well known by Divines in general, is manifest by their annexing an idea
of reproach to the very term of arguing upon the subject. These arguers
they call Free-thinkers, and this appellation has obtained, in the
understanding of pious believers, the most odious disgrace. Yet we
cannot argue without thinking; nor can we either think or argue to any
purpose without freedom. Therefore free-thinking, so far from being a
disgrace, is a virtue, a most commendable quality. How absurd, and how
cruel it is in the professors of divinity, to address the understanding
of men on the subject of their belief, and to upbraid those very men
who shall exercise their understanding in attending to their arguments!
No tyranny is greater than that of ecclesiastics. These chain down our
very ideas, other tyrants only confine our limbs. They invite us to the
argument, yet damn us to eternal punishment for the use of reason on
the subject. They give to man an essence distinct from his corporeal
appearance and this they call his soul, a very ray and particle of the
Divine Being; the principal faculty of this soul they allow to be that
of reasoning, and yet they call reason a dark lanthorn, an erroneous
vapour, a false medium, and at last the very instrument of another
fancied Being of their own to lead men into their own destruction.
_"In the image of himself made he man."_ A favourite text with
theologians; but surely they do not mean that this God Almighty of
theirs has got a face and person like a man. No; that they exclaim
against, and, when we push them for the resemblance, they confess
it is in the use of reason; it is in the soul.

I am aware that I am not here to mix questions of Christianity with the
general question of a Divinity; subjects of a very distinct enquiry,
and which in the Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever are very
carefully separated. The subject of revelation is indeed promised
afterwards to be taken up, provided the argument in favour of Natural