ed to
regard him as the most unjust of tyrants, as the most partial of
fathers, as the most fantastic of princes, and, in a word, as a being
the most to be feared and the least worthy of love that the
imagination could devise. We are informed that the God who created all
men has been unwilling to be known except to a very small number of
them, and that while this favored portion exclusively enjoyed the
benefits of his kindness, all the others were objects of his anger,
and were only created by him to be left in blindness for the very
purpose of punishing them in the most cruel manner. We see these
pernicious characteristics of the Divinity penetrating the entire
economy of the Christian religion; we find them in the books which are
pretended to be inspired, and we discover them in the dogmas of
predestination and grace. In a word, every thing in religion announces
a despotic God, whom his disciples vainly attempt to represent to us
as just, while all that they declare of him only proves his injustice,
his tyrannical caprices, his extravagances, so frequently cruel, and
his partiality, so pernicious to the greater portion of the human
race. When we exclaim against conduct which, in the eyes of all
reasonable men, must appear so excessively capricious, it is expected
that our mouths will be closed by the assertion that God is
omnipotent, that it is for him to determine how he will bestow
benefits, and that he is under no obligations to any of his creatures.
His apologists end by endeavoring to intimidate us with the frightful
and iniquitous punishments that he reserves for those who are so
audacious as to murmur.

It is easy to perceive the futility of these arguments. Power, I do
contend, can never confer the right of violating equity. Let a
sovereign be as powerful as he may, he is not on that account less
blamable when in rewards and punishments he follows only his caprice.
It is true, we may fear him, we may flatter him, we may pay him
servile homage; but never shall we love him sincerely; never shall we
serve him faithfully; never shall we look up to him as the model of
justice and goodness. If those who receive his kindness believe him to
be just and good, those who are the objects of his folly and rigor
cannot prevent themselves from detesting his monstrous iniquity in
their hearts.

If we be told that we are only as worms of earth relatively to God, or
that we are only like a vase in the hands of a potter, I re