[4] See what Bayle says, _Dict. Crit._, art. _Origène_, Rem. E., art. _Pauliciens_, Rem. E., F., M., and tom. iij. of the _Réponses aux Questions d'un Provincial_.
What would you say of a father who should give to his children, in the infancy of age, and when they were without experience, the liberty of satisfying their disordered appetites, till they should convince themselves of their evil tendency? Would not such a parent be in the right to feel uneasy at the abuse which they should make of their liberty which he had given them? Would it not be accounted malice in this parent, who should have foreseen what was to happen, not to have furnished his children with the capacity of directing their own conduct so as to avoid the evils they might be assailed with? Would it not show in him the height of madness were he to punish them for the evil which he had done, and the chagrin which they occasioned him? Would it not be to himself that we should ascribe the sottishness and wickedness of his children?
You see, then, the points of view under which this system of men's free will shows us the Deity. This free will becomes a present the most dangerous, since it puts man in the condition of doing evil that is truly frightful. We may thence conclude that this system, far from justifying God, makes him capable of malice, imprudence, and injustice. But this is to overturn all our ideas of a being perfectly, nay, infinitely wise and good, consenting to punish his creatures for sins which he gave them the power of committing, or, which is the same, suffering the Devil to inspire them with evil. All the subtilties of theology have really only a tendency to destroy the very notions itself inculcates concerning the Divinity. This theology is evidently the tub of the Danaides.
It is a fact, however, that our theologians have imagined expedients to support their ruinous suppositions. You have often heard mention made of _predestination_ and _grace_--terrible words, which constantly excite disputes among us, for which reason would be forced to blush if Christians did not make it a duty to renounce reason, and which contests are attended with consequences very dangerous to society. But let not this surprise you; these false and obscure principles have even among the theologians produced dissensions; and their quarrels would be indifferent if they did not attach more importance to them than they really deserve.