SERMON VIII.
THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE STATE.
"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." — Matt. xxv. 46.
Behold, to what at last shall be brought the desires, hopes, counsels, and enterprises of men. Behold, upon what at last, shall split the vain reflections of sages and freethinkers, the doubts and eternal uncertainties of unbelievers, the vast projects of conquerors, the monuments of human glory, the cares of ambition, the distinction of talents, the disquietudes of fortune, the prosperity of empires, and all the insignificant revolutions of the earth. Such shall be the awful conclusion which will unravel the mysteries of Providence on the divers lots of the children of Adam, and justify its conduct in the government of the universe. This fife is, therefore, but a rapid instant, and the commencement of an eternal futurity. Torments without end, or the delights of an immortal felicity, shall be our lot as well as that of all men.
Nevertheless, the view of this grand object, which formerly had been able to startle the ferocity of tyrants, to shake the fortitude of philosophers, to disturb the effeminacy and voluptuousness of Caesars, to soften the most barbarous nations, to form so many martyrs, to people the deserts, and to bring the whole universe submissive to the yoke of the cross; this image, so terrifying, is now almost destined to alarm the timidity of merely the common people; — these grand objects are become like vulgar paintings, which we dare no longer expose to the false delicacy of the great and connoisseurs of the world: and the only fruit we generally reap from this sort of discourses, is, to make it be inquired, perhaps, after quitting them, whether every thing shall take place as we have said.
For, my brethren, we live in times in which the faith of many has been wrecked; in which a wretched philosophy, like a mortal venom, spreads in secret, and undertakes to justify abominations and vices, against the belief of future punishment and rewards. This evil has passed from the palaces of the great even to the people, and every where the piety of the just is insulted by the discourses of irreligion and the maxims of freethinking.
And, certainly, I am not surprised that dissolute men should doubt of a future state, and endeavour to combat or weaken a truth so capable of disturbing their criminal sensualities. It is horrible to look forward to everlasting misery. The world has no pleasure which can endure a thought so shocking; consequently, it has always endeavoured to efface it from the heart and mind of man. It well knows, that the belief of a future state is a troublesome check on the human passions, and that it will never succeed in making tranquil and resolute libertines, without having first made unbelievers.
Let us deprive, then, the corruption of the human heart of so wretched and weak a support: let us prove to dissolute souls that they shall survive their debaucheries; that all dies not with the body; that this life shall finish their crimes, but not their misery; and, more completely to* confound impiety, let us attack it in the vain pretexts on which it depends.
First. Who knows, say the impious, that all dies not with us? Is that other life, of which we are told, quite certain? Who has ever returned to inform us of it?
Secondly. Is it worthy of the majesty of God, say they again, to demean himself by any attention to what passes among men? What matters it to him, that worms of the earth, like us, murder, deceive, and tear each other, live in luxury or in temperance? Is it not presumptuous in any man to suppose that an Almighty God is occupied with him?
Lastly. What likelihood, add they, that God, having made man such as he is, will punish, as crimes, inherent inclinations to pleasure which nature has given us. Behold the philosophy of the voluptuary; the uncertainty of a future state; the majesty of God, which a vile creature cannot offend; and the weakness of man, which, being born with him, he would be unjust of it to constitute a crime.
Let us then prove, in the first place, against the uncertainty of the impious, that the truth of a future state is justified by the purest lights of reason. Secondly, against the unworthy idea, grounded upon the greatness of God, that this truth is justified by his wisdom and glory. Lastly, against the pretext, drawn from the weakness of man, that it is justified even by the testimony of his own conscience. The certainty of a future state; the necessity of a future state; the inward acknowledgment of a future state. Behold the subject and arrangement of my discourse.
O God! attend not to the insults which the blasphemies of impiety offer to thy glory: regard only, and see, of what reason is capable when thy light is withdrawn. In the wickedness of the human mind, behold all the severity of thy justice, when it abandons it, that the more I expose the foolish blasphemies of the impious soul, the more may he become, in thy sight, an object worthy of thy pity, and of the treasures of thine infinite mercy.
Part I. — It surely is melancholy to have to justify, before believers, the most consolatory truth of faith; to come to prove to men, to whom Jesus Christ has been declared, that their being is not a wild assemblage, and the wretched offspring of chance; that a wise and an almighty Artificer has presided at our formation and birth; that a spark of immortality animates our clay; that a portion of us shall survive ourselves; and that, on quitting this earthly mansion, our soul shall return to the bosom of God, from whence it came, and go to inhabit the eternal region of the living, where to each one shall be rendered according to his works.
