makes them so implacable
against Mr. Gildon, Dr. Tindal, Mr. Toland,[17] and myself, and when they
call us wits, atheists, it provokes us to be freethinkers.

[Footnote 17: See notes on pp. 9, 79, 80, 82.]

Again; the priests cannot agree when their Scripture was written. They
differ about the number of canonical books, and the various readings.
Now those few among us who understand Latin, are careful to tell this to
our disciples, who presently fall a-freethinking, that the Bible is a
book not to be depended upon in anything at all.

There is another thing, that mightily spreads freethinking, which I
believe you would hardly guess. The priests have got a way of late of
writing books against freethinking; I mean treatises in dialogue, where
they introduce atheists, deists, sceptics, and Socinians offering their
several arguments. Now these freethinkers are too hard for the priests
themselves in their own books; and how can it be otherwise? For if the
arguments usually offered by atheists, are fairly represented in these
books, they must needs convert everybody that reads them; because
atheists, deists, sceptics, and Socinians, have certainly better
arguments to maintain their opinions, than any the priests can produce
to maintain the contrary.

Mr. Creech,[18] a priest, translated Lucretius into English, which is a
complete system of atheism; and several young students, who were
afterwards priests, wrote verses in praise of this translation. The
arguments against Providence in that book are so strong, that they have
added mightily to the number of freethinkers.

[Footnote 18: This is Thomas Creech, the translator of Horace, to whom
Swift refers in "The Battle of the Books" (see vol. i. p. 180). The
translation of Lucretius was published in English verse in 1682. [T.
S.]]

Why should I mention the pious cheats of the priests, who in the New
Testament translate the word _ecclesia_ sometimes the _church_, and
sometimes the _congregation_; and _episcopus_, sometimes a _bishop_, and
sometimes an _overseer_? A priest,[19] translating a book, left out a
whole passage that reflected on the king, by which he was an enemy to
political freethinking, a most considerable branch of our system.
Another priest, translating a book of travels,[20] left out a lying
miracle, out of mere malice, to conceal an argument for freethinking. In
short, these frauds are very common in all books which are published by
priests: But however, I