ence to the powers established by God, not only through fear of their authority, but through an obligation of conscience: to respect our superiors, to bear with our equals, to be affable toward our inferiors, to love all men as ourselves. It alone is capable of forming good citizens, faithful subjects, patient servants, humble masters, incorruptible magistrates, clement princes, and zealous friends. It alone renders the honour of marriage inviolable, secures the peace of families, and maintains the tranquillity of states. It not only checks usurpations, but it prohibits even the desire of other's property; it not only requires us not to view with an envious eye the prosperity of our brother, but it commands us to share our own riches with him, if need require; it not only forbids to attempt his life, but it requires us to do good, even to those who injure us; to bless those who curse us, and to be all only of one heart and of one mind. Give me, said St. Augustine, formerly, to the heathens of his time, a kingdom all composed of people of this kind: good God, what peace! what felicity! what a representation of heaven upon the earth! Have all the ideas of philosophy ever come near to the plan of this heavenly republic? And is it not true, that if a God hath spoken to men, to lay open to them the ways of salvation, he could never have held any other language?
To all these maxims, so worthy of reason, it is true that religion adds mysteries which exceed our comprehension. But, besides that, good sense should induce us to yield thereon to a religion so venerable through its antiquity, so divine in its morality, so superior to every thing on the earth in its authority, and alone worthy of being believed, the motives it employs for our persuasion are sufficient to conquer unbelief.
First. These mysteries were foretold many ages before their accomplishment, and foretold with every circumstance of times and places; nor are the vague prophecies, referred to the credulity of the vulgar alone, uttered in a corner of the earth, of the same age as the events, and unknown to the rest of the universe. They are prophecies which, from the beginning of the world, have constituted the religion of an entire people; which fathers transmitted to their children as their most precious inheritance; which were preserved in the holy temple as the most sacred pledge of the divine promises: and, lastly, to the truth of which the nation most inveterate against Jesus Christ, and their first depository, still at present bears witness in the face of the whole universe: prophecies, which were not mysteriously hidden from the people, lest their falsehood should be betrayed; like those vain oracles of the Sybils, carefully shut up in the capitol, fabricated to support the Roman pride, exposed to the view of the pontiffs alone, and produced, piece-meal, from time to time, to authorize, in the mind of the people, either a dangerous enterprise or an unjust war. On the contrary, our prophetical books were the daily study of a whole people. The young and the old, women and children, priests and men of all ranks, princes and subjects, were indispensably obliged to have them continually in their hands; every one was entitled to study his duties
