Every man, sufficiently intrepid to announce truths to the world, is sure of incurring the hatred of the ministers of Religion, who loudly call to their aid secular powers; and want the assistance of laws to support both their arguments and their gods. Their clamours expose too evidently the weakness of their cause.

In Religion, man is not permitted to err. In general, those who err are pitied, and some kindness is shewn to persons who discover new truths; but, when Religion is thought to be interested either in the errors or the discoveries, a holy zeal is kindled, the populace become frantic, and nations are in an uproar.

Can any thing be more afflicting, than to see public and private felicity depending upon a futile system, which is destitute if principles, founded only on a distempered imagination, and incapable of presenting any thing but words void of sense? In what consists the so much boasted utility of a Religion, which nobody can comprehend, which continually torments those who are weak enough to meddle with it, which is incapable of rendering men better, and which often makes them consider it meritorious to be unjust and wicked? Is there a folly more deplorable, and more justly to be combated, than that, which far from doing any service to the human race, only makes them blind, delirious, and miserable, by depriving them of Truth, the sole cure for their wretchedness.