Newsgroup: it.scienza.ambiente
Titolo: Re: M`I,5.Persecu tion . Mol estation durin g Travel

we must be able to say to those who
take offence, "Of what do you complain?"
189. To begin by pitying unbelievers; they are wretched enough by their
condition. We ought only to revile them where it is beneficial; but this
does them harm.
190. To pity atheists who seek, for are they not unhappy enough? To inveigh
against those who make a boast of it.
191. And will this one scoff at the other? Who ought to scoff? And yet, the
latter does not scoff at the other, but pities him.
192. To reproach Milton with not being troubled, since God will reproach
him.
193. Quid fiet hominibus qui minima contemnunt, majora non credunt?[24]
194. ... Let them at least learn what is the religion they attack, before
attacking it. If this religion boasted of having a clear view of God, and of
possessing it open and unveiled, it would be attacking it to say that we see
nothing in the world which shows it with this clearness. But since, on the
contrary, it says that men are in darkness and estranged from God, that He
has hidden Himself from their knowledge, that this is in fact the name which
He gives Himself in the Scriptures, Deus absconditus;25 and finally, if it
endeavours equally to establish these two things: that God has set up in the
Church visible signs to make Himself known to those who should seek Him
sincerely, and that He has nevertheless so disguised them that He will only
be perceived by those who seek Him with all their heart; what advantage can
they obtain, when, in the negligence with which they make profession of
being in search of the truth, they cry out that nothing reveals it to them;
and since that darkness in which they are, and with which they upbraid the
Church, establishes only one of the things which she affirms, without
touching the other, and, very far from destroying, proves her doctrine

dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which averts these
thoughts of ours and amuses us.
Reasons why we like the chase better than the quarry.
Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the
prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of
solitude is a thing incomprehensible. And it is, in fact, the greatest
source of happiness in the condition of kings that men try incessantly to
divert them and to procure for them all kinds of pleasures.
The king is surrounded by persons whose only thought is to divert the king
and to prevent his thinking of self. For he is unhappy, king though he be,
if he think of himself.
This is all that men have been able to discover to make themselves happy.
And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for
spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought,
scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the
sight of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention
from these, does screen us.
The advice given to Pyrrhus, to take the rest which he was about to seek
with so much labour, was full of difficulties.
To bid a man live quietly is to bid him live happily. It is to advise him to
be in a state perfectly happy, in which he can think at leisure without
finding therein a cause of distress. This is to misunderstand nature.
As men who naturally understand their own condition avoid nothing so much as
rest, so there is nothing they leave undone in seeking turmoil. Not that
they have an instinctive knowledge of true happiness...
So we are wrong in blaming them. Their error does not lie in seeking
excitement, if they seek it only as a diversion; the evil is that they seek
it as if the possession of the objects of their quest would make them really
happy. In this respect it is right to call their q

alike hurt and help me, and all
depends upon the blessing of God, who gives only to things done for Him,
according to His rules and in His ways, the manner being thus as important
as the thing and perhaps more; since God can bring forth good out of evil,
and without God we bring forth evil out of good?
500. The meaning of the words, good and evil.
501. First step: to be blamed for doing evil, and praised for doing good.
Second step: to be neither praised nor blamed.
502. Abraham took nothing for himself, but only for his servants. So the
righteous man takes for himself nothing of the world, nor of the applause of
the world, but only for his passions, which he uses as their master, saying
to the one, "Go," and to another, "Come." Sub te erit appetitus tuus.77 The
passions thus subdued are virtues. Even God attributes to Himself avarice,
jealousy, anger; and these are virtues as well as kindness, pity, constancy,
which are also passions. We must employ them as slaves, and, leaving to them
their food, prevent the soul from taking any of it, For, when the passions
become masters, they are vices; and they give their nutriment to the soul,
and the soul nourishes itself upon it and is poisoned.
503. Philosophers have consecrated the vices by placing them in God Himself.
Christians have consecrated the virtues.
504. The just man acts by faith in the least things; when he reproves his
servants, he desires their conversion by the Spirit of God, and prays God to
correct them; and he expects as much from God as from his own reproofs, and
prays God to bless his corrections. And so in all his other actions he
proceeds with the Spirit of God; and his actions deceive us by reaso

suited to what
religion teaches us. And, finally, religion must so be the object and the
centre to which all things tend that whoever knows the principles of
religion can give an explanation both of the whole nature of man in
particular and of the whole course of the world in general.
And on this ground they take occasion to revile the Christian religion,
because they misunderstand it. They imagine that it consists simply in the
worship of a God considered as great, powerful, and eternal; which is
strictly deism, almost as far removed from the Christian religion as
atheism, which is its exact opposite. And thence they conclude that this
religion is not true, because they do not see that all things concur to the
establishment of this point, that God does not manifest Himself to men with
all the evidence which He could show.
But let them conclude what they will against deism, they will conclude
nothing against the Christian religion, which properly consists in the
mystery of the Redeemer, who, uniting in Himself the two natures, human and
divine, has redeemed men from the corruption of sin in order to reconcile
them in His divine person to God.
The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a
God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which
renders them unworthy of Him. It is equally important to men to know both
these points; and it is equally dangerous for man to know 

