of their flattering promises and of their puny threatenings, which are
uttered merely to catch the unwary. You may easily discover that if it
could be true that man shall survive himself, God, in recompensing
him, would only recompense himself for the grace which he had granted;
and when he punished him, he punished him for not receiving the grace
which he had hardened him against receiving. This line of conduct, so
cruel and barbarous, appears equally unworthy of a wise God as it is
of a being perfectly good.
If your mind, proof against the terrors with which the Christian
religion penetrates its sectaries, is capable of contemplating these
frightful circumstances, which it is imagined will accompany the
carefully-invented punishments which God has destined for the victims
of his vengeance, you will find that they are impossible, and totally
incompatible with the ideas which they themselves have put forth of
the Divinity. In a word, you will perceive that the chastisements of
another life are but a crowd of chimeras, invented to disturb human
reason, to subjugate it beneath the feet of imposture, to annihilate
forever the repose of slaves whom the priesthood would inthrall and
retain under its yoke.
In short, Eugenia, the priests would make you believe that these
torments will be horrible,--a thing which accords not with our ideas
of God's goodness; they tell you they will be eternal,--a thing which
accords not with our ideas of the justice of God, who, one would very
naturally suppose, will proportion chastisements to faults, and who,
by consequence, will not punish without end the beings whose actions
are bounded by time. They tell us that the offences against God are
infinite, and, by consequence, that the Divinity, without doing
violence to his justice, may avenge himself as God, that is to say,
avenge himself to infinity. In this case I shall say that this God is
not good; that he is vindictive, a character which always announces
fear and weakness. In fine, I shall say that among the imperfect
beings who compose the human species, there is not, perhaps, a single
one who, without some advantage to himself, without personal fear, in
a word, without folly, would consent to punish everlastingly the
wretch who might have the misfortune to offend him, but who no longer
had either the ability or the inclination to commit another offence.
Caligula found, at least, some little amusement to forsake for a time
the cares of government, and enjoy the spectacle of punishment which
he inflicted on those unfortunate men whom he had an interest in
destroying. But what advantage can it be to God to heap on the damned
everlasting torments? Will this amuse him? Will their frightful
punishments correct their faults? Can these examples of the divine
severity be of any service to those on earth, who witness not their
friends in hell? Will it not be the most astonishing of all the
miracles of Deity to make the bodies of the damned invulnerable, to
resist, through the ceaseless ages of eternity, the frightful torments
destined for them?
You see, then, Madam, that the ideas which the priests give us of hell
make of God a being infinitely more insensible, more wicked and cruel
than the most barbarous of men. They add to all this that it will be
the Devil and the apostate angels, that is to say, the enemies of
God, whom he will employ as the ministers of his implacable vengeance.
These wicked spirits, then, will execute the commands which this
severe judge will pronounce against men at the last judgment. For you
must know, Madam, that a God who knows all will at some future time
take an account of what he already knows. So, then, not content with
judging men at death, he will assemble the whole human race with great
pomp at the last or general judgment, in which he will confirm his
sentence in the view of the whole human race, assembled to receive
their doom. Thus on the wreck of the world will he pronounce a
definitive judgment, from which there will be no appeal. But, in
attending this memorable judgment, what will become of the souls of
men, separated from their bodies, which have not yet been
resuscitated? The souls of the just will go directly to enjoy the
blessings of Paradise; but what is to become of the immense crowd of
souls imbued with faults or crimes, and on whom the infallible
parsons, who are so well instructed in what is passing in another
world, cannot speak with certainty as to their fate? According to some
of these wiseacres, God will place the souls of such as are not wholly
displeasing to him in a place of punishment, where, by rigorous
torments, they shall have the merit of expiating the faults with which
they may stand chargeable at death. According to this fine system, so
profitable to our spiritual guides, God has found it the most simple
method to build a fiery furnace for the special purpose of tormenting
a certain proportion of souls who have not been sufficiently purified
at death to enter Paradise, but who, after leaving them some years
united with the body, and giving them time necessary to arrive at that
amendment of life by which they may become partakers of the supreme
felicity of heaven, ordains that they shall expiate their offences in
torment. It is on this ridiculous notion that our priests have
bottomed the doctrine of _purgatory_, which every good Catholic is
obliged to believe for the benefit of the priests, who reserve to
themselves, as is very reasonable, the power of compelling by their
prayers a just and immutable God to relax in his sternness, and
liberate the captive souls, which he had only condemned to undergo
this purgation in order that they might be made meet for the joys of
Paradise.
