that the specious objections one can urge
against truth are very useful, and that they serve to confirm and to
illumine it, giving opportunity to intelligent persons to find new openings
or to turn the old to better account. But M. Bayle seeks therein a
usefulness quite the reverse of this: it would be that of displaying the
power of faith by showing that the truths it teaches cannot sustain the
attacks of reason and that it nevertheless holds its own in the heart of
the faithful. M. Nicole seems to call that 'the triumph of God's authority
over human reason', in the words of his quoted by M. Bayle in the third
volume of his _Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_ (ch. 177, p. 120).
But since reason is a gift of God, even as faith is, contention between
them would cause God to contend against God; and if the objections of
reason against any article of faith are insoluble, then it must be said
that this alleged article will be false and not revealed: this will be [97]
a chimera of the human mind, and the triumph of this faith will be capable
of comparison with bonfires lighted after a defeat. Such is the doctrine of
the damnation of unbaptized children, which M. Nicole would have us assume
to be a consequence of original sin; such would be the eternal damnation of
adults lacking the light that is necessary for the attainment of salvation.

40. Yet everyone need not enter into theological discussions; and persons
whose condition allows not of exact researches should be content with
instruction on faith, without being disturbed by the objections; and if
some exceeding great difficulty should happen to strike them, it is
permitted to them to avert the mind from it, offering to God a sacrifice of
their curiosity: for when one is assured of a truth one has no need to
listen to the objections. As there are many people whose faith is rather
small and shallow to withstand such dangerous tests, I think one must not
present them with that which might be poisonous for them; or, if one cannot
hide from them what is only too public, the antidote must be added to it;
that is to say, one must try to add the answer to the objection, certainly
not withhold it as unobtainable.

41. The passages from the excellent theologians who speak of this triumph
of faith can and should receive a meaning appropriate to the principles I
have just affirmed. There appear in some objects of faith two great
qualities capable of making it triumph over reaso