They will not fail to tell you that the Creator of all things, the independent Monarch of nature is the master of his favors; that he owes nothing to his creatures; that he can dispose of them as he pleases, without any injustice, and without their having any right of complaint; that man is incapable of sounding the profundity of his decrees; and that his justice is not the justice of men. But all these answers, which divines have continually in their mouths, serve only to accelerate the destruction of those sublime ideas which they have given us of the Deity. The result appears to be, that God conducts himself according to the maxims of a fantastic sovereign, who, satisfied in having rewarded some of his favorites, thinks himself justified in neglecting the rest of his subjects, and to leave them groaning in the most deplorable misery. You must acknowledge, Madam, it is not on such a model that we can form a powerful, equitable, and beneficent God, whose omnipotence ought to enable him to procure happiness to all his subjects, without fear of exhausting the treasures of his goodness. If we are told that divine justice bears no resemblance to the justice of men, I reply, that in this case we are not authorized to say that God is _just_; seeing that by justice it is not possible for us to conceive any thing except a similar quality to that called justice by the beings of our own species. If divine justice bears no resemblance to human justice,--if, on the contrary, this justice resembles what we call injustice,--then all our ideas confound themselves, and we know not either what we mean or what we say when we affirm that God is just. According to human ideas, (which are, however, the only ones that men are possessed of,) justice will always exclude caprice and partiality; and never can we prevent ourselves from regarding as iniquitous and vicious a sovereign who, being both able and willing to occupy himself with the happiness of his subjects, should plunge the greatest number of them into misfortune, and reserve his kindness for those to whom his whims have given the preference. With respect to telling us that _God owes nothing to his creatures_, such an atrocious principle is destructive of every idea of justice and goodness, and tends visibly to sap the foundation of all religion. A God that is just and good owes happiness to every being to whom he has given existence; he ceases to be just and good if he produce them only to render them miserable; and he would be destitute of both wisdom and reason were he to give them birth only to be the victims of his caprice. What should we think of a father bringing children into the world for the sole purpose of putting their eyes out and tormenting them at his ease?