If, in the economy of all Divine revelations, I am unable to recognize
either the wisdom, the goodness, or the equity of a God; if I suspect
deceit, ambition, selfish designs in the great personages who have
interposed between Heaven and us, I am assured that God has confirmed,
by splendid miracles, the mission of those who have spoken for Him. But
was it not much easier to show Himself, and to explain for Himself? On
the other hand, if I have the curiosity to examine these miracles, I
find that they are tales void of probability, related by suspicious
people, who had the greatest interest in making others believe that they
were sent from the Most High.
What witnesses are referred to in order to make us believe incredible
miracles? They call as witnesses stupid people, who have ceased to exist
for thousands of years, and who, even if they could attest the miracles
in question, would be suspected of having been deceived by their own
imagination, and of permitting themselves to be seduced by the illusions
which skillful impostors performed before their eyes. But, you will say,
these miracles are recorded in books which through constant tradition
have been handed down to us. By whom were these books written? Who are
the men who have transmitted and perpetuated them? They are either the
same people who established these religions, or those who have become
their adherents and their assistants. Thus, in the matter of religion,
the testimony of interested parties is irrefragable and can not be
contested!
CXXVII.--IF GOD HAD SPOKEN, IT WOULD BE STRANGE THAT HE HAD SPOKEN
DIFFERENTLY TO ALL THE ADHERENTS OF THE DIFFERENT SECTS, WHO DAMN EACH
OTHER, WHO ACCUSE EACH OTHER, WITH REASON, OF SUPERSTITION AND IMPIETY.
God has spoken differently to each nation of the globe which we inhabit.
The Indian does not believe one word of what He said to the Chinaman;
the Mohammedan considers what He has told to the Christian as fables;
the Jew considers the Mohammedan and the Christian as sacrilegious
corruptors of the Holy Law, which his God has given to his fathers. The
Christian, proud of his more modern revelation, equally damns the Indian
and the Chinaman, the Mohammedan, and even the Jew, whose holy books he
holds. Who is wrong or right? Each one exclaims: "It is I!" Every one
claims the same proofs; each one speaks of his miracles, his saints, his
prophets, his martyrs. Sensible men answer, that they are all delirious;
that God has not spoken, if it is true that He is a Spirit who has
neither mouth nor tongue; that the God of the Universe could, without
borrowing mortal organism, inspire His creatures with what He desired
them to learn, and that, as they are all equally ignorant of what they
ought to think about God, it is evident that God did not want to
instruct them. The adherents of the different forms of worship which we
see established in this world, accuse each other of superstition and of
ungodliness. The Christians abhor the superstition of the heathen, of
the Chinese, of the Mohammedans. The Roman Catholics treat the
Protestant Christians as impious; the latter incessantly declaim against
Roman superstition. They are all right. To be impious, is to have unjust
opinions about the God who is adored; to be superstitious, is to have
false ideas of Him. In accusing each other of superstition, the
different religionists resemble humpbacks who taunt each other with
their malformation.