s, in a God filled
with implacable fury?

62.

Divine justice, as stated by our divines, is undoubtedly a quality very
proper to cherish in us the love of the Divinity. According to the ideas
of modern theology, it is evident, that God has created the majority of
men, with the sole view of putting them in a fair way to incur eternal
punishment. Would it not have been more conformable to goodness, reason,
and equity, to have created only stones or plants, and not to have created
sensible beings; than to have formed men, whose conduct in this world
might subject them to endless punishment in the other? A God perfidious
and malicious enough to create a single man, and then to abandon him to
the danger of being damned, cannot be regarded as a perfect being; but
as an unreasonable, unjust, and ill-natured. Very far from composing
a perfect God, theologians have formed the most imperfect of beings.
According to theological notions, God would resemble a tyrant, who, having
put out the eyes of the greater part of his slaves, should shut them up
in a dungeon, where, for his amusement, he would, incognito, observe their
conduct through a trap-door, in order to punish with rigour all those,
who, while walking about, should hit against each other; but who would
magnificently reward the few whom he had not deprived of sight, in
avoiding to run against their comrades. Such are the ideas, which the
dogma of gratuitous predestination gives us of the divinity!

Although men are continually repeating that their God is infinitely good;
yet it is evident, that in reality, they can believe nothing of the
kind. How can we love what we do not know? How can we love a being, whose
character is only fit to throw us into inquietude and trouble? How can we
love a being, of whom all that is said tends to render him an object of
utter detestation?

63.

Many people make a subtle distinction between true religion and
superstition. They say, that the latter is only a base and inordinate fear
of the Deity; but that the truly religious man has confidence in his God,
and loves him sincerely; whereas, the superstitious man sees in him only
an enemy, has no confidence in him, and represents him to himself as
a distrustful, cruel tyrant, sparing of his benefits, lavish of his
chastisements. But, in reality, does not all religion give us the same
ideas of God? At the same time that we are told, that God is infinitely
good, are we not also t