It was with this truth that Paul began to announce faith before the Athenian judges. We are the immortal race of God, said he to that assembly of sages; and he has appointed a day to judge the universe. By that the Apostles spread the first principles of the doctrine of salvation through infidel and corrupted nations. But we who come after the revolution of ages, when the plenitude of nations has entered into the church, when the whole universe has professed to believe, when all the mysteries have been cleared up, all the prophecies accomplished, Jesus Christ glorified, the path of heaven laid open; we, who appear in these latter times, when the day of the Lord is so much nearer than when our fathers believed, alas! what ought our ministry to be, unless to dispose believers for that grand hope, and to instruct them to hold themselves in readiness to appear before Jesus Christ, who will quickly come; far from having still to combat these shocking and foolish maxims which the first preaching of the gospel had effaced from the universe.
The pretended uncertainty of a future state is, then, the grand foundation of the security of unbelievers. We know nothing, say they, of that other world of which you tell us so much. None of the dead have ever returned to inform us; perhaps there is nothing beyond the grave: let us enjoy, therefore, the present, and leave to chance a futurity which either exists not, or is meant to be concealed from our knowledge.
Now, I say, that this uncertainty is suspicious in the' principle which produces it, foolish in the proofs on which it depends, and frightful in its consequences. Refuse me not here your attention.
Suspicious in the principle which produces it. For, how has this uncertainty of a future state been formed in the mind of the unbeliever? It requires only to trace the origin of an opinion, to know whether the interests of truth, or the passions, have established it on the earth.
At his birth, the impious man bore the principles of natural religion common to all men: he found written on his heart a law which forbade violence, injustice, treachery, and every action to another, which he would not have done to himself. Education fortified these sentiments of nature: he was taught to know a God, [to love and fear him: virtue was shown to him in the rules; it was rendered amiable to him in the examples; and though, within himself, he felt inclinations in opposition to duty, yet, when he yielded to their seductions, his heart secretly espoused the cause of virtue against his own weakness.
Thus did the impious man at first live on the earth. With the rest of mankind, he adored a Supreme Being, respected his laws, dreaded his chastisements, and expected his promises. Whence comes it, then, that he no longer acknowledges a God; that crimes appear to him as human policies; hell a vulgar prejudice; a future state a chimera; and the soul a spark which is extinguished with the body? By what exertion has he attained to the knowledge of things so new and so surprising? By what means has he succeeded to rid himself of these ancient prejudices, so rooted among men, so consistent with the feelings of his heart and the lights of reason? Has he searched into, and maturely examined, them? Has he adopted every solid precaution, which an affair, the most important in life, requires? Has he withdrawn himself from the commerce of men, in solitude, to allow leisure for reflection and study? Has he purified his heart, lest the passions may have misled him? What anxious attentions and solicitude to investigate the truth are required, to reject the first feelings which the soul has imbibed!
Listen, my brethren, and adore the justice of God on these corrupted hearts whom he delivers up to the vanity of their own judgment. In proportion as his manners become dissolute, the rules have appeared suspicious; in proportion as he became debased, he has endeavoured to persuade himself that man is like the beast. He is become impious only by shutting up every avenue which might lead him to the truth; by no longer regarding religion as an important concern; by searching into it only for the purpose of dishonouring it by blasphemies and sacrilegious witticisms. He is become impious only by seeking to steel himself against the cries of his own conscience, and delivering himself up to the most infamous gratifications. It is by that path that he has attained to the wonderful and sublime science of unbelief; it is to these grand efforts that he owes the discovery of a truth, of which the rest of men before him had either been ignorant, or had detested.
Behold the source of unbelief, the corruption of the heart. Yes, my brethren, find me, if you can, men wise, temperate, pure, regular, and lovers of truth, who believe not a God, who look forward to no future state, who look upon adulteries, abominations, and incests, as the inclinations and innocent pastimes of nature. If the world has seen impious characters, who bore the semblance of wisdom and temperance, it was either that they better concealed their irregularities, in order to give more credit to their impiety, or the satiety of pleasures which had brought them to that feigned temperance, debauchery had been the original source of their irreligion; their hearts were corrupted before their faith was wrecked; they had an interest to believe that all dies with the body, before they succeeded in persuading themselves of it; and a long indulgence of luxury had fully disgusted them with guilt, but had not rendered virtue more amiable to them.
