exist, would throw into utter
confusion the simplest and clearest perceptions of the human mind.

This supposition is amply confirmed by the conduct of our
ecclesiastics--forgetting what they have told us, that grace is the
gratuitous present of God, bestowed or withheld at his sovereign
pleasure, they nevertheless indulge their wrath against all those who
have not received the gift of faith; they keep up one incessant
anathema against all unbelievers, and nothing less than absolute
extermination of heresy can appease their anger wherever they have the
strength to accomplish it. So that heretics and unbelievers are made
accountable for the grace of God, although they never received it;
they are punished in this world for those advantages which God has not
been pleased to extend to them in their journey to the next. In the
estimation of priests and devotees, the want of faith is the most
unpardonable of all offences--it is precisely that offence which, in
the cruelty of their absurd injustice, they visit with the last rigors
of punishment, for you cannot be ignorant, Madam, that in all
countries where the clergy possess sufficient influence, the flames of
priestly charity are lighted up to consume all those who are deficient
in the prescribed allowance of faith.

When we inquire the motive for their unjust and senseless proceedings,
we are told that faith is the most necessary of all things, that faith
is of the most essential service to morals, that without faith a man
is a dangerous and wicked wretch, a pest to society. And, after all,
is it our own choice to have faith? Can we believe just what we
please? Does it depend upon ourselves not to think a proposition
absurd which our understanding shows us to be absurd? How could we
avoid receiving, in our infancy, whatever impressions and opinions
our teachers and relations chose to implant in us? And where is the
man who can boast that he has faith--that he is fully convinced of
mysteries which he cannot conceive, and wonders which he cannot
comprehend?

Under these circumstances how can faith be serviceable to morals? If
no one can have faith but upon the assurance of another, and
consequently cannot entertain a real conviction, what becomes of the
social virtues? Admitting that faith were possible, what connection
can exist between such occult speculations and the manifest duties of
mankind, duties which are palpable to every one who, in the least,
consults his reas