In A Democracy, Look How

For If I Should Not Believe All That Is Written By Historians, Of The Glorious Acts Of Alexander, Or Caesar; I Do Not Think The Ghost Of Alexander, Or Caesar, Had Any Just Cause To Be Offended; Or Any Body Else, But The Historian. If Livy Say The Gods Made Once A Cow Speak, And We Believe It Not; We Distrust Not God Therein, But Livy. So That It Is Evident, That Whatsoever We Believe, Upon No Other Reason, Then What Is Drawn From Authority Of Men Only, And Their Writings; Whether They Be Sent From God Or Not, Is Faith In Men Only.

This I Know; God Cannot Sin, Because His Doing A Thing Makes It Just, And Consequently, No Sin.... And Therefore It Is Blasphemy To Say, God Can Sin; But To Say, That God Can So Order The World, As A Sin May Be Necessarily Caused Thereby In A Man, I Do Not See How It Is Any Dishonor To Him.

And Where Men Build On False Grounds, The More They Build, The Greater Is The Ruine

And This Feare Of Things Invisible, Is The Naturall Seed Of That, Which Every One In Himself Calleth Religion; And In Them That Worship, Or Feare That Power Otherwise Than They Do, Superstition.

If This Superstitious Fear Of Spirits Were Taken Away, And With It, Prognostiques From Dreams, False Prophecies, And Many Other Things Depending Thereon, By Which, Crafty Ambitious Persons Abuse The Simple People, Men Would Be Much More Fitted Then They Are For Civill Obedience.