What consolation for us who believe, that we must first renounce probity, modesty, manners, and all the feelings of humanity, before we can renounce faith; and, to be no longer Christian, must first cease to be man!
Behold, then, the uncertainty of the impious, already suspicious in its principle; but, secondly, it is foolish in the proofs on which it depends.
For, surely, very decisive and convincing proofs must be required to make us espouse the cause of unbelief, and to render us tranquil on what we are told of an eternal state to come. It is not natural that man would hazard an interest so serious as that of eternity on light and frivolous proofs; still less so, that he would thereon abandon the general opinion, the belief of his fathers, the religion of all ages, the agreement of all nations, and the prejudices of his education, had he not, as it were, been forced to it by the evidence of the truth. Unless absolutely convinced that all dies with the body, nothing can bear a comparison with the madness and folly of the unbeliever. Now is he completely convinced? What are the grand reasons which have determined him to adopt this vile cause? We know not, says he, what happens in that other world of which you tell us: the good die equally as the . wicked: man as the beast; and no one returns to say which was in the error. Press him a little farther, and you will be shocked to see the weakness of unbelief: vague discourses, hackneyed suspicions, everlasting uncertainties, and chimerical suppositions, on which nobody in their senses would wish to risk the happiness or disquiet of a single day, and upon which he, however, hazards an eternity.
Behold the insurmountable proofs which the freethinker opposes to the belief of the universe; behold that evidence, which, in his mind, prevails over all that is most clear and most established on the earth. We know nothing of what passes in that other world of which you tell us. O man! open here thine eyes. A single doubt is sufficient to render thee impious, and all the proofs of religion are too weak to make thee a believer. Thy mind hesitates to believe in a future state, and, in the mean time, thou livest as though there were none. The only foundation thou hast for thine opinion, is thine uncertainty, and thou reproachest to us, that faith is a vulgar credulity.
But I ask, on what side here is credulity? Is it on that of the freethinker or the believer? The latter believes in a future state, on the authority of the divine writings, that is to say, the book, without contradiction, which most deserves belief; on the deposition of holy men, that is to say, just, pure, and miraculous characters, who have shed their blood to render glory to the truth, and to that doctrine of which the conversion of the universe has rendered a testimony that to the end of ages shall rise up against the impious; on the accomplishment of the prophecies, that is to say, the only character of truth which the impostor cannot imitate; on the tradition of all ages, that is to say, on facts which, since the creation of the world, have appeared certain to all the greatest characters, the most acknowledged just men, the wisest, and most civilized nations the universe could ever boast of: in a word, on proofs at least probable. The freethinker denies a futurity on a simple doubt, a mere suspicion. Who knows it? says he; who has returned from it? He has no argument, either solid or decisive, to overturn the truth of a future state. For let him avow it, and then will we submit. He only mistrusts that there be any thing after this life, and upon that he believes that all dies with him.
Now I demand, which here is the credulous? Is it he, who, in support of his belief, has whatever is probable among men, and most calculated to make impression on reason; or he who is resolved to deny a future state on the weakness of a simple doubt? Nevertheless, the freethinker imagines that he exerts his reason more than the believer: he looks down upon us as weak and credulous men; and he considers himself as a superior genius, exalted above all vulgar prejudices, and whom reason' alone, and not the public opinion, determines. O God! how terrible art thou when thou deliverest up a sinner to his own infatuation! and how well thou knowest to draw glory to thyself even from the efforts which thine enemies make to oppose it.
But I go still farther: when, even in the doubt, formed by the unbeliever, of a future state, the arguments should be equal, and the trifling uncertainties, which render him incredulous, should balance the solid and evident truths which promise immortality to us; I say, that even in an equality of proofs, he at least ought to wish that the opinion of faith, with regard to the nature of our soul, were true; an opinion which is so honourable to man; which tells him that his origin is celestial and his hopes eternal; he ought to wish that the doctrine of impiety were false; a doctrine so melancholy, so humiliating to man; which confounds him with the beast; which makes him live only for the body; gives him neither purpose, destination, nor hope; and limits his lot to a small number of rapid, restless, and sorrowful days, which he passes on the earth. All things equal, a reason born with any degree of elevation would prefer being deceived by what is honourable to itself rather than adopt a side so disgraceful to its being. What a soul, then, must the unbeliever have received from nature, to prefer, in so great an inequality of proofs, the belief that he is created only for this earth, and favourably to regard himself as a vile assemblage of dirt and the companion of the ox and bull! What do I say? What a monster in the universe must be the unbeliever, who mistrusts the general belief only because it is too glorious for his nature; and believes that the vanity of men has alone introduced it on the earth, and has persuaded them that they are immortal.
