Thoughts on religion Author:Blaise Pascal Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE CHARACTERS OF TRUE RELIGION. True religion will always distinguish itself by obliging men to love God. This is what natural justice require... more »s, and yet what no religion but the Christian has ever enjoined. It ought likewise to know the concupiscence of man, and his utter insufficiency for the attainment of virtue by his own strength. It should likewise point out the proper remedies for this defect; of which prayer is the chief. Our religion has done all this, and no other has ever taught us to beg of God the power to love and obey him. To establish the truth of a religion, it is necessary that it should be acquainted with human -nature. For our true nature and true happiness, true virtue and true religion, are things the knowledge of which is inseparable. It should also be able to discern the greatness and the meanness of man; together with the reason of both. What religion, the Christian only excepted, has ever made all these known? Other religions, as those of the heathens, are more popular, for they consist only in external appearance ; but then they are not adapted to men of talents and understanding. A religion purely intellectual, might be fitter for men of genius, but would by no means be suited to the common ranks of mankind. Christianity alone is proportioned to all; for itconsists both of that which is internal and of that which is external. It raises the most ignorant to inward and spiritual acts, and brings down the most intelligent to outward performances, and is never complete but when it joins one of these effects to the other. For it is both necessary that the common people should understand the spirit of the letter, and that the learned should submit their spirit to the letter, by the performance of outward actions. That we are in o...« less