secular business. Other discourse than of the things of religion would
scarcely be tolerated in any company. The minds of people were
wonderfully taken off from the world, it was treated amongst us as a
thing of very little consequence. They seemed to follow their worldly
business, more as a part of their duty, than from any disposition they
had to it; the temptation now seemed to lie on that hand, to neglect
worldly affairs too much, and to spend too much time in the immediate
exercise of religion. This was exceedingly misrepresented by reports
that were spread in distant parts of the land, as though the people here
had wholly thrown by all worldly business, and betook themselves
entirely to reading and praying, and such like religious exercises.
But although people did not ordinarily neglect their worldly business,
yet religion was with all sorts the great concern, and the world was a
thing only by the bye. The only thing in their view was to get the
kingdom of heaven, and every one appeared pressing into it. The
engagedness of their hearts in this great concern could not be hid, it
appeared in their very countenances. It then was a dreadful thing
amongst us to lie out of Christ, in danger every day of dropping into
hell; and

he will be more foolish still, because he would
raise himself above humanity; and after all, he is only a man, that is to
say capable of little and of much, of all and of nothing; he is neither
angel nor brute, but man.
141. Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure
even of kings.
142. Diversion--Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in itself to
make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is? Must he be
diverted from this thought like ordinary folk? I see well that a man is made
happy by diverting him from the view of his domestic sorrows so as to occupy
all his thoughts with the care of dancing well. But will it be the same with
a king, and will he be happier in the pursuit of these idle amusements than
in the contemplation of his greatness? And what more satisfactory object
could be presented to his mind? Would it not be a deprivation of his delight
for him to occupy his soul with the thought of how to adjust his steps to
the cadence of an air, or of how to throw a ball skilfully, instead of
leaving it to enjoy quietly the contemplation of the majestic glory which
encompasses him? Let us make the trial; let us leave a king all alone to
reflect on himself quite at leisure, without any gratification of the
senses, without any care in his mind, without society; and we will see that
a king without diversion is a man full of wretchedness. So this is carefully
avoided, and near the persons of kings there never fail to be a great number
of people who see to it that amusement follows business, and who watch all
the time of their leisure to supply them with delights and games, so that
there is no blank in it. In fact, kings are surrounded with persons who are
wonderfully attentive in taking care that the king be not alone and in a
state to think of himself, knowing well that he will be miserable, king
though

was wont to express and manifest them, while living. I once read
this account to some of her pious neighbors, who were acquainted with
her, who said, to this purpose, that the picture fell much short of the
life; and particularly that it much failed of duly representing her
humility, and that admirable lowliness of heart, that all times appeared
in her. But there are, blessed be God! many living instances, of much
the like nature, and in some things no less extraordinary.
But I now proceed to the other instance, that of the little child before
mentioned. Her name is Phebe Bartlet, [She was living in March, 1789,
and maintained the character of a true convert.] daughter of William
Bartlet. I shall give the account as I took it from the mouth of her
parents, whose veracity none who know them doubt of.
She was born in March, 1731. About the latter end of April, or beginning
of May, 1735, she was greatly affected by the talk of her brother, who
had been hopefully converted a little before, at about eleven years of
age, and then seriously talked to her about the great things of
religion. Her parents did not know of it at that time, and were not
wont, in the counsels they gave to their children, particularly to
direct themselves to her, being so young, and, as they supposed, not
capable of understanding. But after her brother had talked to her, they
observed her very earnestly listen to the advice they gave to the other
children; and she was observed very constantly to retire, several times
in a day, as was concluded, for secret prayer. She grew more and more
engaged in religion, and was more frequent in her closet; till at last
she was wont to visit it five or six times a day: and was so engaged in
it, that nothing would at any time divert her from her stat

But not having in itself a
principle of life, it only goes astray and is astonished in the uncertainty
of its being; perceiving in fact that it is not a body, and still not seeing
that it is a member of a body. In short, when it comes to know itself, it
has returned, as it were, to its own home, and loves itself only for the
body. It deplores its past wanderings.
It cannot by its nature love any other thing, except for itself and to
subject it to self, because each thing loves itself more than all. But, in
loving the body, it loves itself, because it only exists in it, by it, and
for it. Qui adhaeret Deo unus spiritus est.76
The body loves the hand; and the hand, if it had a will, should love itself
in the same way as it is loved by the soul. All love which goes beyond this
is unfair.
Adhaerens Deo unus spiritus est. We love ourselves, because we are members
of Jesus Christ. We love Jesus Christ, because He is the body of which we
are members. All is one, one is in the other, like the Three Persons.
484. Two laws suffice to rule the whole Christian Republic better than all
the laws of statecraft.
485. The true and only virtue, then, is to hate self (for we are hateful on
account of lust) and to seek a truly lovable being to love. But as we cannot
love what is outside ourselves, we must love a being who is in us and is not
ourselves; and that is true of each and all men. Now, only the Universal

is no Redeemer for the Jews; they hope for Him in vain. There
is a Redeemer only for Christians. (See Perpetuity.)
748. In the time of the Messiah the people divided themselves. The spiritual
embraced the Messiah, and the coarser-minded remained to serve as witnesses
of Him.
749. "If this was clearly foretold to the Jews, how did they not believe it,
or why were they not destroyed for resisting a fact so clear?"
I reply: in the first place, it was foretold both that they would not
believe a thing so clear and that they would not be destroyed. And nothing
is more to the glory of the Messiah; for it was not enough that there should
be prophets; their prophets must be kept above suspicion. Now, etc.
750. If the Jews had all been converted by Jesus Christ, we should have none
but questionable witnesses. And if they had been entirely destroyed, we
should have no witnesses at all.
751. What do the prophets say of Jesus Christ? That He will be clearly God?
No; but that He is a God truly hidden; that He will be slighted; that none
will think that it is He; that He will be a stone of stumbling, upon which
many will stumble, etc. Let people then reproach us