Notwithstanding the various acts of injustice, with which all religions delight to blacken the Divinity, men cannot consent to accuse him of iniquity. They fear, that, like the tyrants of this world, truth will offend him, and redouble upon them the weight of his malice and tyranny. They hearken therefore to their priests, who tell them, that their God is a tender father; that this God is an equitable monarch whose object in this world is to assure himself of the love, obedience and respect of his subjects; who gives them liberty of acting only to afford them an opportunity of meriting his favours, and of acquiring an eternal happiness, which he does not owe them. By what signs can men discover the tenderness of a father, who has given life to the greater part of his children merely to drag out upon the earth a painful, restless, bitter existence? Is there a more unfortunate present, than that pretended liberty, which, we are told, men are very liable to abuse, and thereby to incur eternal misery?