🚀 go-pugleaf

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 God without
knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without
knowing the Redeemer who can free him from it. The knowledge of only one of
these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers, who have known
God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of atheists, who know
their own wretchedness, but not the Redeemer.

And, as it is alike necessary to man to know these two points, so is it
alike merciful of God to have made us know them. The Christian religion does
this; it is in this that it consists.

Let us herein examine the order of the world and see if all things do not
tend to establish these two chief points of this religion: Jesus Christ is
end of all, and the centre to which all tends. Whoever knows Him knows the
reason of everything.

Those who fall into error err only through failure to see one of these two
things. We can, then, have an excellent knowledge of God without that of our
own wretchedness and of our own wretchedness without that of God. But we
cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing at the same time both God and our
own wretchedness.

Therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either the
existence of God, or the Trinity, or the immortality of the soul, or
anything of that nature; not only because I should not feel myself
sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hardened atheists,
but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and barren.
Though a man should be convinced that numerical proportions are immaterial
truths, eternal and dependent on a first truth, in which they subsist and
which is called God, I should not think him far advanced towards his own
salvation.

The God of Christians is not a God