self, and by following Him through suffering and the death on the cross.
546. Without Jesus 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.
547. 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 tho
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