But no, my brethren! These men of flesh and blood, with reason reject the honour which religion does to their nature, and persuade themselves that their soul is merely of earth, and that all dies with the body. Sensual, dissolute, and effeminate men, who have no other check than a brutal instinct; no other rule than the vehemence of their desires; no other occupation than to awaken, by new artifices, the cupidity already satiated; men of that character can have little difficulty to believe that no principle of spiritual life exists within them; that the body is the only being; and, as they imitate the manners of beasts, they are pardonable in attributing to themselves the same nature. But let them not judge of all men by themselves: there are still on earth chaste, pure, and temperate souls: let them not ascribe to nature the shameful tendencies of their own mind; let them not degrade humanity in general, because they have unworthily debased themselves. Let them seek out among men such as themselves; and, finding that they are almost singular in the universe, they shall then see that they are rather monsters than the ordinary productions of nature.
Besides, not only is the freethinker foolish, because that, even in an equality of proofs, his heart and glory should decide him in favour of faith, but likewise his own interest: for, as I have already said, what does he risk by believing? What disagreeable consequences will follow his mistake? He will live with honour, probity, and innocence 5 he will be mild, affable, just, sincere, religious, a generous friend, a faithful husband, and an equitable master: he will moderate his passions, which would otherwise have occasioned all the misfortunes of his life: he will abstain from pleasures and excesses which would have prepared for him a painful and premature old age, or a deranged fortune: he will enjoy the character of a virtuous man, and the esteem of mankind. Behold what he risks. — When all should even finish with this life, that surely is still the way to pass it with happiness and tranquillity: such is the only inconveniency I can find. If no eternal recompense shall follow, what will he have lost by expecting it? He has lost some sensual and momentary gratifications, which would soon have either fatigued him by the disgust which always follows their enjoyment, or tyrannized over him by the new desires they light up. He has lost the wretched satisfaction of being, for the instant he appeared on earth, cruel, unnatural, voluptuous, without faith, morals, or constancy; perhaps despised and disgraced in the midst of his own people. I can see no other misfortune: he sinks back to his original non-existence, and his error has no other consequence.
But if there be a future state, and he should deceive himself in rejecting faith, what does he not risk? The loss of eternal riches; the possession of thy glory, O my God! which would for ever have rendered him happy. But even that is only the commencement of his misery: he goes to experience punishment without end or measure, an eternity of horror and wrath. Now, compare these two destinies: what party here will the freethinker adopt? Will he risk the short duration of his days, or a whole eternity? Will he hold by the present, which must finish to-morrow, and in which he even cannot be happy? Will he tremble at a futurity which has no other limits than eternity, and can never finish but with God himself? Where is the prudent man, who in an uncertainty even equal, durst here balance? And what name shall we give to the unbeliever, who, with nothing in his favour but frivolous doubts, while on the side of truth, beholding the authority, example, prescription, proof, and voice of all ages, the entire world, singly adopts the wretched cause of unbelief; dies tranquil as though he were no longer to have existence; leaves his eternal destiny in the hands of chance, and carelessly prepares to encounter so awful a scene. O God! is this a man conducted by cool reason; or, is it a man, who looks forward to no resource but despair? The uncertainty of the freethinker is therefore foolish in the proofs on which it depends.
But, lastly, it is still more dreadful in its consequences. And here, my brethren, allow me to lay aside the deep reasonings of erudition and doctrine; I wish to speak only to the conscience of the unbeliever, and to confine myself to the proofs which his own feelings acknowledge.
