The Trade Of Governing Has Always Been

The Obscene And Vulgar Stories In The Bible Are As Repugnant To Our Ideas Of The Purity Of A Divine Being, As The Horrid Cruelties And Murders It Ascribes To Him Are Repugnant To Our Ideas Of His Justice.

To Believe That God Created A Plurality Of Worlds, At Least As Numerous As What We Call Stars, Renders The Christian Faith At Once Little And Ridiculous; And Scatters It In The Mind Like Feathers In The Air.

It Has Been The Scheme Of The Christian Church, And Of All The Other Invented Systems Of Religion, To Hold Man In Ignorance Of The Creator, As It Is Of Government To Hold Man In Ignorance Of His Rights. The Systems Of The One Are As False As Those Of The Other, And Are Calculated For Mutual Support.

His [jesus'] Historians, Having Brought Him Into The World In A Supernatural Manner, Were Obliged To Take Him Out Again In The Same Manner, Or The First Part Of The Story Must Have Fallen To The Ground.

Here Then Is The Origin And Rise Of Government; Namely, A Mode Rendered Necessary By The Inability Of Moral Virtue To Govern The World; Here Too Is The Design And End Of Government, Viz. Freedom And Security.