these questions by the mere ideas which our reason presents to us; and yet these questions bear on the first principles of reason.

The human mind encounters mysteries, therefore, on every side, when it would consult nothing but reason; because it everywhere finds limits beyond which its weakness does not allow it to pass. What course, then, shall a reasonable man take on the whole of this matter? Between two contrary truths shall he give a preference to one of the two? But in so doing he would offend against his reason itself, since his mind perceives them both with equal certainty. Or shall he determine to deny them both, because the method of reconciling them is unknown to him? This would be to abandon the certain for the uncertain; and such a resolution, still more extreme and more absurd than the former, is not even in his power, since evidence has the entire authority over his consent. Must he not then, as I have already said, of necessity be contented to enjoy his present possessions, and hope to acquire hereafter those of which he is in want? The more reasonable he is, the more readily will he take that course; and, without becoming incredulous as to those things which are within the jurisdiction of his reason, will pronounce only on what he knows, and suspend his judgment regarding what he knows not.

Why, then, should he not observe the same

rule in respect to the mysteries of religion, for which it appears the will of Providence to prepare him by means of those which arrest him even in matters that are the objects of his reason? The contest, accordingly, which arises, not between our mind and our mind, but between human reason and Divine authority, is still less difficult to terminate. The reason which troubles and perplexes him is the reason of a man; and the authority which he resists is the authority of God, who is the fountain of all reason, of all light, and of all truth, and who consequently never can deceive him. Is it not sufficient for us to know in general, that nothing of all which He announces to us can be really contrary to reason; I mean, to that supreme reason which God possesses in all its plenitude? I am ignorant, indeed, how that which he reveals to me accords perfectly with this reason; but I know, at least, and cannot doubt, that this agreement is not only possible, but real and unquestionable, since it is impossible that God should be contradictory to himself. Is it requisite for me to know more, in order to surrender myself to his authority, by a submission not only necessary but reasonable, and even glorious for the human mind, which never duly exercises its faculties except when it prefers the knowledge of God to that of man?

You will bring back your opponents, then, to

the simplest and the most evident of all principles; namely, to this truth, that God knows what man cannot comprehend, and that he has an idea of himself infinitely more perfect than that which he gives to our minds in the course of our present life. It is a thought familiar to all men from their birth, and of which they do not require to be told, that the being of God is above their understanding. This is one of the truths which you will find established among all nations. It makes a figure even in fable; and there is not a religion, however absurd it may be in other points, which has not acknowledged that the nature and the operations of God are beyond the grasp of the human mind. We do not meet with one which does not take for granted things incredible, or, at least, incomprehensible to our reason with regard to the Divinity. It would seem as if all nations were agreed in considering this as an essential character of every religion; and they have all, in like manner, believed it to be a present from Heaven, and that it was necessary for God himself to teach men what he is, and how he will be honoured. Those prodigies, or miracles, which they have ascribed to Divinity, prove their universal admission of this principle, that God can do more than men can understand. Now, if his power surpass the measure of our faculties, why may not his being, from which his power

itself is derived, likewise be above our conception? But it is not necessary to prove this consequence by argument, since it will be easy to shew that all religions have equally assumed the one truth and the other.

Perhaps it will be still further insisted upon and argued, that if the mysteries of our faith were only obscure and covered with clouds, the homage which they exact from our feeble reason would be less difficult to pay; but that several of them contain, not an obscurity impenetrable to our minds, but a clear and manifest contradiction; and, therefore, we ought not to presume that it is God himself who has revealed, as the author of this religion, what is thus directly contrary to the ideas which he gives us, as the author of reason.

But this objection has been anticipated by shewing how, according to the same form of argument, we might prove also that God is not even the author of human reason, since he does not inform it how to resolve those inexplicable difficulties, and to solve those insoluble contradictions, which it finds in the matters most fully within its reach; and as it affords a solid answer to this argument to prove that God has the absolute power of bestowing more or less capacity of intellect, and of limiting it as he pleases, so that no conclusion can be drawn from the defects of a finite understanding

against the perfection of infinite reason which dwells in the Deity alone; so the reasonings, which we sometimes hear, on the pretended contradictions said to be discovered in our mysteries, are open exactly to the same answer; and the weakness or imperfection of our knowledge resolves the second difficulty not less than the first.

In truth, this reasoning is always faulty; because it takes for a principle the point which is in question. They who adopt it assume for certain, evident, and incontestable, that there is an absolute contradiction, and, as it were, an irreconcilable war between the two truths which are brought together in these our mysteries. But in order to judge whether this contradiction, which they bring forward with so much care, be real, or whether it be only apparent, we ought to have an idea not only clear, but full and perfect, and even equally extensive with its object, of those things between which it is sought. Thus, with respect to the Trinity, it would be necessary to conceive of God, or rather to comprehend him as he conceives and comprehends himself. Nor does the matter rest here; for to this must be joined a notion equally distinct and equally complete of the term persons, since by this alone should we know whether it be really repugnant to the unity of the infinitely perfect Being to include three persons. But as long as we con

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