He has, you say, every thing requisite to make man happy. Why then
does he not do it? Confess, that your God has more malice than goodness,
unless you admit, that God, was necessitated to do what he has done,
without being able to do it otherwise. Yet, you assure us, that
God is free. You say also, that he is immutable, although it was
in _Time_ that he began and ceased to exercise his power, like the
inconstant beings of this world. O theologians! Vain are your
efforts to free your God from defects. This perfect God has always
some human imperfections.


60. "Is not God master of his favours? Can he not give them?
Can he not take them away? It does not belong to his creatures to
require reasons for his conduct. He can dispose of the works of his
own hands as he pleases. Absolute sovereign of mortals, he distributes
happiness or misery, according to his good pleasure." Such are
the solutions given by theologians to console us for the evils which
God inflicts upon us. We reply, that a God, who is infinitely good,
cannot be _master of his favours_, but would by his nature be obliged
to bestow them upon his creatures; that a being, truly beneficent,
cannot refrain from doing good; that a being, truly generous, does
not take back what he has given; and that every man, who does so,
dispenses with gratitude, and has no right to complain of finding
ungrateful men.

How can the odd and capricious conduct, which theologians ascribe
to God, be reconciled with religion, which supposes a covenant, or
mutual engagements between God and men? If God owes nothing to his
creatures, they, on their part, can owe nothing to their God. All
religion is founded upon the happiness that men think they have a