The disputes between Christian priests have been sources of animosity, hatred, and heresy. We find these to have existed from the infancy of the church. A religion founded on wonders, fables, and obscure oracles, could only be a fruitful source of quarrels. Priests attended to ridiculous doctrines instead of useful knowledge; and when they should have studied true morality, and taught mankind their real duties, they only strove to gain adherents. They busied themselves in useless speculations in a barbarous and enigmatical science, which, under the pompous title of the science of God, or theology, excited in the vulgar a reverential awe. They invented a system, bigoted, presumptuous, ridiculous, and as incomprehensible as the God whom they affected to worship. Hence arose disputes on disputes concerning puerile subtilties, odious questions, and arbitrary opinions, which far from being useful, only served to poison the peace of society. In these bickerings we find profound geniuses busied; and we are forced to reject the prostitution of talents worthy a better cause. The vulgar, ever fond of riot, entered into quarrels they could not understand. Princes undertook the defence of the priests they wished to favour, and orthodoxy was decided by the longest sword. Their assistance the church never hesitated to receive in time of danger; for on such occasions the church relies rather on human assistance than the promise of God, who declared that the sceptre of the wicked should not rest upon the lot of the righteous. The heroes, found in the annals of the church, have been obstinate fanatics, factious rebels, or furious persecutors. They were monsters of madness, faction, and cruelty.
The world in the days of our ancestors, was depopulated in defence of extravagancies which excite laughter in a posterity, not indeed much wiser than they were.
In almost all ages complaints have been made of abuses in the church, and reformation has been talked of. Notwithstanding this pretended reform, in the head, and in the members of the church, it has always been corrupted. Avaricious, turbulent, and seditious priests have made nations to groan under the weight of their vices, while princes were too weak to reclaim them to reason. The divisions and quarrels which took place among those ecclesiastical tyrants did indeed at length diminish the weight of the yoke they had imposed on kings and nations. The empire of the Roman pontiff, which endured many ages, was at last shaken by irritated enthusiasts, and rebellious subjects, who presumed to examine the rights of this formidable despot. Some princes, weary of their slavery and poverty, readily embraced opinions which would authorise them to enrich themselves with the spoils of the clergy. Thus the unity of the church was destroyed, sects were multiplied, and each fought for the defence of his own system.
These founders of these new sects were treated by the Roman pontiff as innovators, heretics, and blasphemers. They, it is true, renounced some of their old opinions; but content with having made a few steps towards reason, they dared not to shake off entirely the yoke of superstition. They continued to respect the sacred writ of the Christian, which they still looked upon as the only faithful guide. Upon them they pretended to found all their opinions. In fine, these books, in which every man may find what he pleases, as they became more common from time to time, produced new sects. Men were lost in a dark labyrinth, where each one groped his way in error, and yet judged all but himself to be wrong.
The leaders of these sects, the pretended reformers of the church, gained but a glimpse at the truth, and attended to nothing but minutiae. They continued to respect the sacred oracles of the Christians, and believe in their cruel and capricious God. They admitted their extravagant mythology, and most of their unreasonable doctrines. In fine, although they rejected some mysteries that were incomprehensible, they admitted others not less so. Let us not be surprized, therefore, that, notwithstanding these reforms, fanaticism, controversy, persecution, and war, continued to rage throughout Europe. The reveries of innovators only served to plunge nations into new misfortunes. Blood continued to stream, and people grew neither more reasonable nor more happy. Priests of all sects have ever wished to govern mankind and impose on them their decisions as infallible and sacred. They were always persecutors when in power, involved nations in their fury, and shook the world by their fatal opinions. The spirit of intolerance and persecution will ever be the essence of every sect founded on the Bible. A mild and humane religion can never belong to a partial and cruel God? whom the opinion of men can fill with wrath. Wherever Christian sects exist, priests will exercise a power which may prove fatal to the state, and bodies of fanatical enthusiasts will be formed, always ready to rush to slaughter, when their spiritual guides cry, the church or the cause of God is in danger.
Thus, in Christian countries, we see the temporal power servilely submissive to the clergy, executing their commands, exterminating their enemies, and supporting their rights, riches, and immunities. In almost all nations where the church prevails, the most idle, useless, seditious, and dangerous men are most liberally honoured and rewarded. Superstition thinks she can never do enough for the ministers of her gods. These sentiments are the same in all sects.1 Priests every where endeavour to instil them into kings, and to make policy bend to religion, in doing which they often oppose the best institutions. They in all places aim at the superintendance of education, and they fill their adherents with their fatal prejudices from their infancy.
1 Except the Quaker.
It is, however, in places that remained subject to the Roman pontiff, that the clergy have wallowed in the greatest profusion of riches and power. Credulity has even enlisted kings among their subjects, and debased them into mere executioners of their will. They were in readiness to unsheath the sword whenever the priest commanded it. The monarchs of the Roman sect, blinder than all others, had an unbounded confidence in the clergy of their church that generally rendered them mere tools of that body. This sect, by means of furious intoleration and atrocious persecutions, became more numerous than any other one; and their turbulent and cruel temper has justly rendered them odious to the most reasonable, that is to say, least Christian nations.
The Romish system was, in fact, invented to throw all the power into the hands of the clergy. Its priests have had the address to identify themselves with God. Their cause was always his; their glory became the glory of God. Their decisions were divine oracles; their possessions appertained to the kingdom of heaven. Their pride, avarice, and cruelty, were rendered lawful, because they were never actuated by other motives than the interest of their heavenly master. In this sect, the priest saw his king at his feet, humbly confessing his sins, and beseeching the holy man that he might be reconciled to his God. Seldom was the priest known to render his sacred ministry subservient to the good of mankind. He thought not of reproaching monarchs with the abuse of their power, the misery of their subjects, and the tears of the oppressed. Too timid, or too much of a courtier to thunder truth in their ears, he mentioned not to them the insupportable oppressions, the galling tyranny, and useless wars under which their subjects groaned. But such objects never interest the church, which might indeed be of some utility, if its influence were exercised in bridling the excesses of superstitious tyrants. The terrors of the other world would not be unpardonable falsehoods, could they make the herd of wicked kings to tremble. This, however, has not been the object of the ministers of religion. They never stickled for the interest of mankind. They always burned incense at the altar of tyranny, looked upon its crimes with indulgence, and devised for them easy means of expiation. Tyrants were sure of the pardon and favour of heaven, if they entered warmly into the quarrels of the clergy. Thus, among the Catholics, priests governed kings, and consequently all their subjects. Superstition and despotism formed an internal alliance, and united their efforts, to plunge mankind into slavery and wretchedness. Priests frightened nations with religious terror, that they might be preyed upon by their sovereigns at leisure; and, in return, those sovereigns loaded the priests with opulence and power, and undertook, from time to time, to exterminate their enemies.
What shall we say of those subtle geniuses which Christians call casuists, those pretended moralists who have computed the number of sins against God which a man can commit without risking his salvation? These men of profound wisdom have enriched Christian morality with a ridiculous tarif of sins; they know precisely the degree of wrath which each excites in the breast of the Almighty. True morality has but one criterion for judging the sins of man; the greatest are those that injure society most. The conduct which injures ourselves is imprudent and unreasonable. That which injures others is unjust and criminal.