Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Licença: Public domain · Fonte

• When Saint Xavier[353] works miracles.--[Saint Hilary. "Ye wretches, who oblige us to speak of miracles."] SECTION XIII · ¶2763
• Unjust judges, make not your own laws on the moment; judge by those which are established, and by yourselves. _Væ qui conditis leges iniquas._[354] SECTION XIII · ¶2764
• In order to weaken your adversaries, you disarm the whole Church. SECTION XIII · ¶2766
• This way in which the Church has existed is that truth has been without dispute, or, if it has been contested, there has been the Pope, or, failing him, there has been the Church. SECTION XIII · ¶2768
• The five propositions[355] condemned, but no miracle; for the truth was not attacked. But the Sorbonne ... but the bull.... SECTION XIII · ¶2770
• It is impossible that those who love God with all their heart should fail to recognise the Church; so evident is she.--It is impossible that those who do not love God should be convinced of the Church. SECTION XIII · ¶2771
• Miracles have such influence that it was necessary that God should warn men not to believe in them in opposition to Him, all clear as it is that there is a God. Without this they would have been able to disturb men. SECTION XIII · ¶2772
• And thus so far from these passages, Deut. xiii, making against the authority of the miracles, nothing more indicates their influence. And the same in respect of Antichrist. "To seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."[356] SECTION XIII · ¶2773
• The history of the man born blind. SECTION XIII · ¶2775
• What says Saint Paul? Does he continually speak of the evidence of the prophecies? No, but of his own miracle. What says Jesus Christ? Does He speak of the evidence of the prophecies? No; His death had not fulfilled them. But He says, _Si non fecissem_.[357] Believe the works. SECTION XIII · ¶2776
• Two supernatural foundations of our wholly supernatural religion; one visible, the other invisible; miracles with grace, miracles without grace. SECTION XIII · ¶2777
• The synagogue, which had been treated with love as a type of the Church, and with hatred, because it was only the type, has been restored, being on the point of falling when it was well with God, and thus a type. SECTION XIII · ¶2778
• Miracles prove the power which God has over hearts, by that which He exercises over bodies. SECTION XIII · ¶2779
• The Church has never approved a miracle among heretics. SECTION XIII · ¶2780
• Miracles a support of religion: they have been the test of Jews; they have been the test of Christians, saints, innocents, and true believers. SECTION XIII · ¶2781
• A miracle among schismatics is not so much to be feared; for schism, which is more obvious than a miracle, visibly indicates their error. But when there is no schism, and error is in question, miracle decides. SECTION XIII · ¶2782
• _Si non fecissem quæ alius non fecit._ The wretches who have obliged us to speak of miracles. SECTION XIII · ¶2783
• Abraham and Gideon confirm faith by miracles. SECTION XIII · ¶2784
• Judith. God speaks at last in their greatest oppression. SECTION XIII · ¶2785
• If the cooling of love leaves the Church almost without believers, miracles will rouse them. This is one of the last effects of grace. SECTION XIII · ¶2786
• If one miracle were wrought among the Jesuits! SECTION XIII · ¶2787
• _The ungodly._--No sign has ever happened on the part of the devil without a stronger sign on the part of God, or even without it having been foretold that such would happen. SECTION XIII · ¶6494
• Unjust persecutors of those whom God visibly protects. If they reproach you with your excesses, "they speak as the heretics." If they say that the grace of Jesus Christ distinguishes us, "they are heretics." If they do miracles, "it is the mark of their heresy." SECTION XIII · ¶2791
• Ezekiel.--They say: These are the people of God who speak thus. SECTION XIII · ¶2792
• It is said, "Believe in the Church";[358] but it is not said, "Believe in miracles"; because the last is natural, and not the first. The one had need of a precept, not the other. Hezekiah. SECTION XIII · ¶2793
• The synagogue was only a type, and thus it did not perish; and it was only a type, and so it is decayed. It was a type which contained the truth, and thus it has lasted until it no longer contained the truth. SECTION XIII · ¶2794
• My reverend father, all this happened in types. Other religions perish; this one perishes not. SECTION XIII · ¶2795
• Miracles are more important than you think. They have served for the foundation, and will serve for the continuation of the Church till Antichrist, till the end. SECTION XIII · ¶2796
• In the Old Testament and the New, miracles are performed in connection with types. Salvation, or a useless thing, if not to show that we must submit to the Scriptures: type of the sacrament. SECTION XIII · ¶2798
• Saint Paul in the isle of Malta.] SECTION XIII · ¶2801
• The hardness of the Jesuits, then, surpasses that of the Jews, since those refused to believe Jesus Christ innocent only because they doubted if His miracles were of God. Whereas the Jesuits, though unable to doubt that the miracles of Port-Royal are of God, do not cease to doubt still the innocence of that house. SECTION XIII · ¶2803
• I suppose that men believe miracles. You corrupt religion either in favour of your friends, or against your enemies. You arrange it at your will. SECTION XIII · ¶2805
• _On the miracle._--As God has made no family more happy, let it also be the case that He find none more thankful. SECTION XIII · ¶2807
• The history of the Church ought properly to be called the history of truth. SECTION XIV · ¶2812
• There is a pleasure in being in a ship beaten about by a storm, when we are sure that it will not founder. The persecutions which harass the Church are of this nature. SECTION XIV · ¶2814
• In addition to so many other signs of piety, they[359] are also persecuted, which is the best sign of piety. SECTION XIV · ¶2816
• The Church is in an excellent state, when it is sustained by God only. SECTION XIV · ¶2818
• The Church has always been attacked by opposite errors, but perhaps never at the same time, as now. And if she suffer more because of the multiplicity of errors, she derives this advantage from it, that they destroy each other. SECTION XIV · ¶2820
• She complains of both, but far more of the Calvinists, because of the schism. SECTION XIV · ¶2821
• It is certain that many of the two opposite sects are deceived. They must be disillusioned. SECTION XIV · ¶2822

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