XXX. PROLEGOMENA. 



As doubt is, therefore, shown to be worse 

 than the chance of hell ; and as to those who will 

 enquire, with sincerity, it may be chans^ed for 

 certitude ; as we have still the choice, Dei 

 gratia, of being' saved, or of being destroyed 

 before us ; and as the ne plus ultra of all human 

 argument, namely authority, proves our inevitable 

 lot is either one of them ; so ought we to choose 

 between the two, while choice is in our power: 

 and the choice lays between submission to 

 authority on the one hand ; and rebellion against 

 it on the other. I am convinced with the Abbe 

 De la Mennais, that la Verit6 est VEtre, and 

 that it can be but one. 



I should not have thus digressed on the 

 terrific alternative of heaven and hell, had I 

 not perceived that nowadays, people have got 

 into a habit of satisfying themselves with some 

 chimerical view of futurity, more conformable 

 to their own wishes than to the revealed truth. 

 They cannot bear, with the atheist, to anticipate 

 nonentity, nor with the Catholic, to face the 

 day of judgment. Therefore they create, laugh- 

 able enough, if it were not lamentable, a little 

 imaginary Christianity of their own, divested of 

 those fearful doctrines which are an essential part 

 of it : and thus a false security is got up, which 

 not only reconciles the worst of crimes to men's con- 

 sciences, but which is more dangerous than down- 



