CLXV The Dogma of the Remission of Sins Has Been Invented in the Interest of the Priests
When a man has a great desire to sin, he thinks very little about his God; more than this, whatever crimes he may have committed, he always flatters himself that this God will mitigate the severity of his punishments. No mortal seriously believes that his conduct can damn him. Although he fears a terrible God, who often makes him tremble, every time he is strongly tempted he succumbs and sees but a God of mercy, the idea of whom quiets him. Does he do evil? He hopes to have the time to correct himself, and promises earnestly to repent some day.
There are in the religious pharmacy infallible receipts for calming the conscience; the priests in every country possess sovereign secrets for disarming the wrath of Heaven. However true it may be that the anger of Deity is appeased by prayers, by offerings, by sacrifices, by penitential tears, we have no right to say that religion holds in check the irregularities of men; they will first sin, and afterward seek the means to reconcile God. Every religion which expiates, and which promises the remission of crimes, if it restrains any, it encourages the great number to commit evil. Notwithstanding His immutability, God is, in all the religions of this world, a veritable Proteus. His priests show Him now armed with severity, and then full of clemency and gentleness; now cruel and pitiless, and then easily reconciled by the repentance and the tears of the sinners. Consequently, men face the Deity in the manner which conforms the most to their present interests. An always wrathful God would repel His worshipers, or cast them into despair. Men need a God who becomes angry and who can be appeased; if His anger alarms a few timid souls, His clemency reassures the determined wicked ones who intend to have recourse sooner or later to the means of reconciling themselves with Him; if the judgments of God frighten a few faint-hearted devotees who already by temperament and by habitude are not inclined to evil, the treasures of Divine mercy reassure the greatest criminals, who have reason to hope that they will participate in them with the others.