Were we to believe Christians, there could have been no true morality on
earth before the coming of the founder of their sect. They represent
the world is having been plunged in darkness and vice at all times and
places where Christ was unknown. Yet morality was always necessary to
mankind; for, without it, no society can exist. We find, that before
the time of Christ, there were flourishing and virtuous nations, and
enlightened philosophers, who continually reminded mankind of their
duties. The precepts of Socrates, Confucius, and the Gymnosophists
of India, are by no means inferior to those of the Messiah of the
Christians. We find, amongst heathens, innumerable instances of equity,
humanity, temperance, disinterestedness, patience, and meekness, which
flatly contradict the pretensions of the Christians, and prove that,
before Christ was known on earth, virtues flourished, which were for
more real than those he came to teach to men.
Was a supernatural revelation necessary to inform mankind that society
cannot exist without virtue, and that, by the admission of vice,
societies consent to their own destruction? Was it necessary that a God
should speak, to shew that they have need of mutual aid and mutual love?
Was assistance from on High necessary to discover that revenge is an
evil, and an outrage upon the laws, which, when they are just, assume to
themselves the right of retribution? Is not the forgiveness of injuries
connected with this principle? And is not hatred eternalized where
implacable revenge is exercised? Is not the pardoning of our enemies a
greatness of soul, which gives us an advantage over those who offend us?
When we do good to our enemies does it not give us a superiority over
them? Is not such conduct calculated to multiply our friends? Does not
every man, who is desirous to live, perceive that vice, intemperance,
and voluptuousness must shorten the period of life? Has not experience
demonstrated to every thinking being, that vice is injurious and
detestable, even to those who are not free from its empire, and that the
practice of virtue is the only means, of acquiring real esteem and love?
However little mankind may reflect on what they themselves, their true
interests, and the end of society are, they must feel what they ought
to be to each other. Good laws will render them good; and where
these exist, there is no need of flying to heaven for rules for the
preservation and happiness of society. Reason is sufficient to teach us
our duties to our fellow-creatures. What assistance can it receive from
a religion by which it is continually contradicted and degraded?
It is said, that Christianity, far from counteracting morality, is its
chief support, and renders its obligations more sacred, by giving them
the sanction of God. In my opinion, however, the Christian religion,
instead of supporting morality renders it weak and precarious. It cannot
possibly have any solid foundation on the commands of a God, who is
changing, partial, and capricious; and ordains with the same mouth,
justice and injustice, concord and carnage, toleration and persecution.
It is impossible to follow the precepts of a rational morality, under
the empire of a religion, which makes a merit of the most destructive
zeal, enthusiasm, and fanaticism. A religion, which commands us to
imitate the conduct of a despot who delights to ensnare his creatures,
who is implacable in his vengeance, and devotes to flaming destruction
all who have the misfortune to displease him, is incompatible with all
morality. The innumerable crimes with which the Christian, more than any
other religion, has stained itself, have always been committed under the
pretext of pleasing the ferocious God whom the Christians have inherited
from the Jews. The moral character of this God, must, of necessity,
govern the moral conduct of those who adore him.
Hence arises the uncertainty of Christians, whether it be most
conformable to the spirit of their religion to tolerate, or to
persecute, those who differ from them in opinion. The two parties
find themselves equally authorised in modes of conduct which are
diametrically opposite. At one time, Jehovah declares his detestation
of idolaters, and makes it a duty to exterminate them; at another time
Moses forbids his people to speak ill of the God of nations. The Son of
God forbids persecution, after having said that men must be constrained
to enter into his kingdom. Yet, as the idea of a severe and cruel
God makes a much deeper impression than that of a bounteous one, true
Christians have generally thought it their duty to exert their zeal
against those whom they have supposed to be enemies to their God. They
have imagined it impossible to offend him by espousing his cause
with too much ardour. Toleration has seldom been practised, except by
indolent and phlegmatic Christians, of a temperament little analogous to
that of the God whom they serve.
