If they do agree on some point, it is only to tell us that human reason, of which God is the author, is depraved; but what is the purport of this coincidence in their opinions, if it be not to tax the Deity with imbecility, injustice, and malignity? For why should God, in creating a reasonable being, not have given him an understanding which nothing could corrupt? They reply to us by saying "that the reason of man is necessarily limited; that perfection could not be the portion of a _creature_; that the designs of God are not like those of man." But, in this case, why should the Divinity be offended by the necessary imperfections which he discovers in his creatures? How can a just God require that our mind must admit what it was not made to comprehend? Can he who is above our reason be understood by us, whose reason is so limited? If God be infinite, how can a finite creature reason respecting him? If the mysteries and hidden designs of the Divinity are of such a nature as not to be comprehended by man, what good can we derive from their investigation? Had God designed that we should occupy our thoughts with his purposes, would he not have given us an understanding proportionate to the things he wished us to penetrate? You see, then, Madam, that in depressing our reason, in supposing it corrupted, our priests, at the same time, annihilate even the necessity of religion, which cannot be either useful or important to us, if above our comprehension. They do more in supposing human reason depraved; they accuse God of injustice, in requiring that our reason should conceive what cannot be conceived. They accuse him of imbecility in not rendering this reason more perfect. In a word, in degrading man they degrade God, and rob him of those attributes which compose his essence. Would you call him a just and good parent, who, wishing that his children should walk by an obscure route, filled with difficulties, would only give them for their conduct a light too weak to find their way, and to avoid the continual dangers by which they are surrounded? Should you consider that the father had adequately provided for their security by giving them in writing unintelligible instructions, which they could not decipher by the weak light he had given them? Our spiritual directors will not fail to tell us that the corruption of reason and the weakness of the human understanding are the consequences of sin. But why has man become sinful? How has the good God permitted his dear children, for whom he created the universe, and of whom he exacts obedience, to offend him, and thereby extinguish, or, at least, weaken the light he had given them? On the other hand, the reason of Adam ought to be, without doubt, completely perfect before his fall. In this case, why did it not prevent that fall and its consequences? Was the reason of Adam corrupted even beforehand by incurring the wrath of his God? Was it depraved before he had done any thing to deprave it?