disproportion between our justice
and that of God as between unity and infinity.
The justice of God must be vast like His compassion. Now justice to the
outcast is less vast and ought less to offend our feelings than mercy
towards the elect.
We know that there is an infinite, and are ignorant of its nature. As we
know it to be false that numbers are finite, it is therefore true that there
is an infinity in number. But we do not know what it is. It is false that it
is even, it is false that it is odd; for the addition of a unit can make no
change in its nature. Yet it is a number, and every number is odd or even
(this is certainly true of every finite number). So we may well know that
there is a God without knowing what He is. Is there not one substantial
truth, seeing there are so many things which are not the truth itself?
We know then the existence and nature of the finite, because we also are
finite and have extension. We know the existence of the infinite and are
ignorant of its nature, be