PUBLISHER’S PREFACE.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, like M. de Voltaire and Thomas Paine, was a Deist,—a believer in a Deity who governs and controls the universe,—and, like these celebrated reformers, he has also explained and illustrated his belief with arguments drawn, not from the dictum of revelation, but rather from the open book of Nature, which is the common property of all mankind. He has given us, in words of candor and sincerity, the Profession of Faith of the Abbé M. Gaime, and the rational views of the catholic priest were also substantially his own.
This profession of faith of the eloquent Vicar of Savoy is remarkable for its unsectarian spirit, and also for its broad and enlightened views. It is justly tolerant towards all religions, and agrees with the Materialists, Pantheists, Secularists, Agnostics, and Deists of the present day in ignoring the authority of inspiration, miracles and prophecies as a basis for religious belief; and disagrees only with the Materialists in this, that while they believe with the other sects in all that is moral, beneficent, and good, they do not, like the Deists, personify that goodness by ascribing to it supernatural powers and calling it God. John Locke, in his Letters on Toleration,[1] says that “Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thing that we stand in need of
- ↑ Letters Concerning Toleration, by John Locke, London, 1765.
