I can see these
contradictions with such absolute clearness that I would stake my
life, and, consequently, my eternal salvation, upon their reality
without a moment's hesitation. In a question of this kind there can
be none of those subterfuges which involve all moral and political
opinions in so much doubt. I do not admire either Philip II. or Pius
V., but if I had no material reasons for disbelieving the Catholic
creed, the atrocities of the former and the faggots of the latter
would not be obstacles to my faith.
Many eminent minds have on various occasions hinted to me that I
should never have broken away from Catholicism if I had not formed so
narrow a view of it; or if, to put it in another way, my teachers
had not given me this narrow view of it. Some people hold St.
Sulpice partially responsible for my incredulity, and reproach that
establishment upon the one hand with having inspired me with too
complete a trust in a scholasticism which implied an exaggerated
rationalism, and, upon the other, with having required me to admit as
necessary to salvation the _suimmum_ of orthodoxy, thus inordinately
increasing the amount of sustenance to be swallowed, while they
narrowed in undue proportions the orifice through which it was
to pass. This is very unfair. The directors of St. Sulpice, in
representing Christianity in this light, and by being so open as to
the measure of belief required, were simply acting like honest men.
They were not the persons who would have added the gratifying _est de
fide_ after a number of untenable propositions.
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