BOOK I PART III
barous, though projected or executed against
those very people, whom without any scruple
they condemn to eternal and infinite punish-
ments. All we can say in excuse for this in-
consistency is, that they really do not believe
what they affirm concerning a future state; nor
is there any better proof of it than the very in-
consistency.
We may add to this a remark; that in matters
of religion men take a pleasure in being terri-
fyed, and that no preachers are so popular, as
those who excite the most dismal and gloomy
passions. In the common affairs of life, where
we feel and are penetrated with the solidity of
the subject, nothing can be more disagreeable
than fear and terror; and it is only in dramatic
performances and in religious discourses, that
they ever give pleasure. In these latter cases