"Estrange Theologie de nos jours"

"your doctors. . . .  hold that to love God is not necessary to salvation; and go so far as to maintain that 'this dispensation from loving God is the privilege which Jesus Christ has introduced into the world!'  This, sir, is the very climax of impiety.  The price of the blood of Jesus Christ paid to obtain us a dispensation from loving Him!  Before the incarnation, it seems men were obliged to love God; but since 'God has so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son,' the world, redeemed by him, is released from loving Him!  Strange divinity of our days . . . !"

     Blaise Pascal in the Tenth Provincial, trans. M’Crie (GBWW, 1st ed. (1952), vol. 33, p. 80).  Original French on p. 274 of tom. 5 of the Œuvres ed. Brunschvicg.