secretly bestows his invisible grace on those whom he has selected to
fill the office of the holy priesthood. According to the Catholic
religion, God gives to the priests the power of making God himself, as
we have shown above; a privilege which without doubt cannot be
sufficiently admired. With respect to the sensible effects of this
sacrament, and of the visible grace which it confers, they are
enabled, by the help of some words and certain ceremonies, to change a
profane man into one that is sacred; that is to say, who is not
profane any longer. By this spiritual metamorphosis, this man becomes
capable of enjoying considerable revenues without being obliged to do
any thing useful for society. On the contrary, heaven itself confers
on him the right of deceiving, of annoying, and of pillaging the
profane citizens, who labor for his ease and luxury.
Finally, _Marriage_ is a sacrament that confers mysterious and
invisible graces, of which we in truth have no very precise ideas.
Protestants and Infidels, who look upon marriage as a civil contract,
and not as a sacrament, receive neither more nor less of its visible
grace than the good Catholics. The former see not that those who are
married enjoy by this sacrament any secret virtue, whence they may
become more constant and faithful to the engagements they have
contracted. And I believe both you and I, Madam, have known many
people on whom it has only conferred the grace of cordially detesting
each other.
I will not now enter upon the consideration of a multitude of other
magic ceremonies, admitted by some Christian sectaries and rejected by
others, but to which the devotees who embrace them, attach the most
lofty ideas, in the firm persuasion, that God will, on that account,
visit them with his invisible grace. All these ceremonies, doubtless,
contain great mysteries, and the method of handling or speaking of
them is exceedingly mysterious. It is thus that the water on which a
priest has pronounced a few words, contained in his conjuring book,
acquires the invisible virtue of chasing away wicked spirits, who are
invisible by their nature. It is thus that the oil, on which a bishop
has muttered some certain formula, becomes capable of communicating to
men, and even to some inanimate substances, such as wood, stone,
metals, and walls, those invisible virtues which they did not
previously possess. In fine, in all the ceremonies of the church, we
discover mysteries, and the vulgar, who comprehend nothing of them,
are not the less disposed to admire, to be fascinated with, and to
respect with a blind devotion. But soon would they cease to have this
veneration for these fooleries, if they comprehended the design and
end the priests have in view by enforcing their observance.
The priests of all nations have begun by being charlatans, castle
builders, divines, and sorcerers. We find men of these characters in
nations the most ignorant and savage, where they live by the
ignorance and credulity of others. They are regarded by their ignorant
countrymen as superior beings, endowed with supernatural gifts,
favorites of the very Gods, because the uninquiring multitude see them
perform things which they take to be mighty marvellous, or which the
ignorant have always considered marvellous. In nations the most
polished, the people are always the same; persons the most sensible
are not often of the same ideas, especially on the subject of
religion; and the priests, authorized by the ancient folly of the
multitude, continue their old tricks, and receive universal applause.
You are not, then, to be surprised, Madam, if you still behold our
pontiffs and our priests exercise their magical rites, or rear castles
before the eyes of people prejudiced in favor of their ancient
illusions, and who attach to these mysteries a degree of consequence,
seeing they are not in a condition to comprehend the motives of the
fabricators. Every thing that is mysterious has charms for the
ignorant; the marvellous captivates all men; persons the most
enlightened find it difficult to defend themselves against these
illusions. Hence you may discover that the priests are always
opinionatively attached to these rites and ceremonies of their
worship; and it has never been without some violent revolution that
they have been diminished or abrogated. The annihilation of a trifling
ceremony has often caused rivers of blood to flow. The people have
believed themselves lost and undone when one bolder than the rest
wished to innovate in matters of religion; they have fancied that they
were to be deprived of inestimable advantages and invisible but saving
grace, which they have supposed to be attached by the Divinity himself
to some movements of the body. Priests the most adroit have
overcharged religion with ceremonies, and practices, and mysteries.
They fancied that all these were so many cords to bind the people to
their interest, to allure them by enthusiasm, and render them
necessary to their idle and luxurious existence, which is not spent
without much money extracted from the hard earnings of the people, and
much of that respect which is but the homage of slaves to spiritual
tyrants.
You cannot any longer, I persuade myself, Madam, be made the dupe of
these holy jugglers, who impose on the vulgar by their marvellous
tales. You must now be convinced that the things which I have touched
upon as mysteries are profound absurdities, of which their inventors
can render no reasonable account either to themselves or to others.
You must now be certified that the movements of the body and other
religious ceremonies must be matters perfectly indifferent to the wise
Being whom they describe to us as the great mover of all things. You
conclude, then, that all these marvellous rites, in which our priests
announce so much mystery, and in which the people are taught to
consider the whole of religion as consisting, are nothing more than
puerilities, to which people of understanding ought never to submit.
