Thy faithful ministers have not ceased declaring these truths to thy children, and threatening them with the chastisements, which thou in thy just anger reservedst for prevaricators: but in vain; the fools have delivered themselves up to the tide of their passions, they followed the torrent, they have despised our admonitions, they have laughed at our threats, they have regarded our anathemas as empty noise; their vices are accumulated, strengthen’d, multiplied; the voice of their impiety has ascended even to thy throne, and we have not been able to prevent the tremendous scourge, with which thou hast smote them. After having long implored thy mercy, let us now extoll thy justice. Overwhelmed by thy strokes, doubtless they will return to thee, and acknowledge the hand which is laid heavy on them. But O prodigy of hardheartedness! O excess of blindness! They have imputed the effect of thy power to the blind mechanism of nature. They have said in their hearts, Brama is not. All the properties of matter are not known to us, and the new proof of its existence is but a proof of the ignorance and credulity of those, who object it to us.