the hope of thereby
meriting heaven.

Religion is consoling only to those who have no embarrassment about
it; the indefinite and vague recompense which it promises, without
giving ideas of it, is made to deceive those who make no reflections
on the impatient, variable, false, and cruel character which this
religion gives of its God. But how can it make any promises on the
part of a God whom it represents as a tempter, a seducer--who appears,
moreover, to take pleasure in laying the most dangerous snares for his
weak creatures? How can it reckon on the favors of a God full of
caprice, who it alternately informs us is replete with tenderness or
with hatred? By what right does it hold out to us the rewards of a
despotic and tyrannical God, who does or does not choose men for
happiness, and who consults only his own fantasy to destine some of
his creatures to bliss and others to perdition? Nothing, doubtless,
but the blindest enthusiasm could induce mortals to place confidence
in such a God as the priests have feigned; it is to folly alone we
must attribute the love some well-meaning people profess to the God of
the parsons; it is matchless extravagance alone that could prevail on
men to reckon on the unknown rewards which are promised them by this
religion, at the same time that it assures us that God is the author
of grace, but that we have no right to expect any thing from him.

In a word, Madam, the notions of another life, far from consoling, are
fit only to imbitter all the sweets of the present life. After the sad
and gloomy ideas which Christianity, always at variance with itself,
presents us with of its God, it then affirms, that we are much more
likely to incur his terrible chastisements, than possessed of power by
which we may merit ineffable rewards; and it proceeds to inform us,
that God will give grace to whomsoever he pleases, yet it remains with
themselves whether they escape damnation; and a life the most spotless
cannot warrant them to presume that they are worthy of his favor. In
good truth, would not total annihilation be preferable to such beings,
rather than falling into the hands of a Deity so hard-hearted? Would
not every man of sense prefer the idea of complete annihilation to
that of a future existence, in order to be the sport of the eternal
caprice of a Deity, so cruel as to damn and torment, without end, the
unfortunate beings whom he created so weak, that he might punish them
for faults inse