Infinite wisdom and wisdom of Religion.
Contradiction is a bad mark of truth.
Much that is certain is contradicted.
Much that is false passes without contradiction.
Contradiction is not a mark of falsehood, nor the want of contradiction a mark of truth.
There is a pleasure in being in a vessel beaten about by a storm, provided we are certain it will not founder. The persecutions which try the Church are of this kind.
The history of the Church should rightly be called the history of truth.
Those who find difficulties of belief seek an excuse in the unbelief of the Jews. "If it was so clear," say they, "why did not the Jews believe?" And they almost wish the Jews had believed, that they might not be deterred by the example of their refusal. But their very unbelief is the foundation of our faith. We should be much less disposed to believe if they were on our side. We should then have a far more ample pretext. This is the wonderful point, to have made the Jews great lovers of the things foretold, and great enemies of their accomplishment.
What could the Jews, his enemies, do? Receiving him they give proof of him by that reception, for then the Messiah is acknowledged by those to whom was committed the expectation of his coming; rejecting him they prove his truth by that rejection.
On the fact that the Christian Religion does not stand alone.—This is so far from being a reason against believing it the true one that, on the contrary, it proves it to be so.