In all parts of the world, we are assured that God revealed Himself. What did He teach men? Does He prove to them evidently that He exists? Does He tell them where He resides? Does He teach them what He is, or of what His essence consists? Does He explain to them clearly His intentions and His plan? What He says of this plan, does it agree with the effects which we see? No! He informs us only that "He is the One that is," [I am that I am, saith the Lord] that He is an invincible God, that His ways are ineffable, that He becomes furious as soon as one has the temerity to penetrate His decrees, or to consult reason in order to judge of Him or His works. Does the revealed conduct of God correspond with the magnificent ideas which are given to us of His wisdom, goodness, justice, of His omnipotence? Not at all; in every revelation this conduct shows a partial, capricious being, at least, good to His favorite people, an enemy to all others. If He condescends to show Himself to some men, He takes care to keep all the others in invincible ignorance of His divine intentions. Does not every special revelation announce an unjust, partial, and malicious God?

Are the revealed wishes of a God capable of striking us by the sublime reason or the wisdom which they contain? Do they tend to the happiness of the people to whom Divinity has declared them? Examining the Divine wishes, I find in them, in all countries, but whimsical ordinances, ridiculous precepts, ceremonies of which we do not understand the aim, puerile practices, principles of conduct unworthy of the Monarch of Nature, offerings, sacrifices, expiations, useful, in fact, to the ministers of God, but very onerous to the rest of mankind. I find also, that they often have a tendency to render men unsocial, disdainful, intolerant, quarrelsome, unjust, inhuman toward all those who have not received either the same revelations as they, or the same ordinances, or the same favors from Heaven.