y love the most terrible of beings,--the living God, into
whose hands it is dreadful to think of falling,--the God who can
consign to eternal damnation those very creatures who, without his own
consent, would never have existed? Are our theologians aware of what
they say, when they tell us that the fear of God is the fear of a
child for its parent, which is mingled with love? Are we not bound to
hate, can we by any means avoid detesting, a barbarous father, whose
injustice is so boundless as to punish the whole human race, though
innocent, in order to revenge himself upon two individuals for the sin
of the apple, which sin he himself might have prevented if he had
thought proper? In short, Madam, it is a physical impossibility to
love above all things a God whose whole conduct, as described in the
Bible, fills us with a freezing horror. If, therefore, the love of
God, as the Jansenists assert, is indispensable to salvation, we
cannot wonder to find that the elect are so few. Indeed, there are not
many persons who can restrain themselves from hating this God; and the
doctrine of the Jesuits is, that to abstain from hating him is
sufficient for salvation. The power of loving a God whom religion
paints as the most detestable of beings would, doubtless, be a proof
of the most supernatural grace, that is, a grace the most contrary to
nature; to love that which we do not know, is, assuredly, sufficiently
difficult; to love that which we fear, is still more difficult; but to
love that which is exhibited to us in the most repulsive colors, is
manifestly impossible.

We must, after all this, be thoroughly convinced that, except by means
of an invisible grace never communicated to the profane, no Christian
in his sober senses can love his God; even those devotees who pretend
to that happiness are apt to deceive themselves; their conduct
resembles that of hypocritical flatterers, who, in order to ingratiate
themselves with an odious tyrant, or to escape his resentment, make
every profession of attachment, whilst, at the bottom of their
hearts, they execrate him; or, on the other hand, they must be
condemned as enthusiasts, who, by means of a heated imagination,
become the dupes of their own illusions, and only view the favorable
side of a God declared to be the fountain of all good, yet,
nevertheless, constantly delineated to us with every feature of
wickedness. Devotees, when sincere, are like women given up to the
infatuation o