That they are usages calculated principally to alarm the minds of the
weak, and keep in bondage those who have not the courage to throw off
the yoke of priests. I am, &c.
LETTER VII.
Of the pious Rites, Prayers, and Austerities of Christianity.
You now know, Madam, what you ought to attach to the mysteries and
ceremonies of that religion you propose to meditate on, and adore in
silence. I proceed now to examine some of those practices to which the
priests tell us the Deity attaches his complaisance and his favors. In
consequence of the false, sinister, contradictory, and incompatible
ideas, which all revealed religions give us of the Deity, the priests
have invented a crowd of unreasonable usages, but which are
conformable to these erroneous notions that they have framed of this
Being. God is always regarded as a man full of passion, sensible to
presents, to flatteries, and marks of submission; or rather as a
fantastic and punctilious sovereign, who is very seriously angry when
we neglect to show him that respect and obeisance which the vanity of
earthly potentates exacts from their vassals.
It is after these notions so little agreeable to the Deity, that the
priests have conjured up a crowd of practices and strange inventions,
ridiculous, inconvenient, and often cruel; but by which they inform us
we shall merit the good favor of God, or disarm the wrath of the
Universal Lord. With some, all consists in prayers, offerings, and
sacrifices, with which they fancy God is well pleased. They forget
that a God who is good, who knows all things, has no need to be
solicited; that a God who is the author of all things has no need to
be presented with any part of his workmanship; that a God who knows
his power has no need of either flatteries or submissions, to remind
him of his grandeur, his power, or his rights; that a God who is Lord
of all has no need of offerings which belong to himself; that a God
who has no need of any thing cannot be won by presents, nor grudge to
his creatures the goods which they have received from his divine
bounty.
For the want of making these reflections, simple as they are, all the
religions in the world are filled with an infinite number of frivolous
practices, by which men have long strove to render themselves
acceptable to the Deity. The priests who are always declared to be the
ministers, the favorites, the interpreters of God's will, have
discovered how they might most easily profit by the errors of mankind,
and the presents which they offer to the Deity. They are thence
interested to enter into the false ideas of the people, and even to
redouble the darkness of their minds. They have invented means to
please unknown powers who dispose of their fate--to excite their
devotion and their zeal for those invisible beings of whom they were
themselves the visible representatives. These priests soon perceived
that in laboring for the Gods they labored for themselves, and that
they could appropriate the major part of the presents, sacrifices, and
offerings, which were made to beings who never showed themselves in
order to claim what their devotees intended for them.
You thus perceive, Madam, how the priests have made common cause with
the Divinity. Their policy thence obliged them to favor and increase
the errors of the human kind. They talk of this ineffable Being as of
an interested monarch, jealous, full of vanity, who gives that it may
be restored to him again; who exacts continual signs of submission and
respect; who desires, without ceasing, that men may reiterate their
marks of respect for him; who wishes to be solicited; who bestows no
grace unless it be accorded to importunity for the purpose of making
it more valuable; and, above all, who allows himself to be appeased
and propitiated by gifts from which his ministers derive the greatest
advantage.
It is evident that it is upon these ideas borrowed from monarchical
courts here below that are founded all the practices, ceremonies, and
rites that we see established in all the religions of the earth. Each
sect has endeavored to make its God a monarch the most redoubtable,
the greatest, the most despotic, and the most selfish. The people
acquainted simply with human opinions, and full of debasement, have
adopted without examination the inventions which the Deity has shown
them as the fittest to obtain his favor and soften his wrath. The
priests fail not to adapt these practices, which they have invented,
to their own system of religion and personal interest; and the
ignorant and vulgar have allowed themselves to be blindly led by these
guides. Habit has familiarized them with things upon which they never
reason, and they make a duty of the routine which has been transmitted
to them from age to age, and from father to child.
The infant, as soon as it can be made to understand any thing, is
taught mechanically to join its little hands in prayer. His tongue is
forced to lisp a formula which it does not comprehend, addressed to a
God which its understanding can never conceive. In the arms of its
nurse it is carried into the temple or church, where its eyes are
habituated to contemplate spectacles, ceremonies, and pretended
mysteries, of which, even when it shall have arrived at mature age, it
will still understand nothing. If at this latter period any one should
ask the reason of his conduct, or desire to know why he made this
conduct a sacred and important duty, he could give no explanation,
except that he was instructed in his tender years to respectfully
observe certain usages, which he must regard as sacred, as they were
unintelligible to him. If an attempt was made to undeceive him in
regard to these habitual futilities, either he would not listen, or
he would be irritated against whoever denied the notions rooted in
his brain. Any man who wished to lead him to good sense, and who
reasoned against the habits he had contracted, would be regarded by
him as ridiculous and extravagant, or he would repulse him as an
infidel and blasphemer, because his instructions lead him thus to
designate every man who fails to pursue the same routine as himself,
or who does not attach the same ideas as the devotee to things which
the latter has never examined.
