If we take our ideas of God from the nature of the things where we find a mixture of good and evil, this God, according to the good and evil which we experience, does naturally appear to us capricious, inconstant, sometimes good, sometimes wicked, and in this way, instead of exciting our love, He must produce suspicion, fear, and uncertainty in our hearts.  There is no real difference between natural religion and the most sombre and servile superstition.  If the Theist sees God but on the beautiful side, the superstitious man looks upon Him from the most hideous side.  The folly of the one is gay of the other is lugubrious; but both are equally delirious.

LXV.—­ACCORDING TO THE IDEAS WHICH THEOLOGY GIVES OF DIVINITY, TO LOVE GOD IS IMPOSSIBLE.

If I take my ideas of God from theology, God shows Himself to me in such a light as to repel love.  The devotees who tell us that they love their God sincerely, are either liars or fools who see their God but in profile; it is impossible to love a being, the thought of whom tends to excite terror, and whose judgments make us tremble.  How can we face without fear, a God whom we suppose sufficiently barbarous to wish to damn us forever?  Let them not speak to us of a filial or respectful fear mingled with love, which men should have for their God.  A son can not love his father when he knows he is cruel enough to inflict exquisite torments upon him; in short, to punish him for the least faults.  No man upon earth can have the least spark of love for a God who holds in reserve eternal, hard, and violent chastisements for ninety-nine hundredths of His children.

LXVI.—­By the invention of the dogma of the eternal torments of hell, theologians have made of their god A detestable being, more wicked than the most wicked of men, A perverse and cruel tyrant without aim.

The inventors of the dogma of eternal torments in hell, have made of the God whom they call so good, the most detestable of beings.  Cruelty in man is the last term of corruption.  There is no sensitive soul but is moved and revolts at the recital alone of the torments which the greatest criminal endures; but cruelty merits the greater indignation when we consider it gratuitous or without motive.  The most sanguinary tyrants, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, had at least some motive in tormenting their victims and insulting their sufferings; these motives were, either their own safety, the fury of revenge, the design to frighten by terrible examples, or perhaps the vanity to make parade of their power, and the desire to satisfy a barbarous curiosity.  Can a God have any of these motives?  In tormenting the victims of His wrath, He would punish beings who could not really