as?
That, which excludes all idea, can it be any thing but nothing?

To pretend, that the divine attributes are beyond the reach of human
conception, is to grant, that God is not made for man. To assure us, that,
in God, all is infinite, is to own that there can be nothing common to him
and his creatures. If there be nothing common to God and his creatures,
God is annihilated for man, or, at least, rendered useless to him. "God,"
they say, "has made man intelligent, but he has not made him omniscient;"
hence it is inferred, that he has not been able to give him faculties
sufficiently enlarged to know his divine essence. In this case, it
is evident, that God has not been able nor willing to be known by his
creatures. By what right then would God be angry with beings, who were
naturally incapable of knowing the divine essence? God would be evidently
the most unjust and capricious of tyrants, if he should punish an Atheist
for not having known, what, by his nature, it was impossible he should
know.

30.

To the generality of men, nothing renders an argument more convincing
than fear. It is therefore, that theologians assure us, _we must take the
safest part_; that nothing is so criminal as incredulity; that God will
punish without pity every one who has the temerity to doubt his existence;
that his severity is just, since madness or perversity only can make
us deny the existence of an enraged monarch, who without mercy avenges
himself on Atheists. If we coolly examine these threatenings, we shall
find, they always suppose the thing in question. They must first prove the
existence of a God, before they assure us, it is safest to believe, and
horrible to doubt or deny his existence. They must then prove, that it is
possible and consistent, that a just God cruelly punishes men for having
been in a state of madness, that prevented their believing the existence
of a being, whom their perverted reason could not conceive. In a word,
they must prove, that an infinitely just God can infinitely punish the
invincible and natural ignorance of man with respect to the divine nature.
Do not theologians reason very strangely? They invent phantoms, they
compose them of contradictions; they then assure us, it is safest not
to doubt the existence of these phantoms they themselves have invented.
According to this mode of reasoning, there is no absurdity, which it would
not be more safe to believe, than not to believe.

All children