. The priests have
had the art to prevail on the people to believe in their secret
correspondence with the Deity; they have been thence much respected,
and in all countries their professed intercourse with an unseen
Divinity has given room for their announcement of things the most
marvellous and mysterious.

Besides, the Divinity being a being whose impenetrable essence is
veiled from mortal sight, it has been commonly admitted by the
ignorant, that what could not be seen by mortal eye must necessarily
be divine. Hence _sacred_, _mysterious_, and _divine_, are synonymous
terms; and these imposing words have sufficed to place the human race
on their knees to adore what seeks not their inflated devotion.

The three mysteries which I have examined are received unanimously by
all sects of Christians; but there are others on which the theologians
are not agreed. In fine, we see men, who, after they have admitted,
without repugnance, a certain number of absurdities, stop all of a
sudden in the way, and refuse to admit more. The Christian Protestants
are in this case. They reject, with disdain, the mysteries for which
the Church of Rome shows the greatest respect; and yet, in the matter
of mysteries, it is indeed difficult to designate the point where the
mind ought to stop.

Seeing, then, that our doctors, better advised, undoubtedly, than
those of the Protestants, have adroitly multiplied mysteries, one is
naturally led to conclude, they despaired of governing the mind of
man, if there was any thing in their religion that was clear,
intelligible, and natural. More mysterious than the priests of Egypt
itself, they have found means to change every thing into mystery; the
very movements of the body, usages the most indifferent, ceremonies
the most frivolous, have become, in the powerful hands of the priests,
sublime and divine mysteries. In the Roman religion all is magic, all
is prodigy, all is supernatural. In the decisions of our theologians,
the side which they espouse is almost always that which is the most
abhorrent to reason, the most calculated to confound and overthrow
common sense. In consequence, our priests are by far the most rich,
powerful, and considerable. The continual want which we have of their
aid to obtain from Heaven that grace which it is their province to
bring down for us, places us in continual dependence on those
marvellous men who have received their commission to treat with the
Deity, and become