Part 1, lesson 15. Explanation of the preceding doctrine

Q. What then is our own in us ?

A. Our nothingness and sins; this is all we can boast of.

Q. We are then very wretched creatures, and truly deserve all kinds of sufferings and persecu tions ?

A. As for our nothingness, 1 have already shown you, how, of ourselves, we are really noth ing: it is what we were from all eternity; the being which

God gave us, is not ours, but his; and although he gave it to us, it does not cease to be his being, for which he wishes to be honored.

Q. But how are we sin ?

A. I will tell you, with the grace of God. The first man, Adam, had been created in in nocence; he sinned, and all men sinned in him.

Q. How do you understand this ?

A. If a father had made a bargain for himself and all his family, is it not true that all his children would be bound to the conditions under which he contracted ?

Q. That is true.

A. Our first parent made a treaty in the name of all his children and of his whole family: by his sin he violated this treaty; his children have then all par ticipated with him in his crime, and justly borne the punish ment of it.

Q. I see plainly enough, and firmly believe, that we have committed sin in our first father, and are punished for it, which is just; but I do not yet see how we are sin.

A. To understand what I am going to say, it was necessary to presuppose what I have al ready said. The sin of the first man made such a waste in us, and produced in us such corruption, that from that time we are nothing but flesh and sin. God says, "my spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh;* be cause all his being, both spi ritual and corporal, is infected with sin. His soul is become flesh, it is sensual like the flesh, it is blind like the flesh, it seeks only the appetites of the flesh, it is carnal and terrestial like the flesh; it is all depraved and stripped of its righteousness; it is turned aside from its first ways; it has no longer any but impure, sensual and lewd desires; in a word, it has no longer any of the features or resemblance of God.

• Non pennanebit spiritus meus in homine in selenium, quia caro est. Gen. vi, 3.

Q. I would like to have still more li^ht upon this matter.

A. Man is so depraved in his corrupt nature, that he has no inclinations but to evil arid sin, and these inclinations are so strong in him, by the misery and venom of original sin, that he is like an abyss and bottomless pit of sin, carrying in himself the principle, not only of one sin or two, but of all the sins that can be committed.

Q. Alas! what misery! and how can we glory in our flesh ? If the Scripture forbids pride to man, because he is dust and ashes,* how much more

• Quid superbit terra et cinis ? Eccli. x, 9.

should it forbid pride to the flesh, which is all infected by sin?

A. This is what we are.