om all the other religions of the earth.

The Christian religion, as the basis of its belief, sets forth an only
God, which it defines as a pure spirit, as an eternal intelligence, as
independent and immutable, who has infinite power, who is the cause of
all things, who foresees all things, who fills immensity, who created
from nothing the world and all it encloses, and who preserves and
governs it according to the laws of his infinite wisdom, and the
perfections of his infinite goodness and justice, which are all so
evident in his works.

Such are the ideas that Christianity gives us of the Divinity. Let us
now see whether they accord with the other notions presented to us by
this religious system, and which it pretends were revealed by God
himself; or, in other words, that these truths were received directly
from the Deity, who concealed them from the remainder of mankind, and
deprived them of a knowledge of his essence. Thus the Christian
religion is founded upon a special revelation. And to whom was the
revelation made? At first to Abraham, and then to his posterity. The
God of the universe, then, the Father of all men, was only willing to
be known to the descendants of a Chaldean, who for a long series of
years were the exclusive possessors of the knowledge of the true God.
By an effect of his special kindness, the Jewish people was for a long
time the only race favored with a revelation equally necessary for all
men. This was the only people which understood the relations between
man and the Supreme Being. All other nations wandered in darkness, or
possessed no ideas of the Sovereign of nature but such as were crude,
ridiculous, or criminal.

Thus, at the very first step, do we not see that Christianity impairs
the goodness and justice of its God? A revelation to a particular
people only announces a partial God, who favors a portion of his
children, to the prejudice of all the others; who consults only his
caprice, and not real merit; who, incapable of conferring happiness
upon all men, shows his tenderness solely to some individuals, who
have, however, no titles upon his consideration not possessed by the
others. What would you say of a father who, placed at the head of a
numerous family, had no eyes but for a single one of his children, and
who never allowed himself to be seen by any of them except that
favored one? What would you say if he was displeased with the rest for
not being acquainted with his featur