nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet without
this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to
ourselves. The knot of our condition takes its twists and turns in this
abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without this mystery than this
mystery is inconceivable to man.

Whence it seems that God, willing to render the difficulty of our existence
unintelligible to ourselves, has concealed the knot so high, or, better
speaking, so low, that we are quite incapable of reaching it; so that it is
not by the proud exertions of our reason, but by the simple submissions of
reason, that we can truly know ourselves.

These foundations, solidly established on the inviolable authority of
religion, make us know that there are two truths of faith equally certain:
the one, that man, in the state of creation, or in that of grace, is raised
above all nature, made like unto God and sharing in His divinity; the other,
that in the state of corruption and sin, he is fallen from this state and
made like unto the beasts.

These two propositions are equally sound and certain. Scripture manifestly
declares this to us, when it says in some places: Deliciae meae esse cum
filiis