“Either all religions are good and pleasing to God, or if there is one which he prescribes for men, if they will be punished for despising it, he will have distinguished it by plain and certain signs by which it can be known as the only true religion; these signs are alike in every time and place, equally plain to all men, great or small, learned or unlearned, Europeans, Indians, Africans, savages.  If there were but one religion upon earth, and if all beyond its pale were condemned to eternal punishment, and if there were in any corner of the world one single honest man who was not convinced by this evidence, the God of that religion would be the most unjust and cruel of tyrants.

“Let us therefore seek honestly after truth; let us yield nothing to the claims of birth, to the authority of parents and pastors, but let us summon to the bar of conscience and of reason all that they have taught us from our childhood.  In vain do they exclaim, ‘Submit your reason;’ a deceiver might say as much; I must have reasons for submitting my reason.

“All the theology I can get for myself by observation of the universe and by the use of my faculties is contained in what I have already told you.  To know more one must have recourse to strange means.  These means cannot be the authority of men, for every man is of the same species as myself, and all that a man knows by nature I am capable of knowing, and another may be deceived as much as I; when I believe what he says, it is not because he says it but because he proves its truth.  The witness of man is therefore nothing more than the witness of my own reason, and it adds nothing to the natural means which God has given me for the knowledge of truth.

“Apostle of truth, what have you to tell me of which I am not the sole judge?  God himself has spoken; give heed to his revelation.  That is another matter.  God has spoken, these are indeed words which demand attention.  To whom has he spoken?  He has spoken to men.  Why then have I heard nothing?  He has instructed others to make known his words to you.  I understand; it is men who come and tell me what God has said.  I would rather have heard the words of God himself; it would have been as easy for him and I should have been secure from fraud.  He protects you from fraud by showing that his envoys come from him.  How does he show this?  By miracles.  Where are these miracles?  In the books.  And who wrote the books?  Men.  And who saw the miracles?  The men who bear witness to them.  What!  Nothing but human testimony!  Nothing but men who tell me what others told them!  How many men between God and me!  Let us see, however, let us examine, compare, and verify.  Oh! if God had but deigned to free me from all this labour, I would have served him with all my heart.