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de sa raison personelle, avant de faire un pas au-dela."[246] We think it unnecessary to enter into a detailed discussion of this strange and startling theory, especially as the altered position of the writer in his relation to the Church before his death may be held to indicate that to a large extent it had been abandoned by himself. Nor should we have thought it worthy even of this transient notice, had we not discerned symptoms of an incipient tendency in a similar direction among some writers in the Protestant ranks. It should be remembered by divines of every communion that the rational faculties of man and their general trustworthiness are necessarily presupposed in any Revelation which may be addressed to them; and that in Scripture itself frequent appeals are made to the works of Creation and Providence, as affording at once a body of natural evidence, and a signal manifestation of His adorable perfections. It were a vain thing to hope that _faith in God_ may be strengthened by a spirit of _Skepticism_ in regard to Reason, which constitutes part of His own image on the soul of man. It is but common justice to add that the speculations of Lamennais, so far from being sanctioned, were openly censured, by some of the most distinguished of his fellow-ecclesiastics. Such writers as Valroger, Gioberti, and the late Archbishop of Paris, gave forth their public protest against them, and have thereby done much to vindicate their Church from the imputation of conniving at the progress of Skepticism. Valroger's testimony is strong and decided: "M. de Lamennais pretendait que la raison individuelle est incapable de nous donner la Certitude. Cette pretention est, suivant, nous absurde et funeste. N'est ce pas par notre raison individuelle que la verite-arrive a nous et devient notre bien? Quel moyen plus immediat pourrons-nous avoir de saisir la verite? Quel principe de connaisance ou de Certitude pourrait-on placer entre nous et notre raison? Et comment pourrions-nous l'employer, si ce ne'est avec notre raison? N'est ce pas une contradiction flagrante de vouloir persuader quelque chose a des hommes que l'on a declares incapables de connaitre certainement quoi que ce soit? A quoi bon une methode, une autorite infaillible, un enseignement Divin, si nous n'avons que des facultes trompeuses pour user de ces secours? Nous croyons, nous, que la raison individuelle peut connaitre avec certitude toutes les verites necessaires
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