With respect to the Protestants, who are, as every one knows, heretics
and impious, you will observe that they pretend not to those lucrative
views of the Roman doctors. On the contrary, they think that, at the
instant of death, every man is irrevocably judged; that he goes
directly to glory or into a place of punishment, to suffer the award
of evil by the enduring of punishments for which God had eternally
prepared both the sufferer and his torments! Even before the reunion
of soul and body at the final judgment, they fancy that the soul of
the wicked (which, on the principle of all souls being _spirits_,
must be the same in essence as the soul of the elect,) will, though
deprived of those organs by which it felt, and thought, and acted, be
capable of undergoing the agency or action of a fire! It is true that
some Protestant theologians tell us that the fire of hell is a
spiritual fire, and, by consequence, very different from the material
fire vomited out of Vesuvius, and AEtna, and Hecla. Nor ought we to
doubt that these informed doctors of the Protestant faith know very
well what they say, and that they have as precise and clear ideas of a
spiritual fire as they have of the ineffable joys of Paradise, which
may be as spiritual as the punishment of the damned in hell.
Such are, Madam, in a few words, the absurdities, not less revolting
than ridiculous, which the dogmas of a future life and of the
immortality of the soul have engendered in the minds of men. Such are
the phantoms which have been invented and propagated, to seduce and
alarm mortals, to excite their hopes and their fears; such the
illusions that so powerfully operate on weak and feeling beings. But
as melancholy ideas have more effect upon the imagination than those
which are agreeable, the priests have always insisted more forcibly on
what men have to fear on the part of a terrible God than on what they
have to hope from the mercy of a forgiving Deity, full of goodness.
Princes the most wicked are infinitely more respected than those who
are famed for indulgence and humanity. The priests have had the art
to throw us into uncertainty and mistrust by the twofold character
which they have given the Divinity. If they promise us salvation, they
tell us that we must work it out for ourselves, "with fear and
trembling." It is thus that they have contrived to inspire the minds
of the most honest men with dismay and doubt, repeating without
ceasing that time only must disclose who are worthy of the divine
love, or who are to be the objects of the divine wrath. Terror has
been and always will be the most certain means of corrupting and
enslaving the mind of man.
They will tell us, doubtless, that the terrors which religion inspires
are salutary terrors; that the dogma of another life is a bridle
sufficiently powerful to prevent the commission of crimes and restrain
men within the path of duty. To undeceive one's self of this maxim, so
often thundered in our ears, and so generally adopted on the authority
of the priests, we have only to open our eyes. Nevertheless, we see
some Christians thoroughly persuaded of another life, who,
notwithstanding, conduct themselves as if they had nothing to fear on
the part of a God of vengeance, nor any thing to hope from a God of
mercy. When any of these are engaged in some great project, at all
times they are tempted by some strong passion or by some bad habit,
they shut their eyes on another life, they see not the enraged judge,
they suffer themselves to sin, and when it is committed, they comfort
themselves by saying, that God is good. Besides, they console
themselves by the same contradictory religion which shows them also
this same God, whom it represents so susceptible of wrath, as full of
mercy, bestowing his grace on all those who are sensible of their
evils and repent. In a word, I see none whom the fears of hell will
restrain when passion or interest solicit obedience. The very priests
who make so many efforts to convince us of their dogmas too often
evince more wickedness of conduct than we find in those who have never
heard one word about another life. Those who from infancy have been
taught these terrifying lessons are neither less debauched, nor less
proud, nor less passionate, nor less unjust, nor less avaricious than
others who have lived and died ignorant of Christian purgatory and
Paradise. In fine, the dogma of another life has little or no
influence on them; it annihilates none of their passions; it is a
bridle merely with some few timid souls, who, without its knowledge,
would never have the hardihood to be guilty of any great excesses.
This dogma is very fit to disturb the quiet of some honest, timorous
persons, and the credulous, whose imagination it inflames, without
ever staying the hand of great rogues, without imposing on them more
than the decency of civilization and a specious morality of life,
restrained chiefly by the coercion of public laws.
