tions, I shall continue to
examine the strange mysteries with which Christianity is garnished.
They are founded on ideas so odd and so contrary to reason, that if
from infancy we had not been familiarized with them, we should blush
at our species in having for one instant believed and adopted them.

The Christians, scarcely content with the crowd of enigmas with which
the books of the Jews are filled, have besides fancied they must add
to them a great many incomprehensible mysteries, for which they have
the most profound veneration. Their impenetrable obscurity appears to
be a sufficient motive among them for adding these. Their priests,
encouraged by their credulity, which nothing can outdo, seem to be
studious to multiply the articles of their faith, and the number of
inconceivable objects which they have said must be received with
submission, and adored even if not understood.

The first of these mysteries is the _Trinity_, which supposes that one
God, self-existent, who is a pure spirit, is, nevertheless, composed
of three Divinities, which have obtained the names of _persons_. These
three Gods, who are designated under the respective names of the
_Father_, the _Son_, and the _Holy Ghost_, are, nevertheless, but one
God only. These three persons are equal in power, in wisdom, in
perfections; yet the second is subordinate to the first, in
consequence of which he was compelled to become a man, and be the
victim of the wrath of his Father. This is what the priests call the
mystery of the _incarnation_. Notwithstanding his innocence, his
perfection, his purity, the Son of God became the object of the
vengeance of a just God, who is the same as the Son in question, but
who would not consent to appease himself but by the death of his own
Son, who is a portion of himself. The Son of God, not content with
becoming man, died without having sinned, for the salvation of men who
had sinned. God preferred to the punishment of imperfect beings, whom
he did not choose to amend, the punishment of his only Son, full of
divine perfections. The death of God became necessary to reclaim the
human kind from the slavery of Satan, who without that would not have
quitted his prey, and who has been found sufficiently powerful against
the Omnipotent to oblige him to sacrifice his Son. This is what the
priests designate by the name of the mystery of _redemption_.

It is assuredly sufficient to expose such opinions to demonstrate
their absur