eir imperfect notions, in the false and incorrect
language of the vulgar. We must not be imposed upon by this solution,
which our doctors regard as triumphant, and which they so frequently
employ when it becomes necessary to justify the Bible against the
ignorance and vulgarities contained therein. We answer them, that a
God who knows every thing, and can perform every thing, might by a
single word have rectified the false notions of the people he wished
to enlighten, and enabled them to know the nature of bodies more
perfectly than the most able men who have since appeared. If it be
replied that revelation is not intended to render men learned, but to
make them pious, I answer that revelation was not sent to establish
false notions; that it would be unworthy of God to borrow the language
of falsehood and ignorance; that the knowledge of nature, so far from
being an injury to piety, is, by the avowal of divines, the most
proper study to display the greatness of God. They tell us that
religion would be unmovable, were it conformable to true knowledge;
that we should have no objections to make to the recital of Moses, nor
to the philosophy of the Holy Scriptures, if we found nothing but what
was continually confirmed by experience, astronomy, and the
demonstrations of geometry.

To maintain a contrary opinion, and to say that God is pleased in
confounding the knowledge of men and in rendering it useless, is to
pretend that he is pleased with making us ignorant and changeable, and
that he condemns the progress of the human mind, although we ought to
suppose him the author of it. To pretend that God was obliged in the
Scriptures to conform himself to the language of men, is to pretend
that he withdrew his assistance from those he wished to enlighten, and
that he was unable of rendering them susceptible of comprehending the
language of truth. This is an observation not to be lost sight of in
the examination of revelation, where we find in each page that God
expresses himself in a manner quite unworthy of the Deity. Could not
an omnipotent God, instead of degrading himself, instead of
condescending to speak the language of ignorance, so far enlighten
them as to make them understand a language more true, more noble, and
more conformable to the ideas which are given us of the Deity? An
experienced master by degrees enables his scholars to understand what
he wishes to teach them, and a God ought to be able to communicate to
the