ht to have created only angels
very docile and submissive. Angels, it is said, are free; some have
sinned; but, at any rate, all have not abused their liberty by revolting
against their master. Could not God have created only angels of the good
kind? If God has created angels, who have not sinned, could he not have
created impeccable men, or men who should never abuse their liberty? If
the elect are incapable of sinning in heaven, could not God have made
impeccable men upon earth?

77.

Divines never fail to persuade us, that the enormous distance which
separates God and man, necessarily renders the conduct of God a mystery
to us, and that we have no right to interrogate our master. Is this answer
satisfactory? Since my eternal happiness is at stake, have I not a right
to examine the conduct of God himself? It is only in hope of happiness
that men submit to the authority of a God. A despot, to whom men submit
only through fear, a master, whom they cannot interrogate, a sovereign
totally inaccessible, can never merit the homage of intelligent beings.
If the conduct of God is a mystery, it is not made for us. Man can neither
adore, admire, respect, nor imitate conduct, in which every thing is
inconceivable, or, of which he can often form only revolting ideas; unless
it is pretended, that we ought to adore every thing of which we are forced
to be ignorant, and that every thing, which we do not know, becomes for
that reason an object of admiration. Divines! You never cease telling us,
that the designs of God are impenetrable; that _his ways are not our
ways, nor his thoughts our thoughts_; that it is absurd to complain of
his administration, of the motives and springs of which we are totally
ignorant; that it is presumption to tax his judgments with injustice,
because we cannot comprehend them. But when you speak in this strain, do
you not perceive, that you destroy with your own hands all your profound
systems, whose only end is to explain to us the ways of the divinity,
which, you say, are impenetrable? Have you penetrated his judgments, his
ways, his designs? You dare not assert it, and though you reason about
them without end, you do not comprehend them any more than we do. If, by
chance, you know the plan of God, which you wish us to admire, while
most people find it so little worthy of a just, good, intelligent, and
reasonable being, no longer say, this plan is impenetrable. If you are as
ignorant of it as we a