converted." How can
they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are ignorant?
They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God which is like
commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to themselves. True
religion consists in annihilating self before that Universal Being, whom we
have so often provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time; in
recognising that we can do nothing without Him, and have deserved nothing
from Him but His displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an
unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator
there can be no communion with Him.

471. It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they
do it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I had
created this desire; for I am not the end of any, and I have not the
wherewithal to satisfy them. Am I not about to die? And thus the object of
their attachment will die. Therefore, as I would be blamable in causing a
falsehood to be believed, though I should employ gentle persuasion, though
it should be believed with pleasure, and though it should give me pleasure;
even so I am blamable in making myself loved and if I attract persons to
attach themselves to me. I ought to warn those who are ready to consent to a
lie that they ought not to believe it, whatever advantage comes to me from
it; and likewise that they ought not to attach themselves to me; for they
ought to spend their life and their care in pleasing God, or in seeking Him.

472. Self-will will never be satisfied, though it should have command of all
it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without it we
cannot be discontented; with it we cannot be content.

473. Let us imagine a body full of thinking members.

474. Members. To commence with that.--To regulate the love which we owe to
ourselves, we must imagin