless. Wise men like Plato
and Socrates could not persuade them.
If this was so clearly foretold to the Jews, why did they not believe
it, or why were they not exterminated for resisting what was so clear?
I answer first: it was foretold both that they would not believe what
was so clear, and that they would not be exterminated. And nothing is
more glorious to the Messiah, for it is not enough that there should
be prophets, they must be kept above suspicion. Now, etc.
Had the Jews been all converted by Jesus Christ, we should have none
but doubtful witnesses, and had they been entirely destroyed we
should have had no witnesses at all.
The Jews rejected him, but not all. The saints receive him, but not
carnal men. Yet this is far from being against his glory, it is the
last stroke which perfects it. The argument on their side, the only
one which is found in the Talmud and the rabbinical writings, is that
Jesus Christ has not subdued the nations sword in hand, _gladium
tuum, potentissime_. Is this all they can allege? Jesus Christ has
been slain, they say, he was subdued, he has not had dominion over
the heathen by his power, he has not distributed the spoil among us,
he does not give riches. Is this all they have to allege? This is
the very point wherein he seems to me so lovable. I would none of
such an one as they represent. It is plain that his life only hinders
them from receiving him, by their refusal they become irreproachable
witnesses, and what is more, they thereby fulfil the prophecies.
There are those who see clearly that man has no other enemy than
lust, which turns him from God, and not God, and that there is no
other good but God, not a fat land. Let those who believe that the
good of man is in the flesh, and evil that which turns him away from
sensual pleasures, besot themselves with them and die in them. But
those who seek God with their whole heart, whose only ill is not to
see him, whose only desire is to possess him, whose only enemies are
those who would turn them from him, who are afflicted when they are
surrounded and overwhelmed by such enemies, may take comfort, for I
declare to them this joyful news: there is for them a Redeemer, whom
I will show them; I will show them that there is for them a God, and
I will not show him to others. I will show them that a Messiah has
been promised, who will deliver them from their enemies, and that
one has come to deliver them from their iniquities, not from their
enemies.
It is a wonderful thing, and worthy of all attention, to see the
Jewish nation existing so many years in constant misery, it being
necessary as a proof of Jesus Christ, both that they should exist
to be his witnesses, and should be miserable because they crucified
him, and though to be miserable and to exist, are contradictory, this
nation still exists in spite of its misery.
When Nebuchadnezzar carried away the people, for fear they should
believe that the sceptre had departed from Judah, they were assured
beforehand that they would be but a short time in captivity, and
would be restored.
They were never without the comfort of their prophets, or the
presence of their kings. But the second destruction is without
promise of restoration, without prophets, without kings, without
comfort, without hope, for the sceptre is taken away for ever.
_Proofs of Jesus Christ._--To have been captive with the assurance of
deliverance in seventy years was no true captivity. But now they are
captives without hope.
God has promised them that even though he should disperse them to
the ends of the earth, nevertheless if they were faithful to the law
he would gather them together. They are now very faithful to it, yet
remain oppressed.
_Blindness of Scripture._--The Scripture, say the Jews, says that we
know not whence Christ should come.
John vii. 27 and xii 34.
The Scripture says that Christ abideth for ever, and he said that
he should die. Therefore, says Saint John, they believed him not,
though he had done so many miracles, that the word of Isaiah might be
fulfilled: _He hath blinded them, etc._
_Contradictions._--The sceptre until Messiah come. Without king or
prince.
The eternal law, changed.
The eternal covenant, a new covenant.
The good law, evil precepts, Ezekiel xx.
Apparent discord of the Evangelists.
_Proofs of Jesus Christ._
Why the book of Ruth was preserved.
Why the story of Tamar.