merly triumphedst over through the striking operations of thy power; and by those lively lights which enlighten hearts, more efficacious than all our discourses, destroy every sentiment of pride which may still rise up against the knowledge of thy mysteries.
Part I. — Let us begin with admitting that it is faith, and not reason, which makes Christians; and that the first step exacted of a disciple of Jesus Christ, is to captivate his mind, and to believe what he may not comprehend. Nevertheless, I say, that we are led to that submission by reason itself; that the more even our lights are superior, the more do they point out the necessity of our submission; and that unbelief, far from being the result of strength of mind and of reason, is, on the contrary, that of error and weakness.
In faith, reason hath therefore its uses, as it hath its limits: and as the law, good and holy in itself, served only to conduct to Jesus Christ, and there stopped as at its term; in the same way, reason, good and just in itself, since it is the gift of God, and a participation of the sovereign reason, ought only to serve, and is given to us, for the sole purpose of preparing the way for faith. It is forward, and quits the bounds of its first institution, when it attempts to go beyond these sacred limits.
This taken for granted, let us see which of the two, namely, the believer or the unbeliever, makes the most prudent use of his reason. Submission to things held out to our belief, perhaps suspected of credulity, either on the side of the authority which proposes them; if it be light, it is weakness to give credit to them: or on the side of the things of which they wish to persuade us; if they be in opposition to the principles of equity, of honour, of society, and of conscience, it is ignorance to receive them as true: or, lastly, on the side of the motives which are employed to persuade us; if they be vain, frivolous, and incapable of determining a wise mind, it is imprudence to give way to them. Now, it is easy to prove that the authority which exacts the submission of the believer, is the greatest, the most respectable, and the best established, which can possibly be upon the earth; that the truths proposed to his belief are the only ones conformable to the principles of equity, of honour, of society, and of conscience; and, lastly, that the motives employed to persuade him are the most decisive, the most triumphant, and the most proper to gain submission from the least credulous minds.
When I speak of the authority of the Christian religion, I do not pretend to confine the extent of that term to the single authority of its holy assemblies, in which, through the mouths of its pastors, the church makes decisions, and holds out to all believers the infallible rules of worship and of doctrine. As it is not heresy, but unbelief, which this discourse concerns, I do not here so much consider religion as opposed to the sects which the spirit of error hath separated from the unity, that is to say, as confined to the sole catholic church, but as forming, since the beginning of the