Now, if all shall finish with us, if man have nothing to expect after this life, and that here is our country, our origin, and the only happiness we can promise ourselves, why are we not happy? If only created for the pleasures of the senses, why are they unable to satisfy us? and why do they always leave a fund of weariness and sorrow in the heart? If man have nothing superior to the beast, why, like it, do not his days flow on without care, uneasiness, disgust, or sorrow, in sensual and carnal enjoyments? If man have no other felicity to expect than merely a temporal happiness, why is he unable to find it on the earth? Whence comes it that riches serve only to render him uneasy; that honours fatigue him; that pleasures exhaust him; that the sciences, far from satisfying, confound and irritate his curiosity; that reputation constrains and embarrasses him; that all these united cannot fill the immensity of his heart, and still leave him something to wish for? All other beings, contented with their lot, appear happy in their way in the situation the Author of nature has placed them; the stars, tranquil in the firmament, quit not their station to illuminate another world; the earth, regular in its movements, shoots not upwards to occupy their place; the animals crawl in the fields, without envying the lot of man, who inhabits cities and sumptuous palaces. The birds carol in the air without troubling themselves whether there be happier creatures in the earth than themselves; all are happy, as I may say; every thing in nature is in its place. Man alone is uneasy and discontented; man alone is a prey to his desires, allows himself to be torn by fears, finds his punishment in his hopes, and becomes gloomy and unhappy in the midst even of his pleasures: man alone can meet with nothing here to fix his heart.
Whence comes this, O man? Must it not be that here thou art not in thy place; that thou art made for heaven; that thy heart is greater than the world; that the earth is not thy country; and that whatever is not God is nothing to thee? Answer, if thou canst, or rather question thy heart, and thou wilt believe.
Secondly. If all die with the body, who has been able to persuade all men, of every age, and of every country, that their soul was immortal? From whence has this strange idea of immortality descended to the human race? How could an opinion, so distant from the nature of man, were he born only for the functions of the senses, have pervaded the earth? For if man, like the beast, be created only for the present, nothing ought to be more incomprehensible to him than even the idea of immortality. Could machines of clay, whose only object should be a sensual happiness, have ever been able to form, or to find in themselves, an opinion so exalted, an idea so sublime? Nevertheless, this opinion, so extraordinary, is become that of all men; this opinion, so opposite even to the senses, since man, like the beast, dies wholly, in our sight is established on the earth; this opinion, which ought not to have even found an inventor in the universe, has been received with a universal docility of belief amongst all nations, — the most savage as the most cultivated, the most polished as the most brutal, the most incredulous as the most submissive to faith.
For, go back to the beginning of ages, examine all nations, read the history of kingdoms and empires, listen to those who return from the most distant isles; the immortality of the soul has always been, and still is, the belief of every people on the face of the earth. The knowledge of one God may have been obliterated; his glory, power, and immensity, may have been effaced, as I may say, from the hearts and minds of men; obstinate and savage nations may still live without worship, religion, or God, in this world; but they all look forward to a future state: nothing has ever been able to eradicate the opinion of the immortality of the soul; they all figure to themselves a region which our souls shall inhabit after death; and, in forgetting God, they have never discarded the idea of that provision for themselves.
Now, whence comes it that men so different in their dispositions, worship, country, opinions, interests, and even figure, that scarcely do they seem of the same species with each other, unanimously agree, however, on this point, and expect immortality r There is no collusion here; for how is it possible to assemble together men of all countries and ages? It is not a prejudice of education; for manners, habits, and worship, which are generally the consequences of prejudices, are not the same among all nations: the opinion of immortality is common to all. It is not a sect: for, besides, that it is the universal religion of the world, that tenet has had neither head nor protector. Men have adopted it themselves, or rather nature has taught them to know it without the assistance of teachers; and, since the beginning of things, it alone has passed from father to son, and has been always received as an indisputable truth. O thou, who believest thy self to be only a mass of clay, quit the world, where thou findest thyself single in belief; go, and in other regions search for men of another species, and similar to the beast; or rather be struck with horror to find thyself single, as it were, in the universe, in revolt against nature, and disavowing thine own heart, and acknowledge, in an opinion common to all men, the general impression of the Author who has formed them all!
