in this case,
would it be proper for God to grant it to all, that is, always to act
miraculously in respect of all rational creatures? Nothing would be less
rational than these perpetual miracles. There are degrees among creatures:
the general order requires it. And it appears quite consistent with the
order of divine government that the great privilege of strengthening in the
good should be granted more easily to those who had a good will when they
were in a more imperfect state, in the state of struggle and of pilgrimage,
_in Ecclesia militante, in statu viatorum_. The good angels themselves were
not created incapable of sin. Nevertheless I would not dare to assert that
there are no blessed creatures born, or such as are sinless and holy by
their nature. There are perhaps people who give this privilege to the
Blessed Virgin, since, moreover, the Roman Church to-day places her above
the angels. But it suffices us that the universe is very great and very
varied: to wish to limit it is to have little knowledge thereof. 'But', M.
Bayle goes on, 'God has given free will to creatures capable of sinning,
without their having asked him for this grace. And he who gave such a gift
would be more answerable for the unhappiness that it brought upon those who
made use of it, than if he had granted it only in response to their
importunate prayers.' But importunity in prayers makes no difference to
God; he knows better than we what we need, and he only grants what serves
the interest of the whole. It seems that M. Bayle here makes free will
consist in the faculty for sinning; yet he acknowledges elsewhere that God
and the Saints are free, without having this faculty. However that may be,
I have already shown fully that God, doing what his wisdom and his goodness
combined ordain, is not answerable for the evil that he permits. Even men,
when they do their duty, are not answerable for consequences, whether they
foresee them or not.

121. VI. 'It is as sure a means of taking a man's life to give him a silk
cord that one knows certainly he will make use of freely to strangle
himself, as to plant a few dagger thrusts in his body. One desires his
death not less when one makes use of the first way, than when one employs
the second: it even seems as though one desires it with a more malicious
intention, since one tends to leave to him the whole trouble and the whole
blame of his destruction.'