self against himself; he cannot support, at the same time, the view of his crimes and that of the punishment which awaits them; that faith, so venerable, and of which he speaks with such contempt, nevertheless terrifies and disquiets him still more than those other sinners, who, without doubting its punishments, yet are frequently not less unfaithful to its precepts; it is a coward, who hides his fear under a false ostentation of bravery. No, my brethren, our pretended free-thinkers give themselves out as men of courage and firmness; examine them narrowly, and they are the weakest and most cowardly of men.
Besides, it is not surprising that licentiousness leads us to doubt of religion: the passions require the aid of unbelief; for they are too feeble and too unreasonable to maintain their own cause. Our lights, our feelings, our conscience, all struggle within us against them: we are under the necessity, therefore, of seeking a support for them, and of defending them against ourselves; for, it is a matter of satisfaction to justify to one's self whatever is pleasing. We would neither wish that passions which are dear to us should be criminal, nor that we should continually have to support the interests of our pleasures against those of our conscience: we wish tranquilly to enjoy our crimes, and to free ourselves from that troublesome monitor which continually espouses the cause of virtue against ourselves: while remorses contest the pleasure of our enjoyments, they must be very imperfectly tasted; it is paying too great a price for guilt, to purchase it at the expense of that quiet which is sought in it: we must either terminate our debaucheries, or try to quiet ourselves in them; and as it is impossible to enjoy peace of mind in them, and next to impossible to terminate them, the only refuge seems that of doubting the truths which disquiet us; and, in order to attain to tranquillity, every effort is used to inculcate the persuasion of unbelief.
That is to say, that the great effort of licentiousness is that of leading us to the desire of unbelief; the horrible security of the unbeliever is coveted; total hardness of heart is considered as a happy state; it is unpleasant to have been born with a weaker and more fearful conscience; the lot of those apparently firm and unshaken in impiety, is envied: while they, in their turn, perhaps a prey to the most gloomy remorses, and vaunting a courage they are far from having, view our lot with envy; for, judging of us from the language we hold upon free-thinking, they take us for what we take them; that is to say, for what we are not, and for what both they and we would wish to be. And it is thus, O my God! that these false heroes of impiety live in a perpetual illusion, continually deceive themselves, and appear what they are not, only because they would wish to be it. They would willingly have religion to be but a dream: they say in their heart, " There is no God;" that is to say, this impious language is the desire of their heart; they would ardently wish no God; that that Being, so grand and so necessary, were a chimera; that they were the sole masters of their own destiny; that they were accountable only to themselves for
