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“Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”
Is this grammatical? We often hear "Pay homage to" or "homage to" but this is not what is said here.
It says "of". What is the difference?
It is grammatical.
Although pay homage to (or homage to) is a common phrase, homage of is also possible. An example of homage of can be found in Macmillan Dictionary.
homage
noun [singular/uncountable]
b. a formal speech or action by which people show their loyalty to a king or leader
He received the homage of his chieftains.
The of in homage of indicates where the homage comes from (or in other words, whose it belongs to). In that example sentence, it's clear that the homage was paid by the chieftains to him.
In your quote,
[...] he (God) must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
means God must prefer the homage paid to Him out of reason to the homage paid to Him out of blindfolded fear.
The author's argument is that, of two forms of homage, one is likely to be approved over the other. So, an homage may be made in the form of reason, or blindfolded fear. Choose the better homage. To put it another way, pay homage with reason.
