is often contrary to the law of the sovereign or to the interest of the State.  When the princes are firm, and sure of the love of their subjects, God’s law is sometimes obliged to comply with the wise intentions of the temporal sovereign; but more often the sovereign authority is obliged to retreat before the Divine authority, that is to say, before the interests of the clergy.  Nothing is more dangerous for a prince, than to meddle with ecclesiastical affairs (to put his hands into the holy-water pot), that is to say, to attempt the reform of abuses consecrated by religion.  God is never more angry than when the Divine rights, the privileges, the possessions, and the immunities of His priests are interfered with.

Metaphysical speculations or the religious opinions of men, never influence their conduct except when they believe them conformed to their interests.  Nothing proves this truth more forcibly than the conduct of a great number of princes in regard to the spiritual power, which we see them very often resist.  Should not a sovereign who is persuaded of the importance and the rights of religion, conscientiously feel himself obliged to receive with respect the orders of his priests, and consider them as commandments of the Deity?  There was a time when the kings and the people, more conformable, and convinced of the rights of the spiritual power, became its slaves, surrendered to it on all occasions, and were but docile instruments in its hands; this happy time is no more.  By a strange inconsistency, we sometimes see the most religious monarchs oppose the enterprises of those whom they regard as God’s ministers.  A sovereign who is filled with religion or respect for his God, ought to be constantly prostrate before his priests, and regard them as his true sovereigns.  Is there a power upon the earth which has the right to measure itself with that of the Most High?

CLXXIV.—­CREEDS ARE BURDENSOME AND RUINOUS TO THE MAJORITY OF NATIONS.

Have the princes who believe themselves interested in propagating the prejudices of their subjects, reflected well upon the effects which are produced by privileged demagogues, who have the right to speak when they choose, and excite in the name of Heaven the passions of many millions of their subjects?  What ravages would not these holy haranguers cause should they conspire to disturb a State, as they have so often done?

Nothing is more onerous and more ruinous for the greatest part of the nations than the worship of their Gods!  Everywhere their ministers not only rank as the first order in the State, but also enjoy the greater portion of society’s benefits, and have the right to levy continual taxes upon their fellow-citizens.  What real advantages do these organs of the Most High procure for the people in exchange for the immense profits which they draw from them?  Do they give them in exchange for their wealth and their courtesies anything but mysteries, hypotheses, ceremonies, subtle questions, interminable quarrels, which very often their States must pay for with their blood?