d in His plan, in order that
He might have somebody to admire and glorify Him in His works. But by
these intentions has not God visibly missed His end?

1. According to you, it would always be impossible for man to know his
God, and he would be kept in the most invincible ignorance of the Divine
essence.

2. A being who has no equals, can not be susceptible of glory. Glory can
result but from the comparison of his own excellence with that of
others.

3. If God by Himself is infinitely happy and is sufficient unto Himself,
why does He need the homage of His feeble creatures?

4. In spite of all His works, God is not glorified; on the contrary, all
the religions of the world show Him to us as perpetually offended; their
great object is to reconcile sinful, ungrateful, and rebellious man with
his wrathful God.

L.--GOD IS NOT MADE FOR MAN, NOR MAN FOR GOD.

If God is infinite, He is created still less for man, than man is for
the ants. Would the ants of a garden reason pertinently with reference
to the gardener, if they should attempt to occupy themselves with his
intentions, his desires, and his projects? Would they reason correctly
if they pretended that the park of Versailles was made but for them, and
that a fastidious monarch had had as his only object to lodge them
superbly? But according to theology, man in his relation to God is far
beneath what the lowest insect is to man. Thus by the acknowledgment of
theology itself, theology, which does but occupy itself with the
attributes and views of Divinity, is the most complete of follies.

LI.--IT IS NOT TRUE THAT THE OBJECT OF THE FORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE WAS
TO RENDER MEN HAPPY.

It is pretended, that in forming the universe, God had no object but to
render man happy. But, in a world created expressly for him and governed
by an all-mighty God, is man after all very happy? Are his enjoyments
durable? Are not his pleasures mingled with sufferings? Are there many
people who are contented with their fate? Is not mankind the continual
victim of physical and moral evils? This human machine, which is shown
to us as the masterpiece of the Creator's industry, has it not a
thousand ways of deranging itself? Would we admire the skill of a
mechanic, who should show us a complicated machine, liable to be out of
order at any moment, and which would after a while destroy itself?

LII.--WHAT IS CALLED PROVIDENCE IS BUT A WORD VOID OF SENSE.

We call Prov