If we take our ideas of God from the nature of things, where we find a mixture of good and evil, this God, just like the good and evil of which we experience, must naturally appear capricious, inconstant, sometimes good, and sometimes malevolent; and therefore, instead of exciting our love, must generate distrust, fear, and uncertainty. There is then no real difference between natural religion, and the most gloomy and servile superstition. If the theist sees God only in a favourable light; the bigot views him in the most hideous light. The folly of the one is cheerful, that of the other is melancholy; but both are equally delirious. 65. If I draw my ideas of God from theology, he appears to inspire aversion. Devotees, who tell us, that they sincerely love their God, are either liars or fools, who see their God only in profile. It is impossible to love a being, the very idea of whom strikes us with terror, and whose judgments make us tremble. How can we, without being alarmed, look upon a God, who is reputed to be barbarous enough to damn us? Let not divines talk to us of a filial, or respectful fear, mixed with love, which men ought to have for their God. A son can by no means love his father, when he knows him to be cruel enough to inflict upon him studied torments for the least faults he may commit. No man upon earth can have the least spark of love for a God, who reserves chastisements, infinite in duration and violence, for ninety-nine hundredths of his children. 66.