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.
495. If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what
we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God.
496. Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and
goodness.
497. Agai
.
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