In short, to sum all up in one thought, I behold a religion gloomy and
formidable to make impressions very lively, very deep, and very
dangerous on a mind such as yours, although it makes but very
momentary impressions on the minds of such as are hardened in crime,
or whose dissipation destroys constantly the effects of its threats.
More lively affected than others by your principles, you have been but
too often and too seriously occupied for your happiness by gloomy and
harassing objects, which have powerfully affected your sensible
imagination, though the same phantoms that have pursued you have been
altogether banished from the mind of those who have had neither your
virtues, your understanding, nor your sensibility.
According to his principles, a Christian must always live in fear; he
can never know with certainty whether he pleases or displeases God;
the least movement of pride or of covetousness, the least desire, will
suffice to merit the divine anger, and lose in one moment the fruits
of years of devotion. It is not surprising that, with these frightful
principles before them, many Christians should endeavor to find in
solitude employment for their lugubrious reflections, where they may
avoid the occasions that solicit them to do wrong, and embrace such
means as are most likely, according to their notions of the likelihood
of the thing, to expiate the faults which they fancy might incur the
eternal vengeance of God.
Thus the dark notions of a future life leave those only in peace who
think slightly upon it; and they are very disconsolate to all those
whose temperament determines them to contemplate it. They are but the
atrocious ideas, however, which the priests study to give us of the
Deity, and by which they have compelled so many worthy people to throw
themselves into the arms of incredulity. If some libertines, incapable
of reasoning, abjure a religion troublesome to their passions, or
which abridges their pleasures, there are very many who have maturely
examined it, that have been disgusted with it, because they could not
consent to live in the fears it engendered, nor to nourish the despair
it created. They have then abjured this religion, fit only to fill the
soul with inquietudes, that they might find in the bosom of reason the
repose which it insures to good sense.
Times of the greatest crimes are always times of the greatest
ignorance. It is in these times, or usually so, that the greatest
noise is made about religion. Men then follow mechanically, and
without examination, the tenets which their priests impose on them,
without ever diving to the bottom of their doctrines. In proportion as
mankind become enlightened, great crimes become more rare, the manners
of men are more polished, the sciences are cultivated, and the
religion which they have coolly and carefully examined loses sensibly
its credit. It is thus that we see so many incredulous people in the
bosom of society become more agreeable and complacent now than
formerly, when it depended on the caprice of a priest to involve them
in troubles, and to invite the people to crimes in 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 inseparable from their nature? If God is good, as we are
assured, notwithstanding the cruelties of which the priests suppose
him capable, is it not more consonant to all our ideas of a being
perfectly good, to believe that he did not create them to sport with
them in a state of eternal damnation, which they had not the power of
choosing, or of rejecting and shunning? Has not God treated the beasts
of the field more favorably than he has treated man, since he has
exempted them from sin, and by consequence has not exposed them to
suffer an eternal unhappiness?
The dogma of the immortality of the soul, or of a future life,
presents nothing consoling in the Christian religion. On the contrary,
it is calculated expressly to fill the heart of the Christian,
following out his principles, with bitterness and continual alarm. I
appeal to yourself, Madam, whether these sublime notions have any
thing consoling in them? Whenever this uncertain idea has presented
itself to your mind, has it not filled you with a cold and secret
horror? Has the consciousness of a life so virtuous and so spotless as
yours, secured you against those fears which are inspired by the idea
of a being jealous, severe, capricious, whose eternal disgrace the
least fault is sure of incurring, and in whose eyes the smallest
weakness, or freedom the most involuntary, is sufficient to cancel
years of strict observance of all the rules of religion?
I know very well what you will advance to support yourself in your
prejudices. The ministers of religion possess the secret of tempering
the alarms which they have the art to excite. They strive to inspire
confidence in those minds which they discover accessible to fear. They
balance, thus, one passion against another. They hold in suspense the
minds of their slaves, in the apprehension that too much confidence
would only render them less pliable, or that despair would force them
to throw off the yoke. To persons terribly frightened about their
state after death, they speak only of the hopes which we may entertain
of the goodness of God. To those who have too much confidence, they
preach up the terrors of the Lord, and the judgments of a severe God.
By this chicanery they contrive to subject or retain under their yoke
all those who are weak enough to be led by the contradictory doctrines
of these blind guides.
