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Posted by David St. Albans on January 14, 2008, 7:23 pm
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the internal to obtain anything from
God, that is to say, we must kneel, pray with the lips, etc., in order that
proud man, who would not submit himself to God, may be now subject to the
creature. To expect help from these externals is superstition; to refuse to
join them to the internal is pride.
251. Other religions, as the pagan, are more popular, for they consist in
externals. But they are not for educated people. A purely intellectual
religion would be more suited to the learned, but it would be of no use to
the common people. The Christian religion alone is adapted to all, being
composed of externals and internals. It raises the common people to the
internal, and humbles the proud to the external; it is not perfect without
the two, for the people must understand the spirit of the letter, and the
learned must submit their spirit to the letter.
252. For we must not misunderstand ourselves; we are as much automatic as
intellectual; and hence it comes that the instrument by which conviction is
attained is not demonstrated alone. How few things are demonstrated! Proofs
only convince the mind. Custom is the source of our strongest and most
believed proofs. It bends the automaton, which persuades the mind without
its thinking about the matter. Who has demonstrated that there will be a
to-morrow and that we shall die? And what is more believed? It is, then,
custom which persuades us of it; it is custom that makes so many men
Christians; custom that makes them Turks, heathens, artisans, soldiers, etc.
(Faith in baptism is more received among Christians than among Turks.)
Finally, we must have recourse to it when once the mind has seen where the
truth is, in order to quench our thirst, and steep ourselves in that belief,
which escapes us at
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