If the Christian virtues be destitute of solidity, and produce no effect
which reason can approve, we shall find nothing more estimable in a
multitude of incommodious, useless, and often dangerous practices, which
Christians consider as their sacred duties, and by means of which they
are confident of obtaining the pardon and favour of God, and an eternal
abode with him in unspeakable glory and felicity.
The first and most essential duty of Christians is prayer. To continual
prayer their religion attaches its felicity. Their God, whom they
suppose to be overflowing with bounty, refuses to bestow his blessings
unsolicited. He grants them only to importunity. Sensible to flattery,
like the kings of the earth, he exacts an etiquette, and hears no
petitions unless they are presented in a certain form. What should we
say of a father who, knowing the wants of his children, should refuse to
give them necessary food, until wearied out with fervent supplications?
But in another view, does not it imply mistrust of the wisdom of God
to prescribe rules for his conduct? Does it not imply a doubt of his
immutability, to believe he can be prevailed on by his creatures
to alter his designs? If he knows all things, what need is there of
continually informing him what are the dispositions and desires of
his subjects? If he is almighty, how can he be flattered with the
submissions, adorations, and formalities with which Christians prostrate
themselves before him?
In one word, prayer supposes a capricious God, deficient in memory,
voracious of praise, fond of seeing his creatures abased in the dust,
and anxious to receive at every instant the most abject marks of their
submission.
Can these ideas, borrowed from earthly princes, be with propriety
applied to an omnipotent Being, who created the universe for man, and
desires only that he should be happy? Can it be supposed that such a
Being, without equal and without rival, should be jealous of his glory?
Can the prayers of man add glory to a Being beyond comparison superior
to all others? Cannot Christians see, that, in endeavouring to honour
and exalt their God, they only degrade and debase him?
It is also the opinion of Christians, that the prayers of one man may
be serviceable to others. Partial to his favourites, God hears petitions
only from their lips. He listens not to his people, unless their
prayers be offered up to him through his ministers. He becomes a sultan,
accessible only to his ministers, vizirs, eunuchs, and the women of
his seraglio. Hence the millions of priests and cenobites, who have
no business on earth but to raise their idle hands to Heaven, and pray
night and day for its blessings on society. Nations pay dearly for these
important services, and these pious impostors live in splendour and
ease, while real merit, labour, and industry languish in misery.
Under the pretence of devoting himself to prayer and other ceremonies
of his worship, the Christian, particularly in some of the more
superstitious sects, is obliged to remain idle, and stand with arms
across during a great part of the year. He is persuaded that he honours
God by his inutility. Feasts and fasts, multiplied by the interests
of priests and the credulity of the people, often suspended for long
intervals the labours necessary to the subsistence of society. Men fly
to temples to pray when they should stay at home and cultivate their
fields. There their eyes are fed with childish ceremonies, and their
ears are filled with fables and doctrines, of which they can comprehend
nothing. This tyrannical religion makes it a crime for the poor labourer
to endeavour, during consecrated days, to procure subsistence for a
numerous and indigent family. And civil authority, in concert with
religion, punishes those who have the audacity to earn bread, instead of
praying or being idle.
Can reason subscribe to the ridiculous obligation of abstaining from
certain aliments and meats which is imposed by some sects of Christians?
In consequence of these laws, people, who live by their labour, are
forced to content themselves, during long intervals', with dear and
unwholesome provisions, more proper to generate disease than repair
strength.
What abject and ridiculous ideas must they entertain of God, who believe
he can be offended by the quality of the food that enters into the
stomachs of his creatures! Heaven, however, for a certain sum of money
becomes sometimes more accommodating. Priests have been continually
busied in straitening the path of their sectaries, that they might
transgress more frequently; and that the revenue arising from their
transgressions might thus become more ample. All things, even sin
itself, among Christians, contribute to the profit of the priests.
No religion ever placed its sectaries in more complete and continual
dependance on priests, than the Christian. Those harpies never lose
sight of their prey. They take infallible measures for subjecting
mankind, and making all contribute to their power, riches, and dominion.