Lastly. And with this proof I conclude. The universal fellowship of men, the laws which unite one to the other, the most sacred and inviolable duties of civil life, are all founded only on the certainty of a future state. Thus, if all die with the body, the universe must adopt other laws, manners, and habits, and a total change must take place in every thing. If all die with the body, the maxims of equity, friendship, honour, good faith, and gratitude, are only popular errors; since we owe nothing to men who are nothing to us, to whom no general bond of worship and hope unites us, who will to-morrow sink back to their original nonentity, and who are already no more. If all die with us, the tender names of child, parent, father, friend, and husband, are merely theatrical appellations and a mockery; since friendship, even that springing from virtue, is no longer a lasting tie; since our fathers, who preceded us, are no more; since our children shall not succeed us, for the nonentity in which we must one day be has no consequence; since the sacred society of marriage is only a brutal union, from which, by a strange and fortuitous concurrence, proceed beings who resemble us, but who have nothing in common with us but their nonentity.
What more shall I add? If all dies with us, domestic annals and the train of our ancestors are only a collection of chimeras; since we have no forefathers, and shall have no descendants, anxieties for a name and posterity are therefore ridiculous; the honours we render to the memory of illustrious men, a childish error, since it is absurd to honour what has no existence; the sacred respect we pay to the habitations of the dead, a vulgar illusion; the ashes of our fathers and friends, a vile dust which we should cast to the winds as belonging to no person; the last wishes of the dying, so sacred amongst even the most barbarous nations, the last sound of a machine which crumbles in pieces; and, to comprise all in a word, if all die with us, the laws are then a foolish subjection; kings and rulers phantoms, whom the imbecility of the people has exalted; justice a usurpation on the liberties of men; the law of marriage a vain scruple; modesty a prejudice; honour and probity chimeras; incests, parricides, and the blackest villanies, pastimes of nature, and names which the policy of legislators has invented.
Behold, to what the sublime philosophy of the freethinker amounts! Behold that force of argument, that reason, and that wisdom, which they are continually vaunting to us! Agree to their maxims, and the entire universe sinks back to a frightful chaos; all is overturned on the earth; all ideas of virtue and vice are reversed, and the most inviolable laws of society vanish; the institution of morals perishes: the government of states and empires is without direction; all harmony in the body politic falls. The human species is only an assemblage of fools, barbarians, voluptuaries, madmen, and villains, who own no law but force; no other check than their passions and the terror of authority; no other bond than impiety and independence; and no other God than themselves. Behold the world of the freethinker! and if this hideous plan of a republic pleases you, constitute, if you can, a society of these monsters. The only thing that remains for us to say, is, that you are fully qualified to occupy a place in it.
How worthy, then, of man to look forward to an eternal destiny, to regulate his manners by the law, and to live as having one day to render account of his actions before Him who shall weigh us all in the balance.
The uncertainty of the believer is then suspicious in its principle, foolish in its proofs, and horrible in its consequences. But, after having shown you that nothing can be more repugnant to sound reason than the doubt which he entertains of a future state, let us completely confound his pretexts, and prove that nothing is more opposite to the idea of a wise God and to the opinion of his own conscience.
Part II. — It is no doubt astonishing that the freethinker should seek, even in the greatness of God, a shelter to his crimes; and that, finding nothing within himself to justify the horrors of his soul, he can expect to find in the awful Majesty of the Supreme Being an indulgence which he cannot find even in the corruption of his own heart.
Indeed, says the unbeliever, is it worthy the greatness of God to pay attention to what passes among men, — to calculate their virtues or vices, — to study even their thoughts, and their trifling and endless desires? Men, worms of the earth, who sink into nothing before the majesty of his looks, are they worthy his attentive inspection? And is it not degrading a God, whom we are taught to believe so great, to give him an employment by which even man would be dishonoured?
But, before I make you sensible of the whole absurdity of this blasphemy, I beg you will observe, that it is the freethinker himself who thus degrades the majesty of God, and brings him to a level with man: for, has the Almighty occasion narrowly to observe men, in order to know every thought and deed? Are cares and 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!
For, lastly, if there be no future state, what design, worthy of his wisdom, could God have proposed in creating man? What, in forming them, had he no other view than in forming the beast? Man, that being so noble, who is capable of such sublime thoughts, such vast desires, and such grand sentiments, — susceptible of love, truth, and justice; man, of all creatures, alone worthy of a great destination, that of knowing and loving the Author of his being; that man should be made only for the earth, to pass a small portion of days, like the beast, in trifling employments, or sensual gratifications: he should fulfil his purpose, by acting so risible and so pitiable a part; and afterward should sink back to nonentity, without any other use having been made of that vast mind and elevated heart which the Author of his being had given him? O God! where would here be thy wisdom, to have made so grand a work for the duration only of a moment; to have exhibited men upon the earth only as a playful essay of thy power; or to amuse thy leisure by a variety of shows! The deity of the freethinker is not grand, therefore, but because he is more unjust, capricious, and despicable than men! Pursue these reflections, and support, if you can, all the extravagance of their folly.
