enting the victims
of his wrath, he would punish beings, who could neither endanger his
immoveable power, nor disturb his unchangeable felicity. On the other
hand, the punishments of the other life would be useless to the living,
who cannot be witnesses of them. These punishments would be useless to the
damned, since in hell there is no longer room for conversion, and the
time of mercy is past. Whence it follows, that God, in the exercise of
his eternal vengeance, could have no other end than to amuse himself,
and insult the weakness of his creatures. I appeal to the whole human
race;--is there a man who feels cruel enough coolly to torment, I do
not say his fellow-creature, but any sensible being whatever, without
emolument, without profit, without curiosity, without having any thing
to fear? Confess then, O theologians, that, even according to your own
principles, your God is infinitely more malevolent than the worst of men.

Perhaps you will say, that infinite offences deserve infinite punishments.
I answer, that we cannot offend a God, whose happiness is infinite; that
the offences of finite beings cannot be infinite; that a God, who
is unwilling to be offended, cannot consent that the offences of his
creatures should be eternal; that a God, infinitely good, can neither be
infinitely cruel, nor grant his creatures an infinite duration, solely for
the pleasure of eternal torments.

Nothing but the most savage barbarity, the most egregious roguery, or the
blindest ambition could have imagined the doctrine of eternal punishments.
If there is a God, whom we can offend or blaspheme, there are not upon
earth greater blasphemers than those, who dare to say, that this same God
is a tyrant, perverse enough to delight, during eternity, in the useless
torments of his feeble creatures.

67.

To pretend, that God can be offended at the actions of men, is to
annihilate all the ideas, which divines endeavour to give us, in other
respects, of this being. To say, that man can trouble the order of the
universe; that he can kindle the thunder in the hands of his God; that
he can defeat his projects, is to say, that man is stronger than his God,
that he is the arbiter of his will, that it depends upon him to change
his goodness into cruelty. Theology continually pulls down, with one hand,
what it erects with the other. If all religion is founded upon a God,
who is provoked and appeased, all religion is founded on a palpable
c