Having assumed the office of mediator between the heavenly monarch and
his subjects, these priests were looked upon as courtiers in favour,
ministers commissioned to exercise power in his name, and favourites to
whom he could refuse nothing. Thus they became absolute masters of
the destiny of the Christians. They gained establishments and rendered
themselves necessary by the introduction of innumerable practices and
duties, which, though puerile and ridiculous, they had the address
to make their flocks look upon as indispensibly necessary to their
salvation. They represented the omission of these pretended duties as
a crime infinitely greater than an open violation of all the laws of
morality and reason.
Let us not then be surprized, that, in the most zealous, that is to say
the most superstitious sects, we see mankind perpetually infested with
priests. Scarcely are they born, when, under the pretext of washing
away original sin, their priests impose on them a mercenary baptism, and
pretend to reconcile them with a God whom they have as yet been unable
to offend. By means of a few words and magical ceremonies they are thus
snatched from the dominion of Satan. From the tenderest infancy their
education is frequently entrusted to priests, whose principal care is to
instil into them early the prejudices as necessary to the views of
the church. Terrors are now introduced into their minds which increase
during their whole lives. They are instructed in the fables, absurd
doctrines, and incomprehensible mysteries of a marvellous religion. In
one word, they are formed into superstitious Christians, and rendered
incapable of being useful citizens or enlightened men. Only one thing is
represented to them as necessary, which is to be in all things devoutly
submissive to his religion. "Be devout," say his teachers, "be blind,
despise thy reason, attend to Heaven, and neglect earth; this is all thy
God demands to conduct thee to eternal felicity."
To maintain the abject and fanatic ideas with which the priest
has filled his pupils in their childhood, he commands them to come
frequently, and deposit in his bosom their hidden faults, their most
secret actions and thoughts. He obliges them to humiliate themselves at
his feet, and render homage to his power. He frightens the criminals,
and afterwards, if they are judged worthy, he reconciles them to God,
who on the command of his ministers remits their sins. The Christian
sects that admit this practice, boast of it as extremely useful
in regulating the manners and restraining the passions of men; but
experience proves, that the countries in which this usage is most
faithfully observed, are distinguished rather for the dissolution than
the purity of their manners. By such easy expiations they are only
emboldened in vice. The lives of Christians are circles of successive
offences and concessions. The priesthood reap the profit of this
practice, by means of which they exercise an absolute dominion over the
consciences of mankind. How great must be the power of an order of men,
who possess all the secrets of families, can kindle at pleasure the
destructive flame of fanaticism, and open or shut the gates of heaven!
Without the consent of his priests, the Christian cannot participate in
the knowledge of the mysteries of his religion, from which they have a
right to exclude him entirely. This privation, however, he has no great
reason to lament. But the anathemas or excommunications of the priests
generally do a real mischief to mankind. These spiritual punishments
produce temporal effects, and every citizen who incurs the disgrace of
the church is in danger of that of the government, and becomes odious to
his fellow-citizens.
We have already remarked that priests have taken upon themselves the
management of marriages. Without their consent, a Christian cannot,
become a father. He must first submit to the capricious formalities of
his religion, without which his children must be excluded from the rank
of citizens.
During all his life, the Christian is obliged to assist in the
ceremonies of worship under the direction of his priests. When he has
performed this important duty, he esteems himself the favourite of God,
and persuades himself that he no longer owes any thing to society. Thus
frivolous practices take place of morality, which is always rendered
subordinate to religion.
When death approaches, the Christian, stretched in agony on his bed, is
still assailed in those distressful moments by priests. In some sects
religion seems to have been invented to render the bitter death of man
ten thousand times more bitter. A malicious priest comes to the couch
of the dying man, and holds before him the spectacle of his approaching
end, arrayed in more than all its terrors. Although this custom is
destructive to citizens, it is extremely profitable to the priesthood,1
who owe much of their riches to legacies procured by it. Morality is
not quite so highly advantaged by it. Experience proves, that most
Christians live in security and postpone till death their reconciliation
with God. By means of a late repentance, and largesses to the
priesthood, their faults are expiated, and they are permitted to hope
that Heaven will forget the accumulated crimes of a long and wicked
life.