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302
PASCAL'S THOUGHTS

ality of Catholics." If miracles are done among them, it is not a sign of holiness, and is, on the contrary, a symptom of heresy.

The 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.


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The five propositions condemned, but no miracle; for the truth was not attacked. But the Sorbonne … but the bull …

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.

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.

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."


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The history of the man born blind.

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.[1] Believe the works.

Two supernatural foundations of our wholly supernatural religion; one visible, the other invisible; miracles with grace, miracles without grace.

The synagogue, which has 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.

  1. John xv. 24.