Must not a true Christian, to whose imitation the example of the saints
and heroes of the Old Testament are proposed, become ferocious and
sanguinary? Will he not find motives for cruelty in the conduct of
Moses, who twice caused the blood of Israel to stream, and immolated to
his God more than forty thousand victims? To justify his own, will he
not appeal to the perfidious cruelty of Phineas, Jabel, and Judith? Will
he not see David to be a monster of barbarity, adultery, and rebellion,
which nevertheless does not prevent his being a man after God's own
heart? In short, the whole Bible informs the Christian that his God
is delighted with a furious zeal in his service; and this zeal is
sufficient to close his eyes on every species of crime.
Let us not, then, be surprised to see Christians incessantly persecuting
each other. If they are at any time tolerant, it is only when they are
themselves persecuted, or too weak to persecute others. Whenever they
have power they become the terror and destruction of each other.
Since Christianity first appeared on earth, its different sects have
incessantly quarrelled. They have mutually exercised the most refined
cruelty. Sovereigns, in imitation of David, have espoused the quarrels
of discordant priests, and served God by fire and sword. Kings
themselves have often perished the victims of religious fanaticism,
which tramples on every moral duty in obedience to its God.
In a word, the religion, which boasts of having brought peace on earth,
and good will towards men, has for eighteen centuries caused more
ravages, and greater effusions of blood, than all the superstitions of
heathenism. It has raised walls of separation between the citizens of
the same state. It has abandoned concord and affection from families. It
has made a duty of injustice and inhumanity. The followers of a God, who
was unjustly offended at mankind, became as unjust as he. The servants
of a jealous and vindictive God, conceived it their duty to enter into
his quarrels and avenge his injuries. Under a God of cruelty, it was
judged meritorious to cause the earth to echo with groans, and float in
blood.
Such are the important services which the Christian religion has
rendered to morality. Let it not be said, that it is through a shameful
abuse of this religion, that these horrors have happened. A spirit of
persecution and intolerance is the spirit of a religion ordained by
a God, jealous of his power, a God who has formally commanded the
commission of murder; a God, who, in the excess of his anger, has not
spared even his own Son! The servant of such a God is much surer to
please him by exterminating his enemies, than by permitting them to
offend him in peace. Such a God must necessarily serve as a pretext to
the most destructive excesses. A zeal for his glory is used as a veil
to conceal the passions of all impostors and fanatics who pretend to be
interpreters of the will of heaven; and the enthusiastic hopes to
wash away the greatest crimes by bathing his hands in the blood of the
enemies of his God.
By a natural consequence of the same principles, an intolerant religion
can be only conditionally submissive to the authority of temporal
sovereigns. Jews and Christians cannot be obedient to a temporal
government, unless its laws be conformed to the arbitrary and often
ridiculous commands of their God. But who shall decide whether the laws,
most advantageous to society, are conformed to the will of this
God? Without doubt, his ministers, the confidants of his secrets and
interpreters of his oracles. Thus, in a Christian state, the citizens
must be subject rather to spiritual than temporal government, to
the priest rather than the magistrate. Hence must arise civil war,
bloodshed, proscription, and all that inspires the human breast with
horror.
Such is the support afforded to morality by a religion, the first
principle of which is to admit the God of the Jews, that is, a tyrant,
whose fantastic commands annihilate every rule necessary to the tranquil
existence of society. This God creates justice and injustice, his
supreme will changes good into bad, and vice into virtue. His caprice
overturns the laws which he himself had given to nature. He destroys at
his pleasure the moral relations among mankind. In his own conduct he
dispenses with all duties towards his creatures. He seems to authorise
them to follow no certain laws, except those prescribed to them, in
different circumstances, by the voice of his ministers and prophets.
These, when in power, preach nothing but submission. If an attempt be
made to abridge that power, they preach arms and rebellion. Are they
weak? They preach toleration, patience, and meekness. Are they strong?
