RIESTS, HAS DESTROYED THE
TRUE PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY.

He who first proclaimed to the nations that, when man had wronged man,
he must ask God's pardon, appease His wrath by presents, and offer Him
sacrifices, obviously subverted the true principles of morality.
According to these ideas, men imagine that they can obtain from the King
of Heaven, as well as from the kings of the earth, permission to be
unjust and wicked, or at least pardon for the evil which they might
commit.

Morality is founded upon the relations, the needs, and the constant
interests of the inhabitants of the earth; the relations which subsist
between men and God are either entirely unknown or imaginary. The
religion associating God with men has visibly weakened or destroyed the
ties which unite men.

Mortals imagine that they can, with impunity, injure each other by
making a suitable reparation to the Almighty Being, who is supposed to
have the right to remit all the injuries done to His creatures. Is there
anything more liable to encourage wickedness and to embolden to crime,
than to persuade men that there exists an invisible being who has the
right to pardon injustice, rapine, perfidy, and all the outrages they
can inflict upon society? Encouraged by these fatal ideas, we see the
most perverse men abandon themselves to the greatest crimes, and expect
to repair them by imploring Divine mercy; their conscience rests in
peace when a priest assures them that Heaven is quieted by sincere
repentance, which is very useless to the world; this priest consoles
them in the name of Deity, if they consent in reparation of their faults
to divide with His ministers the fruits of their plunderings, of their
frauds, and of their wickedness. Morality united to religion, becomes
necessarily subordinate to it. In the mind of a religious person, God
must be preferred to His creatures; "It is better to obey Him than men!"
The interests of the Celestial Monarch must be above those of weak
mortals. But the interests of Heaven are evidently the interests of the
ministers of Heaven; from which it follows evidently, that in all
religions, the priests, under pretext of Heaven's interest's, or of
God's glory, will be able to dispense with the duties of human morals
when they do not agree with the duties which God is entitled to impose.

Besides, He who has the power to pardon crimes, has He not the right to
order them committed?

CLXXI.--THE SUPPOSITION OF THE EXI