nd the judges
and audience concluded it to be no more.

Three other points, on which the Bonzas more insisted, were thought to be
more solid, and of greater consequence. The first was proposed in this
manner: "Either God foresaw that Lucifer and his accomplices would
revolt, and be damned eternally, or he foresaw it not. If he had no
foresight of it, his prescience did not extend so far as you would have
us to believe; but if he foresaw it, the consequence is worse, that he
did not hinder this revolt, which had prevented their damnation. Your God
being, as you say, the fountain of all goodness, must now be acknowledged
by you for the original cause of so much evil. Thus you are forced," said
the Bonza, "to confess, either ignorance or malice in your God."

Xavier was so much amazed to hear a Bonza reasoning like a schoolman,
that turning to Edward de Gama, who was by him, "See," says he softly
in Portuguese, that he might not be understood by the Japonians, "see
how the devil has sharpened the wit of these his advocates." In the mean
time, one of the Bonzas coming up to the charge, said, according to the
same principle, "That if God had foreknown that Adam would sin, and cast
down, together with himself, his whole progeny into an abyss of miseries,
why did he create him? At least, when our first father was ready to eat
of the forbidden fruit, why did not that omnipotent hand, which gave him
being, annihilate him at the same moment?"

A third Bonza, taking the word, urged him with another argument: "If our
evil be as ancient as the world," said he, subtilely, "why did God let so
many ages pass away without giving it a remedy? Why did he not descend
from heaven, and make himself man, to redeem human kind, by his death and
sufferings, as soon as ever man was guilty? To what degree did those
first men sin, to become unworthy of such a favour? And what has been the
merit of their descendants, that they should be more favourably treated
than their predecessors?"

These difficulties did not appear new to Xavier, who was very learned,
and who had read whatsoever the fathers and school divines had said
concerning them. He answered, without doubt, according to their doctrine;
but the Portuguese, who relates the objections, durst not undertake to
write the solutions of them, if we will believe himself, because they
surpassed the understanding of a merchant. The Bonzas made many replies,
to all which the Father gave the proper s