+ Your slain lambs took not away the sins of the world, but I am the Lamb that take away sins. Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, Moses delivered you not out of captivity, and could not make you really free.

+ St. Augustin laid down, in words, that power should be taken away from sin. But he said this only fortuitously; for it might be that the occasion of this statement had not presented itself. His principles, however, show that, if the occasion presented itself, it was impossible but that he should state this, or, at all events, nothing opposed to it. It is therefore more to the point to be compelled to say it, on the occasion offering itself, than to have said it, the occasion being offered;-the one being of necessity, the other of mere accident. But the two together are all that can be desired.

+

XLVIII. Why God has instituted Prayer :

1. To communicate to his creatures the dignity of causation.*

2. To teach us from whom we derive our virtue.

3. To enable us to acquire a title to other virtues by effort.

+ Object. But we shall believe that there is merit in prayer of itself?+

+ That is an absurdity: for if, having faith, we shall not exercise virtue, how should we then have faith?

"De la causalité." The meaning here seems to be, an influence with the Divine Being, conferred by him upon his creatures. (Transl.) "Mais on croira qu'on tient la prière de soi?"

Is there more distance between unbelief and faith, than between faith and virtue?

:

(In the margin + But for prayer to be acceptable, it should be such as pleases him.)

-+ God can only act in accordance with his promises. He has promised to give holiness in answer to prayer. He has never engaged to hear the prayers of any but the children of promise.

XLIX. + Yet I have left me 7,000 in Israel. I love those worshippers who are unknown to the world, and even to the prophets.*

--

This is an ambiguous term.

Meruit habere redemptorem.

· Meruit tam sacra membra tangere.
Digno tam sacra membra tangere.
Non sum dignus. Qui manducat indignus.

· Dignus est accipere.

Dignare me.

LI. Nature has her perfections, to show that she is the image of God; and her defects, to show that she is only the image.

+ Men not being accustomed to form merit, but only to reward it when formed, judge of God by themselves.

LII. When Augustus had heard that among the

* 1 Kings xix. 18.

children that Herod had put to death under two years of age, was a son of his own, he said, it was better to be a swine of Herod's than a child. Macrob. Lib. 2.*

LIII.

From acquiring, through contempt, an insensibility to interesting objects, we may reach the point of being no longer interested by them.†

These two paragraphs, which somewhat abruptly terminate this interesting section, might have been more suitably included by the French Editor among the "Miscellaneous Thoughts," in a preceding volume. (Transl.)

CHAPTER X.

ARRANGEMENT.

(ORDRE.)

EDITORIAL NOTICE.

66

THERE are a number of notes of Pascal's, dispersed amidst his MSS., relating to the plan, form, and matter of his Apology for Christianity." The greater part bear the title of "Arrangement," (Ordre,) under which title they are here collected by themselves.

The perusal of these notes will plainly show that the plan contemplated by Pascal, though incomplete as to the two great divisions of his proposed work, was by no means so as to its subordinate divisions and details. It will hence also be perceived how impossible it has been to arrange in a strictly methodical order the various materials composing these volumes; and that it was difficult even to approximate to such an arrangement amongst these multifarious fragments. (French Editor.)