Page:Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat.djvu/240

216 is to say that we have not been able to foresee it. I do not myself believe that any other acceptation can be given to this word. What to an ignorant man is chance, cannot be chance to one better instructed."

"If human reason is incapable of discovering the mysteries of Divinity, why has not Divinity made human reason more clear-sighted?"

"God cannot punish man for not believing when he could so easily have enlightened and convinced him."

"If God is absolutely good, why should He punish the sinner for all eternity, since He does not lead him to good, or give him an example?"

"According to the doctrine of the church, God resembles a sphinx proposing enigmas, and devouring those who cannot guess them."

"The church attributes to God all human passions—anger, desire for vengeance, curiosity, tyranny, partiality, idleness." "If Christianity were pruned of all which is not Christ, this religion would be the simplest in the world." "What motives have influenced the writers who have rejected all religious systems? Is it the conviction that the ideas which they oppose are all