ictions, even as
she had in mundane affairs.

"I always, if possible, avoid controversial disputes: whenever I cannot
do it, they are very short" (she wrote to her daughter in October,
1755). "I ask my adversary if he believes in the Scripture? When that is
answered affirmatively their church may be proved, by a child of ten
years old, contradictory to it, in their most important points. My
second question is, if they think St. Peter and St. Paul knew the true
Christian religion? The constant reply is, O yes. Then say I, purgatory,
transubstantiation, invocation of saints, adoration of the Virgin,
relics (of which they might have had a cartload), the observation of
Lent, is no part of it, since they neither taught nor practised any of
these things. Vows of celibacy are not more contrary to nature, than to
the positive precept of St. Paul. He mentions a very common case, in
which people are obliged, by conscience, to marry. No mortal can promise
that case shall never be theirs, which depends on the disposition of the
body as much as a fever; and 'tis as reasonable to engage never to feel
the one as the other. He tells us, the marks of the Holy Spirit are
charity, humility, truth, and long suffering. Can anything be more
uncharitable than damning eternally so many millions for not believing
what they never heard? or prouder than calling their head a Vice-god?
Pious frauds are avowedly permitted, and persecution applauded: these
maxims cannot be dictated by the spirit of peace, which is so warmly
preached in the Gospel. The creeds of the apostles, and council of Nice,
do not speak of the mass, or real presence, as articles of belief; and
Athanasius asserts, whosoever believes according to them shall be saved.
Jesus Christ, in answer to the lawyer, bids him love God above all
things, and his neighbour as himself, as all that is necessary to
salvation. When he describes the last judgment, he does not examine what
sect, or what church, men were of, but how far they had been beneficent
to mankind. Faith cannot determine reward or punishment, being
involuntary, and only the consequence of conviction: we do not believe
what we please, but what appears to us with the face of truth. As I do
not mistake exclamation, invective, or ridicule for argument, I never
recriminate on the lives of their popes and cardinals, when they urge
the character of Henry the Eighth; I only answer, good actions are often
done by all men through inter