nd, which in health
we call uncertainty, and which we rarely experience when our frame is
in its ordinary condition. We do not then reason justly, when our
frame is not in a condition to leave our mind subject to incredulity.

What, then, is to be done, when we would calm our mind, when we wish
to reflect, even for an instant? Let reason be our guide, and we shall
soon arrive at that mode of thinking which shall be advantageous to
ourselves. In effect, Madam, how can a God who is just, good, and
reasonable, be irritated by the manner in which we shall think, seeing
that our thoughts are always involuntary, and that we cannot believe
as we would, but as our convictions increase, or become weakened? Man
is not, then, for one instant, the master of his ideas, which are
every moment excited by objects over which he has no control, and
causes which depend not on his will or exertions. St. Augustine
himself bears testimony to this truth: "There is not," says he, "one
man who is at all times master of that which presents itself to his
spirit." Have we not, then, good reason to conclude, that our thoughts
are entirely indifferent to God, seeing they are excited by objects
over which we have no control, and, by consequence, that they cannot
be offensive to the Deity?

If our teachers pique themselves on their principles, they ought to
carry along with them this truth, that a just God cannot be offended
by the changes which take place in the minds of his creatures. They
ought to know that this God, if he is wise, has no occasion to be
troubled with the ideas that enter the mind of man; that if they do
not comprehend all his perfections, it is because their comprehension
is limited. They ought to recollect, that if God is all-powerful, his
glory and his power cannot be affected by the opinions and ideas of
weak mortals, any more than the notions they form of him can alter his
essential attributes. In fine, if our teachers had not made it a duty
to renounce common sense, and to close with notions that carry in
their consequences the contradictory evidence of their premises, they
would not refuse to avow that God would be the most unjust, the most
unreasonable, the most cruel of tyrants, if he should punish beings
whom he himself created imperfect, and possessed of a deficiency of
reason and common sense.

Let us reflect a little longer, and we shall find that the theologians
have studied to make of the Divinity a ferocious maste