They preach persecution, revenge, rapine, And cruelty. They always find
in Holy Writ arguments to authorise these different modes of conduct,
They find in the oracles of their just and immutable God, arguments
amply sufficient to justify actions diametrically opposite in their
nature and offence. To lay the foundation of morality on such a God,
or open books which contain laws so contradictory, is to give it an
unstable base; it is to found it on the caprice of those who speak in
the name of God; it is to found it on the temperament of each one of his
adorers.
Morality should be founded upon invariable rules. A God who destroys
these rules destroys his own work. If God be the creator of man, if he
intends their happiness and preservation, he would have them to be
just, humane, and benevolent, and averse to injustice, fanaticism, and
cruelty.
From what has been said, we may see what we ought to think of those
divines who pretend that, without the Christian religion there could
be neither morality nor virtue among mankind. The converse of this
proposition would much higher approach the truth; and it might be
maintained, that every Christian who imitates his God, and practises all
his commands, must necessarily be an immoral person. If it be said,
that those commands are not always unjust, and that the Scriptures often
breathe benevolence, harmony, and equity, I answer, Christians must have
an inconstant morality, sometimes good and sometimes bad, according
to interest and individuals. It appears that Christians must either be
wholly destitute of true morality, Or vibrate continually from virtue to
vice, and from vice to virtue.
The Christian religion is but a rotten prop to morality. It will not
bear examination, and every man who discovers its defects will be ready
to believe that the morality founded on such a basis can be only a
chimera. Thus we often behold men, who have couched the neck beneath
the yoke of religion, break loose at once and abandon themselves to
debauchery, intemperance, and every kind of vice. Escaping from the
slavery of superstition, they fly to complete anarchy, and disbelieve
the existence of all moral duties, because they have found religion to
be but a fable. Hence, among Christians, the words infidel and libertine
have become synonymous. All these inconveniences would be avoided if
mankind, instead of being taught a theological, were taught a natural
morality. Instead of interdicting intemperance and vice, because
they are offensive to God and religion, they should be prevented, by
convincing man that they are destructive to his existence, and render
him contemptible in society: that they are disapproved and forbidden by
reason and nature, who aim at his preservation, and direct him to take
the path that leads to permanent felicity. Whatever may be the will of
God, and independently of the future rewards and punishments announced
by religion, it is easy to prove to every man that it is, in this world,
his interest to preserve his health, to respect virtue, acquire the
esteem of his fellow-creatures, and, in fine, to be chaste, temperate,
and virtuous. Those whose passions will not suffer them to attend to
principles so clear and reasonable, will not be more docile to the voice
of a religion, which they will cease to believe the moment it opposes
their misguiding propensities.
Let, then, the pretended advantages which the Christian religion lends
morality be no longer boasted. The principles drawn from revelation
tend to its destruction. We have frequent examples of Christian nations,
whose morals are far more corrupted than those of people whom they
style infidels and heathens. The former are, at least, most subject to
religious fanaticism, a passion calculated to banish justice and all the
social virtues from society.
Christianity creates intolerants and persecutors, who are much more
injurious to society than the most abandoned debauchees. It is, at
least, certain, that the most Christian nations of Europe, are not those
where true morality is most felt and practised. In Spain, Portugal, and
Italy, where the most superstitious sect of Christians has fixed its
residence, people live in the most shameful ignorance of their duties.
Robbery, assassination, debauchery, and persecution, are there carried
to their worst extreme; and yet all men are full of religion. Few
virtuous men exist in those countries. Religion itself there becomes an
accomplice to vice, furnishes criminals with an asylum, and procures
to them easy means of reconciliation with God. Presents, prayers, and
ceremonies, there furnish mankind with a dispensation from the practice
of virtue. Amongst nations, who boast of possessing Christianity in
all its purity, religion has so entirely absorbed the attention of its
sectaries, that morality enters not into their thought; and they think
they fulfil all their duties by a scrupulous observation of the minutiae
of superstitious ceremonies, whilst they are strangers to all social
affections, and labour for the destruction of human happiness.