6thly, The suppression of a just defence of one's person and rights against an aggressor or unjust litigant, is to overturn the laws of society. It is to open a door to iniquities and crimes, and render useless the exercise of justice. By such maxims a people could not exist ten years. To love our enemies is impossible. We may abstain from retaliating on the person by whom we are injured; but love is an affection which can only be excited in the heart by a friendly object.
7thly, The counsel or precept, to possess nothing, amass nothing, and think not of the morrow, would be very prejudicial to families:—a father ought to provide a subsistence for his children. These maxims can suit sluggards only, such as priests and monks, who hold labor in horror, and calculate on living at the expense of the public.
8thly, It is now easy to perceive, that the promises made the Jews by the mouth of Moses, inspired by the divinity, have not been verified literally, and are only allegorical. But it was not from the Son of God that the Jews should have learned this fatal truth. Once imposed on, they ought to have dreaded being again deceived by another envoy. Like Jesus, Moses had made promises; like Jesus, Moses had confirmed his promises and mission by miracles; yet these promises have been found deceptive, and merely allegorical. This idea ought to have created presumptions against the promises of Jesus.
9thly, To say, that it is necessary to be poor in spirit, and to say afterwards that to attain heaven it is necessary to be perfect as the heavenly father is perfect, is to make God a stupid being; to afford to atheists a solution for all the evil they perceive in nature; and to assert that to enter paradise one must be a fool. But has man the power of being spiritual or poor in spirit, reasonable or foolish, believing or unbelieving? Is not the holy stupidity of faith a gift which God grants only to whom he will? Is it not unjust to damn people of understanding?
Lastly, In this sermon Jesus recommends to beware of false prophets, and says, that it is by their works we shall know them. Yet, the priests tell us, "we ought to do as they say, without imitating what they do," when we find their conduct opposed to the maxims they preach. Another sign, therefore, than works ought to have been given whereby to recognize false prophets; otherwise the faithful will be reduced to believe that the clergy are provided only with lying prophets.
In this manner unbelievers argue; that is all those who have not received from heaven poorness of spirit, so necessary for not perceiving the want of inference, false principles, and numberless inconsistencies, which result from the morality of Jesus. This morality appears a divine chef d'oeuvre to docile Christians illuminated by faith; and it was much admired by those who heard it. We know not, however, if the auditors were so affected by it as to follow it literally. To admire a doctrine, and believe it true and divine, is a thing much more easy than to practice it. Many persons set a higher value on evangelical virtues, which are sublime in theory, than on moral virtues, which reason commands us to practice. It is not then surprising that the supernatural and marvellous morality of Jesus was applauded by those who heard it. It was addressed to paupers, the dregs of the people, and the miserable. An austere stoical morality must please the wretched; it transforms their situation into virtue; it flatters their vanity; makes them proud of their misery; hardens them against the strokes of fortune; and persuades them that they are more valuable than the rich, who maltreat them; and that Deity, which delights in seeing men suffer, prefers the wretched to those who enjoy felicity.
On the other hand, the vulgar imagine that those who can restrain their passions, and deprive themselves of what excites the desires of others, are extraordinary beings, agreeable to God, and endowed with preternatural grace, without which they would be incapable of these exertions. Thus a harsh morality, which seems to proceed from insensibility, pleases the rabble, imposes on the ignorant, and is sufficient to excite the admiration of the simple. It is not even displeasing to persons placed in happier situations, who admire the doctrine, well assured of finding the secret to elude the practice of it by the assistance of their indulgent guides. There is only a small number of fanatics who follow it literally.
Such were the dispositions which must have induced so many people to receive the instructions of Jesus. His maxims produced a multitude of obstinate martyrs, who, in the hope of opening a road to heaven, set torments and afflictions at defiance. The same maxims produced penitents of every kind, solitaries, anchorites, cenobites, and monks, who, in emulation of each other, rendered themselves illustrious in the eyes of nations by their austerities, voluntary poverty, a total renunciation of the comforts of nature, and a continual struggle against the gentlest and most lawful inclinations. The counsels and precepts of the gospel inundated nations with a vast number of madmen, enemies of themselves, and perfectly useless to others. These wonderful men were admired, respected, and revered as saints by their fellow-citizens, who, themselves deficient in grace or enthusiasm necessary for imitating them, or following faithfully the counsels of the Son of God, had recourse to their intercession, in order to obtain pardon for their sins, and indulgence from the Almighty, whom they supposed irritated at the impossibility in which they found themselves of following literally the precepts of Jesus. In fine, it is easy to perceive that these precepts, rigorously observed, would drag society into total ruin; for society is supported only because that most Christians, admiring the doctrine of the Son of God as divine, dispense with practicing it, and follow the propensity of nature, even at the risk of being damned.
In the gospel, Jesus threatens with eternal punishment those who shall not fulfil his precepts. This frightful doctrine was not contradicted in the assembly; the superstitious love to tremble; those who frighten them most, are the most eagerly listened to. This was undoubtedly the time for establishing firmly the dogma of the spirituality and immortality of the soul. The Son of God ought to have explained to those Jews, but little acquainted with this matter, how a part of man could suffer in hell, whilst another part was rotting in the earth. But our preacher was not acquainted with any of the dogmas which this church has since taught. He had not clear ideas of spirituality; he spoke of it only in a very obscure manner: "Fear, (said he, in one place,) him who can throw both body and soul into hell"—words which must have appeared unintelligible in a language in which the soul was taken for the blood or animating principle. It was not till a long time after Jesus, and when some Platonists had been initiated in Christianity, that the spirituality and immortality of the soul were converted into dogmas. Before their time, the Jews and Christians had only vague notions on that important subject. We find doctors in the first ages speaking to us of God and the soul as material substances, more subtile indeed than ordinary bodies. It was reserved for latter metaphysicians to give such sublime ideas of mind, that our understandings are bewildered when employed on them.