Page:Rousseau - Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar, 1889.djvu/98

 of proving the truth of the miracle by that of the doctrine, lest the works of the devil should be mistaken for those of the Lord. What think you of this alternative?

The doctrines coming from God, ought to bear the sacred characters of the divinity; and should not only dear up those confused ideas which unenlightened reason excites in the mind, but should also furnish us with a system of religion and morals agreeable to those attributes by which only we form a conception of his essence. If then they teach us only absurdities, if they inspire us with sentiments of aversion for our fellow-creatures and fear for ourselves; if they describe the Deity as a vindictive, partial, jealous, and angry Being; as a God of war and of battles, always ready to thunder and destroy; always threatening slaughter and revenge, and even boasting of punishing the innocent, my heart cannot be incited to love so terrible a Deity, and I shall take care how I give up my natural religion to embrace such doctrines.