How worthy, then, of God, my brethren, to watch over the universe; to conduct man, whom he has created, by the laws of justice, truth, charity, and innocence; to make virtue and reason the bond of union and the foundation of human society! How worthy of God to love in his creatures those virtues which render himself amiable; to hate the vices which disfigure in them his image; not to confound for ever the just with the impious; to render happy with himself those souls who have lived only for him; and to deliver up to their own misery those who believed they had found a happiness independent of him!
Behold the God of the Christians; behold that wise, just, and holy Deity whom we adore; and the advantage we have over the freethinker is, that ours is the God of an innocent and pure heart; the God whom all creatures manifest to us; whom all ages have invoked; whom the sages, even of Paganism, have acknowledged; and of whom nature has deeply engraven the idea on the very foundation of our being!
But, since God is so just, ought he to punish, as crimes, inclinations for pleasure born with us; nay, which he alone has given us? Last blasphemy of impiety, and last part of this Discourse. I shall abridge it, and conclude.
But, in the first place, be whom you may, who hold this absurd language, if you pretend to justify all your actions by the inclinations which induce you to them; if whatever we wish become legitimate; if our desires ought to be the only regulation of our duties; on that principle, you have only to regard with an envious eye the fortune of your brother, to acquire a right to despoil him of it: his wife, with a corrupted heart, to be authorized to violate the sanctity of the nuptial bed, in opposition to the most sacred rights of society and nature. You have only to suspect, or dislike an opponent, to become entitled to destroy him; to bear, with impatience, the authority of a father, or the severity of a master, to embrue your hands in their blood: in a word, you have only to bear within you the impressions of every vice, to be permitted the gratification of all; and, as each finds the fatal seeds in himself, none would be exempted from this horrible privilege. It is necessary, therefore, that man conduct himself by other laws than his inclinations, and another rule than his desires.
Even the Pagan ages acknowledged the necessity of a philosophy, that is to say, of a light superior to the senses, which regulated their practice, and made reason a check to the human passions.
Nature alone led them to this truth, and taught them that blind instinct ought not to be the sole guide of the actions of men: this instinct therefore, either is not the original institution of nature, or it must be a corruption of it, since all the laws ever framed on earth have avowedly been made to restrain it, — that all those who, in every age, have borne the character of wise and virtuous, have rejected its impressions, — that, amongst all nations, those infamous individuals who yielded themselves up without reserve or shame to brutal sensuality, have been always considered as monsters, and the disgrace of humanity, — and, the maxim once established, that our inclinations and desires cannot be considered as crimes, society can no longer exist; men must separate to be in safety, must bury themselves in the forests, and live solitary like the beasts.
Besides, let us render justice to men, or rather to the Author who has formed us. If we find within us inclinations to vice and voluptuousness, do we not also find sentiments of virtue, modesty, and innocence? If the law of the, members drag us toward the pleasures of the senses, do we not also bear, written in our hearts, another law, which recalls us to chastity and temperance? Now, between these two tendencies, why does the freethinker decide that the inclination which impels us toward the senses is most conformable to the nature of man? Is it from being the most violent? But its violence alone is a proof of its disorder; and whatever proceeds from nature ought to be made moderate. Is it from being the strongest? But there are just and believing souls in whom it it is always subject to reason. Is it from being more agreeable? But a sure proof that this pleasure is not made to render man happy, is, that disgust immediately follows it; and likewise that, to the good, virtue has a thousand times more charms than vice. Lastly, is it from being more worthy of man? You dare not say so, since it is through it that he confounds himself with the beast. Why, then, do you decide in favour of the senses, against reason, and insist, that it is more conformable to man to live like the beast than to be a reasonable being?
Lastly, were all men corrupted, and, like the animals, not gifted with reason; did they blindly yield themselves up to their brutal instinct, and to the empire of the senses and passions, — you, then, perhaps, might have reason to say that these are inclinations inseparable from nature, and in example find a sort of excuse for your excesses. But, look around you: do you no longer find any upright characters on the earth? There is no question here of those vain discourses you so frequently hold against piety, and of which you feel yourselves the injustice. Speak candidly, and render glory to the truth: are there no longer chaste, faithful, and righteous souls, who live in the fear of the Lord, and in the observance of his holy law?