What horror does it not fill the Christian devotee with if you tell
him that his priest is unnecessary! What would be his surprise if you
were to prove to him, even on the principles of his religion, that the
prayers which in his infancy he had been taught to consider as the
most agreeable to his God, are unworthy and unnecessary to this Deity!
For if God knows all, what need is there to remind him of the wants of
his creatures whom he loves? If God is a father full of tenderness and
goodness, is it necessary to ask him to "give us day by day our daily
bread"? If this God, so good, foresaw the wants of his children, and
knew much better than they what they could not know of themselves,
whence is it he bids them importune him to grant them their requests?
If this God is immutable and wise, how can his creatures change the
fixed resolution of the Deity? If this God is just and good, how can
he injure us, or place us in a situation to require the use of that
prayer which entreats the Deity _not to lead us into temptation_?
You see by this, Madam, that there is but a very small portion of what
the Christians pretend they understand and consider absolutely
necessary that accords at all with what they tell us has been dictated
by God himself. You see that the Lord's prayer itself contains many
absurdities and ideas totally contrary to those which every Christian
ought to have of his God. If you ask a Christian why he repeats
without ceasing this vain formula, on which he never reflects, he can
assign little other reason than that he was taught in his infancy to
clasp his hands, repeat words the meaning of which his priest, not
himself, is alone bound to understand. He may probably add that he has
ever been taught to consider this formula requisite, as it was the
most sacred and the most proper to merit the favor of Heaven.
We should, without doubt, form the same judgment of that multitude of
prayers which our teachers recommend to us daily. And if we believe
them, man, to please God, ought to pass a large portion of his
existence in supplicating Heaven to pour down its blessings on him.
But if God is good, if he cherishes his creatures, if he knows their
wants, it seems superfluous to pray to him. If God changes not, he has
never promised to alter his secret decrees, or, if he has, he is
variable in his fancies, like man; to what purpose are all our
petitions to him? If God is offended with us, will he not reject
prayers which insult his goodness, his justice, and infinite wisdom?
What motives, then, have our priests to inculcate constantly the
necessity of prayer? It is that they may thereby hold the minds of
mankind in opinions more advantageous to themselves. They represent
God to us under the traits of a monarch difficult of access, who
cannot be easily pacified, but of whom they are the ministers, the
favorites, and servants. They become intercessors between this
invisible Sovereign and his subjects of this nether world. They sell
to the ignorant their intercession with the All-powerful; they pray
for the people, and by society they are recompensed with real
advantages, with riches, honors, and ease. It is on the necessity of
prayer that our priests, our monks, and all religious men establish
their lazy existence; that they profess to win a place in heaven for
their followers and paymasters, who, without this intercession, could
neither obtain the favor of God, nor avert his chastisements and the
calamities the world is so often visited with. The prayers of the
priests are regarded as a universal remedy for all evils. All the
misfortunes of nations are laid before these spiritual guides, who
generally find public calamities a source of profit to themselves, as
it is then they are amply paid for their supposed mediation between
the Deity and his suffering creatures. They never teach the people
that these things spring from the course of nature and of laws they
cannot control. O, no. They make the world believe they are the
judgments of an angry God. The evils for which they can find no
remedy are pronounced marks of the divine wrath; they are
supernatural, and the priests must be applied to. God, whom they call
so good, appears sometimes obstinately deaf to their entreaties. Their
common Parent, so tender, appears to derange the order of nature to
manifest his anger. The God who is so just, sometimes punishes men who
cannot divine the cause of his vengeance. Then, in their distress,
they flee to the priests, who never fail to find motives for the
divine wrath. They tell them that God has been offended; that he has
been neglected; that he exacts prayers, offerings, and sacrifices;
that he requires, in order to be appeased, that his ministers should
receive more consideration, should be heard more attentively, and
should be more enriched. Without this, they announce to the vulgar
that their harvests will fail, that their fields will be inundated,
that pestilence, famine, war, and contagion will visit the earth; and
when these misfortunes have arrived, they declare they may be removed
by means of prayers.
If fear and terror permitted men to reason, they would discover that
all the evils, as well as the good things of this life, are necessary
consequences of the order of nature. They would perceive that a wise
God, immutable in his conduct, cannot allow any thing to transpire but
according to those laws of which he is regarded as the author. They
would discover that the calamities, sterility, maladies, contagions,
and even death itself are effects as necessary as happiness,
abundance, health, and life itself. They would find that wars, wants,
and famine are often the effects of human imprudence; that they would
submit to accidents which they could not prevent, and guard against
those they could foresee; they would remedy by simple and natural
means those against which they possessed resources; and they would
undeceive themselves in regard to those supernatural means and those
useless prayers of which the experience of so many ages ought to have
disabused men, if they were capable of correcting their religious
prejudices.
