attentions necessary for him, to see what passes on the earth? Is it not in him that we are, that we live, that we act? And can we shun his looks, or can he even avert them from our crimes? What folly, then, in the freethinker, to suppose that it requires care and observation from the Divinity, if he wishes to remark what passes on the earth! His only employment is to know and enjoy himself.
This reflection admitted, I answer, in the first place, if it become the greatness of God to leave good and evil without punishment or reward, it is then equally indifferent, whether we be just, sincere, friendly, and charitable, or cruel, deceitful, perfidious, and unnatural: God, consequently, does not love virtue, modesty, rectitude, religion, more than debauchery, perjury, impiety, and villany; since the just and the impious, the pure and the impure, shall experience the same lot, and an eternal annihilation equally awaits them all in the grave.
What do I say? God even seems to declare in favour of the impious here against the just. He exalts him like the cedar of Lebanon, loads him with riches and honours, gratifies his desires, and assists his projects; for the impious are in general the prosperous on the earth. On the contrary, he seems to neglect the upright man; he humbles, afflicts, and delivers him up to the falsity and power of his enemies; for disgrace and affliction are the common portion of the good below. What a monster of a Supreme Being, if all must finish with man, and if neither miseries nor rewards, except those of this life, be to be expected!
Is he, then, the protector of adulteries, profanations, and the most shocking crimes; the persecutor of innocence, modesty, piety, and all the purest virtues? Are his favours the price of guilt, and his punishments the recompense of virtue? What a God of darkness, imbecility, confusion, and iniquity does the freethinker form to himself!
What, my brethren! It would become his greatness to leave the world he has created, in a general confusion; to see the wicked almost always prevail over the upright; the innocent crushed by the usurper; the father the victim of an ambitious and unnatural son? From the height of his greatness, God would amuse himself with these horrible transactions, without any interest in their commission? Because he is great, he should be either weak, unjust, or cruel? Because men are insignificant, they should have the privilege of being dissolute without guilt, or virtuous without merit.
O God! if such be the character of thy Supreme Being, — if it be thee whom we adore under such shocking ideas, I know thee no more then as my heavenly Father, my protector, the consoler of my sufferings, the support of my weakness, and the rewarder of my fidelity! Thou art then only an indolent and capricious tyrant, who sacrificest all men to thy vain pride, and hast drawn them from nothing only to serve as the sport of thy leisure or caprice!
