But lest we should seem, by too much terror, to drive men away from entering that gate — whereas on the contrary our purpose in this whole book is to kindle the minds of the faithful with a longing for our most sweet and most happy fatherland — I will briefly show that that gate, which on one side is most narrow on account of the eminence and perfection of those virtues, can on account of God's own omnipotence, truth, and mercy be called most wide and easiest of access, if anyone truly desires to enter through it.
And to begin with faith. Faith indeed teaches us to believe things most difficult, placed far above sense and reason, and sublimely exalted above the natural capacity of the Angels themselves; but when we are admonished by the very doctrine of faith that those things are to be believed on the word of God, who cannot lie — not of Angels, not of men — the straits already begin to widen. If faith were to say: Believe that God is at once three and one; believe that the Son of God was made the Son of the Virgin; believe that Christ rose from the dead after three days, immortal by His own power; and believe all these things most firmly because Peter, and Paul, and John, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel said so — I should surely hesitate, nor would I dare to believe men like myself in things so difficult and set above reason. For it is written: Every man is a liar (Ps. 115); and therefore we require so many oaths and so many sureties before we put our trust in men. But when faith says: All these things God has revealed; and neither Peter, nor Paul, nor John, nor the other Apostles and Prophets taught them from their own mind, but taught by God Himself; and they preached the word of God, not their own words — straightway the heart is enlarged and prepared for belief. Moreover, that it is God who spoke through the Apostles and Prophets, the same God has made manifest by so many signs and wonders that it would be foolish — and not merely rash — to refuse to believe. For thus speaks the Apostle to the Hebrews: Which having begun to be declared by the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him, God also bearing them witness by signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and distributions of the Holy Ghost (Heb. 2). And who would deny that the things God speaks are true, since God can in no wise lie — and if He could lie, He would not be God?
But, it is objected, the things proposed for our belief surpass reason. So they do; yet they do not surpass the power and wisdom of God. For this reason St. John says that God is greater than our heart (1 John 3): for He can do what we cannot understand, and His essence and existence are more perfect than our mind can comprehend. If an unlearned man easily believes the philosophers and astronomers when they tell him many seemingly incredible things about the magnitude of the sun and the stars, why should not man easily believe God Himself, whatever He may have willed to reveal, since His wisdom and power are separated by an infinite distance from the little spark of reason with which men are endowed? Those, therefore, who ponder these things feel no straits in believing the things the Church sets before us to be believed.