This would not, indeed, redound to the advantage of the priests, since
they would become useless if men perceived the inefficacy of their
prayers, the futility of their practices, and the absence of all
rational foundation for those exercises of piety which place the human
race upon their knees. They compel their votaries always to run down
those who discredit their pretensions. They terrify the weak minded by
frightful ideas which they hold out to them of the Deity. They forbid
them to reason; they make them deaf to reason, by conforming them to
ordinances the most out of the way, the most unreasonable, and the
most contradictory to the very principles on which they pretend to
establish them. They change practices, arbitrary in themselves, or, at
most, indifferent and useless, into important duties, which they
proclaim the most essential of all duties, and the most sacred and
moral. They know that man ceases to reason in proportion as he
suffers or is wretched. Hence, if he experiences real misfortunes, the
priests make sure of him; if he is not unfortunate they menace him;
they create imaginary fears and troubles.
In fine, Madam, when you wish to examine with your own eyes, and not
by the help of the pretensions set up and imposed on you by the
ministers of religion, you will be compelled to acknowledge the things
we have been considering as useful to the priests alone; they are
useless to the Deity, and to society they are often very obviously
pernicious. Of what utility can it be in any family to behold an
excess of devotion in the mother of that family? One would suppose it
is not necessary for a lady to pass all her time in prayers and in
meditations, to the neglect of other duties. Much less is it the part
of a Catholic mother to be closeted in mystic conversation with her
priest. Will her husband, her children, and her friends applaud her
who loses most of her time in prayers, and meditations, and practices,
which can tend only to render her sour, unhappy, and discontented?
Would it not be much better that a father or a mother of a family
should be occupied with what belonged to their domestic affairs than
to spend their time in masses, in hearing sermons, in meditating on
mysterious and unintelligible dogmas, or boasting about exercises of
piety that tend to nothing?
Madam, do you not find in the country you inhabit a great many
devotees who are sunk in debt, whose fortune is squandered away on
priests, and who are incapable of retrieving it? Content to put their
conscience to rights on religious matters, they neither trouble
themselves about the education of their children, nor the arrangement
of their fortune, nor the discharge of their debts. Such men as would
be thrown into despair did they omit one mass, will consent to leave
their creditors without their money, ruined by their negligence as
much as by their principles. In truth, Madam, on what side soever you
survey this religion, you will find it good for nothing.
What shall we say of those fetes which are so multiplied amongst us?
Are they not evidently pernicious to society? Are not all days the
same to the Eternal? Are there _gala_ days in heaven? Can God be
honored by the business of an artisan or a merchant, who, in place of
earning bread on which his family may subsist, squanders away his time
in the church, and afterwards goes to spend his money in the public
house? It is necessary, the priests will tell you, for man to have
repose. But will he not seek repose when he is fatigued by the labor
of his hands? Is it not more necessary that every man should labor in
his vocation than go to a temple to chant over a service which
benefits only the priests, or hear a sermon of which he can understand
nothing? And do not such as find great scruple in doing a necessary
labor on Sunday frequently sit down and get drunk on that day,
consuming in a few hours the receipts of their week's labor? But it
is for the interest of the clergy that all other shops should be shut
when theirs are open. We may thence easily discover why fetes are
necessary.
Is it not contrary to all the notions which we can form of the
goodness and wisdom of the Divinity, that religion should form into
duties both abstinence and privations, or that penitences and
austerities should be the sole proofs of virtue? What should be said
of a father who should place his children at a table loaded with the
fruits of the earth, but who, nevertheless, should debar them from
touching certain of them, though both nature and reason dictated their
use and nutriment? Can we, then, suppose that a Deity wise and good
interdicts to his creatures the enjoyment of innocent pleasures, which
may contribute to render life agreeable, or that a God who has created
all things, every object the most desirable to the nourishment and
health of man, should nevertheless forbid him their use? The Christian
religion appears to doom its votaries to the punishment of Tantalus.
The most part of the superstitions in the world have made of God a
capricious and jealous sovereign, who amuses himself by tempting the
passions and exciting the desires of his slaves, without permitting
them the gratification of the one or the enjoyment of the other. We
see among all sects the portraiture of a chagrined Deity, the enemy of
innocent amusements, and offended at the well being of his creatures.
We see in all countries many men so foolish as to imagine they will
merit heaven by fighting against their nature, refusing the goods of
fortune, and tormenting themselves under an idea that they will
thereby render themselves agreeable to God. Especially do they believe
that they will by these means disarm the fury of God, and prevent the
inflictions of his chastisements, if they immolate themselves to a
being who always requires victims.