but must maintain that a man is pious or impious in his beliefs only in so
far as he is thereby incited to obedience, or derives from them license
to sin and rebel. (48) If a man, by believing what is true, becomes
rebellious, his creed is impious; if by believing what is false he becomes
obedient, his creed is pious; for the true knowledge of God comes not by
commandment, but by Divine gift. (49) God has required nothing from man but
a knowledge of His Divine justice and charity, and that not as necessary to
scientific accuracy, but to obedience.




CHAPTER XIV - DEFINITIONS OF FAITH, THE FAITH, AND THE FOUNDATIONS
OF FAITH, WHICH IS ONCE FOR ALL SEPARATED FROM PHILOSOPHY.

(1) For a true knowledge of faith it is above all things necessary to
understand that the Bible was adapted to the intelligence, not only of the
prophets, but also of the diverse and fickle Jewish multitude. (2) This will
be recognized by all who give any thought to the subject, for they will see
that a person who accepted promiscuously everything in Scripture as being
the universal and absolute teaching of God, without accurately defining what
was adapted to the popular intelligence, would find it impossible to escape
confounding the opinions of the masses with the Divine doctrines, praising
the judgments and comments of man as the teaching of God, and
making a wrong use of Scriptural authority. (3) Who, I say, does not
perceive that this is the chief reason why so many sectaries teach
contradictory opinions as Divine documents, and support their contentions
with numerous Scriptural texts, till it has passed in Belgium into a
proverb, geen ketter sonder letter - no heretic without a text? (4) The
sacred books were not written by one man, nor for the people of a single