It cannot be denied that this great Saint was of a temperament too ardent to allow him to reason connectedly, or to speak with coolness. The tumultuous ideas which presented themselves in crowds to his brain, did not permit him to put them into any thing like an orderly arrangement; he incessantly wandered from his subject, so much so that an imagination, as warm as his own, is necessary in order to follow him in his flights. Perpetually involved in figures, allusions and allegories, it is nearly impossible to guess what are his real sentiments. According to his doctrine he appears to establish in the strongest manner the dreadful doctrine of absolute predestination and reprobation. According to him God grants grace to whom he pleases, and whom he pleases he hardens. If we demand how this doctrine can be reconciled with the goodness and justice of God; or how a God who operates in man the will and the deed, can be offended with the wills and actions of men? He extricates himself by asking if the vessel shall say to him who made it, why hast thou fashioned me thus? Thus St. Paul, and after him all Christian doctors, explain the conduct of a God, whom they pretend to love, at the same time that they hold him up as a tyrant, who is not accountable for his most unjust caprices, and despot-like is restrained by no rule! St. Paul being divinely inspired should have taught us something of the nature of the soul, an object which so embarrasses alt philosophers who not being illumined from above, have formed ideas upon this subject, so much at variance with those of our Christian doctors. But far from throwing any light upon this important matter, our Apostle, who appears strongly tinctured with the platonic philosophy so universally taught in his time, distinguishes the body, soul and spirit, and thus obscures the thing still more. But it is the essense of theology to confound every thing, and the interest of theologians to plunge mankind into a labyrinth, from which nothing but faith can extricate them. CHAPTER XX. Of Faith, in what this Virtue consists