They tell you, besides, that the sentiment of the immortality of the
soul is inherent in man; that the soul is consumed by boundless
desires, and that since there is nothing on this earth capable of
satisfying it, these are indubitable proofs that it is destined to
subsist eternally. In a word, that as we naturally desire to exist
always, we may naturally conclude that we shall always exist. But what
think you, Madam, of such reasonings? To what do they lead? Do we
desire the continuation of this existence, because it may be blessed
and happy, or because we know not what may become of us? But we cannot
desire a miserable existence, or, at least, one in which it is more
than probable we may be miserable rather than happy. If, as the
Christian religion so often repeats, the number of the elect is very
small, and salvation very difficult, the number of the reprobate very
great, and damnation very easily obtained, who is he who would desire
to exist always with so evident a risk of being eternally damned?
Would it not have been better for us not to have been born, than to
have been compelled against our nature to play a game so fraught with
peril? Does not annihilation itself present to us an idea preferable
to that of an existence which may very easily lead us to eternal
tortures? Suffer me, Madam, to appeal to yourself. If, before you had
come into this world, you had had your choice of being born, or of not
seeing the light of this fair sun, and you could have been made to
comprehend, but for one moment, the hundred thousandth part of the
risks you run to be eternally unhappy, would you not have determined
never to enjoy life?
It is an easy matter, then, to perceive the proofs on which the
priests pretend to found this dogma of the immortality of the soul and
a future life. The desire which we might have of it could only be
founded on the hope of enjoying eternal happiness. But does religion
give us this assurance? Yes, say the clergy, if you submit faithfully
to the rules it prescribes. But to conform one's self to these rules,
is it not necessary to have grace from Heaven? And, are we then sure
we shall obtain that grace, or if we do, merit Heaven? Do the priests
not repeat to us, without ceasing, that God is the author of grace,
and that he only gives it to a small number of the elect? Do they not
daily tell us that, except one man, who rendered himself worthy of
this eternal happiness, there are millions going the high road to
damnation? This being admitted, every Christian, who reasons, would be
a fool to desire a future existence which he has so many motives to
fear, or to reckon on a happiness which every thing conspires to show
him is as uncertain, as difficult to be obtained, as it is
unequivocally dependent on the fantasies of a capricious Deity, who
sports with the misfortunes of his creatures.
Under every point of view in which we regard the dogma of the soul's
immortality, we are compelled to consider it as a chimera invented by
men who have realized their wishes, or who have not been able to
justify Providence from the transitory injustices of this world. This
dogma was received with avidity, because it flattered the desires, and
especially the vanity of man, who arrogated to himself a superiority
above all the beings that enjoy existence, and which he would pass by
and reduce to mere clay; who believed himself the favorite of God,
without ever taxing his attention with this other fact--that God makes
him every instant experience vicissitudes, calamities, and trials, as
all sentient natures experience; that God made him, in fine, to
undergo death, or dissolution, which is an invariable law that all
that exists must find verified. This haughty creature, who fancies
himself a privileged being, alone agreeable to his Maker, does not
perceive that there are stages in his life when his existence is more
uncertain and much more weak than that of the other animals, or even
of some inanimate things. Man is unwilling to admit that he possesses
not the strength of the lion, nor the swiftness of the stag, nor the
durability of an oak, nor the solidity of marble or metal. He believes
himself the greatest favorite, the most sublime, the most noble; he
believes himself superior to all other animals because he possesses
the faculties of thinking, judging, and reasoning. But his thoughts
only render him more wretched than all the animals whom he supposes
deprived of this faculty, or who, at least, he believes, do not enjoy
it in the same degree with himself. Do not the faculties of thinking,
of remembering, of foresight, too often render him unhappy by the very
idea of the past, the present, and the future? Do not his passions
drive him to excesses unknown to the other animals? Are his judgments
always reasonable and wise? Is reason so largely developed in the
great mass of men that the priests should interdict its use as
dangerous? Are mankind sufficiently advanced in knowledge to be able
to overcome the prejudices and chimeras which render them unhappy
during the greatest part of their lives? In fine, have the beasts some
species of religious impressions, which inspire continual terrors in
their breast, making them look upon some awful event, which imbitters
their softest pleasures, which enjoins them to torment themselves, and
which threatens them with eternal damnation? No!