Whence comes it, then, that you have not the same empire over your passions as enjoyed by these just men? Have they not inherited from nature the same inclinations? Do the objects of the passions not awaken in their hearts the same sensations as in yours? Do not they bear within them the sources of the same troubles? What have the just superior to you, but that command over themselves, and fidelity, of which you are destitute?
O man! thou imputest to God a weakness which is the work of thine own disorders! Thou accusest the Author of nature of the irregularities of thy own will. It is not enough to offend him; thou wishest to make him responsible for thy deeds, and pretendest that the fruit of thy crimes becomes the title of thine innocence! With what chimeras is a corrupted heart not capable of feeding its delusions, in order to justify to itself the shame and infamy of its vices!
God is then just, my brethren, when he punisheth the transgressions of his law. And let not the freethinker here say to himself that the recompense of the just shall then be resurrection to eternal life, and the punishment of the sinner the everlasting annihilation of his soul; for behold the last resource of impiety.
But what punishment would it be to the freethinker to exist no more? He wishes that annihilation; he looks forward to it as his sweetest hope: amidst his pleasures he lives tranquil only in that expectation. What! the just God would punish a sinner by affording him a destiny according to the summit of his wishes? Ah! it is not thus that God punisheth. For what would the freethinker find so shocking in a return to nonentity? Would it be the deprivation of his God? But he loves him not; he knows him not; he desires no communication with him; for his only God is himself. Would it be to exist no more? But what could be more desirable to a monster, who knows that, beyond the term of his crimes, he cannot live but in sufferance, and in the expiation of the horrors of an infamous life? Would it be by having for ever lost the worldly pleasures he enjoyed, and the different objects of his passions? But, when he exists no more, the love of these must equally be extinguished. A more desirable fate cannot therefore be pointed out to a freethinker. It indeed would be the happy conclusion of all his excesses, horrors, and blasphemies.
No, my brethren! The hopes of the freethinker, but not his crimes, shall perish: his torments shall be as eternal as his debaucheries would have been, had he been master of his own destiny. He would willingly have eternized himself on the earth, in the practice of every sensual vice. Death has bounded his crimes, but has not limited his criminal desires. The just and upright Judge* who fathoms the heart, will therefore proportion the punishment to the guilt.
What are we to conclude from this Discourse? That the freethinker is to be pitied for grounding the only consolation of his future destiny on the uncertainty of the truths of the gospel: that he is to be pitied because his only tranquillity must be in living without faith, worship, confidence, or God; because the only hope he' can indulge, is, that the gospel is a fable; the belief of all ages a childish credulity; the universal opinion of men a popular error; the first principles of nature and reason prejudices of education; the blood of so many martyrs, whom the hopes of a future state supported under all their suffering and tortures, a mere tale concerted to deceive mankind; the conversion of the world a human enterprise; and the accomplishment of the promises a mere stroke of chance: in a word, that every thing, the best established, and the most consistent with truth and reason in the world, must all be false, to accomplish the only happiness he can promise himself, and to save him from eternal misery.
O man! I will point out to thee a much surer way to render thyself tranquil, and to enjoy the sweets of internal peace. Dread that futurity thou forcest thyself to disbelieve. Question us no more what they do in that other world of which we tell thee; but ask thyself, without ceasing, what thou art doing in this? Quiet thy conscience by the innocency of thy life, and not by the impiety of thy unbelief; give repose to thy heart by calling upon God, and not by doubting that he pays attention to thee. The peace of the unbeliever is despair. Seek, then, thy happiness, not by freeing thyself from the yoke of faith, but by tasting how sweet and agreeable it is. Follow the maxims it prescribes to thee, and thy reason will no longer refuse submission to the mysteries it commands thee to believe. A future state will cease to appear incredible to thee from the moment thou ceasest to five like those who centre all their happiness in the fleeting moments of this life. Then, far from dreading a futurity, thy wishes will anticipate it. Thou wilt sigh for the arrival of that happy day, when the Son of man, the Father of all future ages, shall come to punish the unbelieving, and to conduct thee to his kingdom, along with those who have lived on the earth in the expectation and hope of a blessed immortality.
That you, my brethren, may be partakers of this eternal felicity, is my fervent prayer. Amen.