Page:Rousseau - Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar, 1889.djvu/92



My spiritual guide, who knows it well. My pastor tells me to believe so and so, and accordingly I believe it; he assures me that every one who says to the contrary speaks falsely; and, therefore, I listen to nobody who controverts his doctrine.

How, thought I, is not the truth every where the same? Is it possible that what is true with one person can be false with another? If the method taken by him who is in the right, and by him who is in the wrong, be the same, what merit or demerit has the one more than the other? Their choice is the effect of accident, and to impute it to them is unjust - it is to reward or punish them for being born in this or that country. To say that the Deity can judge us in this manner is the highest impeachment of his justice.

Now, either all religions are good and agreeable to God, or if there be one which he has dictated to man, and will punish him for rejecting, he has certainly distinguished it by manifest signs and tokens as the only true one. These signs are common to all times and places, and are equally obvious to all mankind—to the young and old, the learned and ignorant, to Europeans, Indians, Africans, and Savages.

If there be only one religion in the world that can prevent our suffering eternal damnation, and there be