"Now all this is the same total ignorance of God, what he is in himself, and what he is in relation to us, and the manner of his being our good, as when the old idolators took men to be gods. And yet nothing is more plain, than that your religion of reason is wholly founded upon all these gross and false notions of God. You have not an argument in its defense, but what supposes, that our relation to God is an outward relation, like that of subjects to their prince; and that what we do to and for God, as our service to him, is, and must be done, by our own power, as that which we do to and for our prince, must be done by our own power. And from these errors it is, that you draw this false conclusion, that if our own reason and natural power were not sufficient to obtain for us all that we want, and God requires of us; God must be less good than a good earthly prince, who requires no more of us, than that which we have a natural strength to do, or can do by our own power. And yet all this is pure absurdity, and has all the grounds of idolatry in it, as soon as you know, that God is no outward or separate being; but that we are what we are, have what we have, and do that which we can do, because he has brought us to this state of life, power, and existence in himself; because he has made us, so far as we are made, partakers or possessors of a life in him, and has communicated to us, such a life in himself; or in the words of scripture, because 'in him we live and move and have our being,' and consequently have no life, motion, or being, out of him. For from this state of our existence in God, it necessarily follows; first, that by the nature of our creation, we are only put into a capacity of receiving good. A creature, as such, can be in no other state; it is as impossible for him to enrich himself, or communicate more good to himself, as it was to create himself. Secondly, that nothing but God can do us any good. Thirdly, that God himself cannot do us any good, but by the communication of himself, in some manner, to us. Hence it is plain, that your religion of reason, which supposes, that we have natural powers, that can put us in possession of that which we want to be possessed of in God; or, that we need no more divine assistance to recover what we have lost of God, than to obtain a pardon from a prince; or, that God need communicate no more of himself to us in our reconcilement to him, than a prince communicates of himself to his pardoned subject; has all the mistakes, error, and ignorance of God, that is in idolatry, when it takes God to be something that he is not; and has all the false devotion that is in idolatry, when it puts the same trust in, and expects the same benefit from, its own powers and faculties, which idolators did in and from their idols. Your religion of reason, therefore, which you esteem as the modern refinement of the human mind, and more excellent and rational, than the faith and humility of the gospel, has all the dregs of the grossest heathen idolatry in it; and has changed nothing in idolatry, but the idol; and only differs in such a degree of philosophy, as the religion of worshiping the sun differs from the religion of worshiping an onion.