foolishness of God is wiser than man, 1 Cor. i. 25): for without this what could we say of man? His whole state depends on this imperceptible point. Yet how should he be made acquainted with this by his reason, when it is a thing above his reason, and when reason, instead of discovering it to him at first, disinclines him to believe it when it is presented before him?

These two opposite states of innocence and corruption being once laid open before us, it is impossible we should not recognise them.

Let us trace our own emotions, and observe ourselves; and let us see whether we do not discover the lively characters of these different natures.

How surprising it is, that so many contradictions should be found in one and the same subject?

This two-fold nature of man is so visible, that some have imagined him to have two souls; one single subject appearing to them incapable of such great and sudden transitions, from immeasurable presumption to the most dreadful abjectness of spirit.

Thus the several contrarieties which would seem most calculated to alienate men from the knowledge of any religion, are those very things which would rather conduct them to the true.

As to myself, I confess that as soon as ever the Christian religion has revealed to me this one principle, that human nature is depraved, and fallen from God, this opens my eyes to see every where the proofs of that fact. For nature is now in that state, that every thing, both in us and out of us, bespeaks our loss of God.

Without this divine information, what could men have done but either become vain from the remaining sense of their former grandeur, or dejected by the consciousness of their present infirmity? For not discerning the whole truth, it was impossible for them to arrive at perfect virtue; some looking upon

nature as uncorrupt, and others as irrecoverable, they could not but fall into vanity or sloth, the two great sources of every vice. They could only either give themselves up to vice, through meanness of spirit, or escape from it through pride. For those who knew the excellency of man, were unacquainted with his corruption, so that while they escaped perhaps from indolence, they were lost in conceit; and those who were sensible of the infirmity of nature, were strangers to its dignity, so that while they were delivered from vanity, they plunged themselves into despair.

Hence arose the various sects of the Stoics and Epicureans, the Dogmatists, Academics, &c. The Christian religion alone has been able thoroughly to cure these opposite vices; not driving out one by means of the other, according to the wisdom of this world, but expelling them both by the simplicity of the gospel. For while it exalts the righteous even to a participation of the divinity, it makes them understand, that, in this superior state, they have still within them the fountain of all corruption, which renders them, their whole life long, subject to error, to misery, to death, and to sin; and it assures the most impious, that they still may partake of the grace of their Redeemer. Thus awing those whom it justifies, and comforting those whom it condemns, it so wisely tempers hope with fear, by this two-fold capability both of sin and of grace, which is common to all mankind, that it abases us infinitely more than unassisted reason could do, and yet without driving us to despair; while it exalts us infinitely more than the pride of our nature can do, and yet without rendering us vain; thereby demonstrating, that being alone exempt from error and vice, it belongs only to itself to instruct men, and at the same time to reform them.

We have no idea either of the glorious state of Adam, or of the nature of his transgression, or

of the mode in which it is transmitted to us.

These are things which took place in a state of nature very different from ours; they transcend our present capacity, and the knowledge of them would be of no use to deliver us from our miseries. All that is of importance for us to know is this, that through Adam we are miserable, depraved, and at a distance from God; but that we are redeemed by Jesus Christ; and of this we have astonishing proofs in this world.

Christianity is most surprising. It obliges man to acknowledge that he is vile, and even abominable, and yet enjoins him to aspire after a resemblance of God. Were not things thus set against one another, this exaltation would render him extravagantly vain, or such a debasement would render him horribly abject. For misery leads to despair, and a sense of dignity inclines to presumption.

The Incarnation discovers to man the greatness of his misery, by the greatness of the remedy that was needed for his relief.

In the Christian religion we find neither a state of abasement that renders us incapable of good, nor a state of holiness that exempts us from evil.

No doctrine can be more suited to man, than this, which makes him acquainted with his twofold capacity of receiving and falling from grace, on account of the two-fold danger to which he is always exposed, either of despair on the one hand, or of pride on the other.

Philosophers never inspired men with sentiments proportioned to both these conditions. They either inculcated notions of unqualified dignity, which is not the true condition of man; or else of unqualified meanness, which is as little so as the former. We ought to feel a sense of our meanness, not as a character of our original nature, but the effect of repentance; not such as should lead us to continue in that meanness, but such as should make us aspire to greatness. We ought also to have a sense of our

dignity, but of that which proceeds from grace, and not from merit, and which begins by humiliation.

No man is so happy as a real Christian; none so rational, so virtuous, so amiable. How little vanity does he feel when he believes himself united to God! How far is he from abjectness, when he ranks himself with the worms of the earth!

Who then can refuse to believe or adore this heavenly light? For is it not clearer than the day, that we see and feel within ourselves indelible characters of excellence? And is it not equally true, that we experience every hour the effects of our present deplorable condition? What else, therefore, does this chaos, this monstrous confusion in our nature proclaim, but the truth of this double state, and that with a voice so powerful, that it cannot be gainsaid.

D

CHAPTER IV.

IT IS NOT INCREDIBLE, THAT GOD SHOULD UNITE HIMSELF TO US.

THAT which renders men so reluctant to believe themselves capable of being united to God, is nothing else than a consciousness of their own degradation: yet if this be sincere, let them pursue it as far as I have done, and let them confess that our baseness is in reality such, as makes us unable of ourselves to discover whether his mercy can render us capable of a union with him or not. For I would gladly be informed, whence this creature, that acknowledges itself so weak, has obtained a right to limit the mercy of God, and to set such bounds to it as his fancy may suggest. Man knows so little of the divine essence, that he does not even know what himself is; and yet, all confused as he is at the prospect of his own condition, he takes upon him to say, that God cannot render him capable of communication with himself. But I would ask, whether God requires any thing of him except that he should know him, and love him; and why it is he believes God cannot make himself to be both known and loved by him, seeing he is naturally capable both of knowledge and love. For no man can know otherwise than that he exists, and that there is something he loves. If then he sees any thing in his present