a Dr. Grabe, who, following
the Jewish code of rules as regards food, considered the eating of blood
one of the points on which the Church did not insist against. In the
text Swift ridicules this in the reference to "black pudding." [T. S.]]

When I see an honest freethinking bishop endeavour to destroy the power
and privileges of the Church, and Dr. Atterbury angry with him for it,
and calling it "dirty work," what can I conclude, by virtue of being a
freethinker, but that Christianity is all a cheat?

Mr. Whiston has published several tracts, wherein he absolutely denies
the divinity of Christ: A bishop tells him, "Sir, in any matter where
you have the Church's judgment against you, you should be careful not to
break the peace of the Church, by writing against it, though you are
sure you are in the right."[16] Now my opinion is directly contrary; and
I affirm, that if ten thousand freethinkers thought differently from the
received doctrine, and from each other, they would be all in duty bound
to publish their thoughts (provided they were all sure of being in the
right) though it broke the peace of the Church and state ten thousand
times.

[Footnote 16: Swift's "Sermon on the Trinity," as well as a passage in
his "Thoughts upon Religion," shews the weight which he attached to this
important argument. [S.]]

And here I must take leave to tell you, although you cannot but have
perceived it from what I have already said, and shall be still more
amply convinced by what is to follow; that freethinking signifies
nothing, without freespeaking and freewriting. It is the indispensable
duty of a freethinker, to endeavour forcing all the world to think as he
does, and by that means make them freethinkers too. You are also to
understand, that I allow no man to be a freethinker, any further than as
he differs from the received doctrines of religion. Where a man falls
in, though by perfect chance, with what is generally believed, he is in
that point a confined and limited thinker; and you shall see by and by,
that I celebrate those for the noblest freethinkers in every age, who
differed from the religion of their countries in the most fundamental
points, and especially in those which bear any analogy to the chief
fundamentals of religion among us.

Another trick of the priests is, to charge all men with atheism, who
have more wit than themselves; which therefore I expect will be my case
for writing this discourse: This is what