understanding; but those who have religion, do not; therefore the first have more understanding than the others; witness Toland, Tindal, Gildon, Clendon, Coward, and myself. For, use legs, and have legs.
I answer, thirdly, that freethinkers are the most virtuous persons in the world; for all freethinkers must certainly differ from the priests, and from nine hundred ninety-nine of a thousand of those among whom they live; and are therefore virtuous of course, because every body hates them.
I answer, fourthly, that the most virtuous people in all ages have been freethinkers; of which I shall produce several instances.
Socrates was a freethinker; for he disbelieved the gods of his country, and the common creeds about them, and declared, his dislike when he heard men attribute "repentance, anger, and other passions to the gods, and talk of wars and battles in Heaven, and of the gods getting women with child," and such like fabulous and blasphemous stories. I pick out these particulars, because they are the very same with what the priests have in their Bibles, where repentance and anger are attributed to God; where it is said, there was "war in Heaven;" and that "the Virgin Mary was with child by the Holy Ghost," whom the priests call God; all fabulous and blasphemous stories. Now I affirm Socrates to have been a true Christian. You will ask perhaps how that can be, since he lived three or four hundred years before Christ? I answer, with Justin Martyr, that Christ is nothing else but reason; and I hope you do not think Socrates lived before reason. Now, this true Christian Socrates never made notions, speculations, or mysteries, any part of his religion; but
