here I differ from him. However, it is manifest from hence, that the
Trinity was an invention of statesmen and politicians.

[Footnote 26: Marcus Terentius Varro (born B.C. 117) was the friend of
Cicero. He was a profound grammarian, historian, and philosopher. The
expression Swift applies to him as "the most learned among the Romans"
is one by which he is generally called. [T. S.] ]

The grave and wise Cato the censor will for ever live in that noble
freethinking saying--"I wonder," said he, "how one of our priests can
forbear laughing when he sees another!" (For contempt of priests is
another grand characteristic of a freethinker). This shews that Cato
understood the whole mystery of the Roman religion "as by law
established." I beg you, sir, not to overlook these last words,
"religion as by law established." I translate _hanisfax,_ into the
general word, _priest_. Thus I apply the sentence to our priests in
England, and, when Dr. Smallridge sees Dr. Atterbury, I wonder how either
of them can forbear laughing at the cheat they put upon the people, by
making them believe their "religion as by law established."

Cicero, that consummate philosopher, and noble patriot, though he was a
priest, and consequently more likely to be a knave; gave the greatest
proofs of his freethinking. First, he professed the sceptic philosophy,
which doubts of everything. Then, he wrote two treatises;[27] in the
first, he shews the weakness of the Stoics' arguments for the being of
the Gods: In the latter, he has destroyed the whole revealed religion of
the Greeks and Romans (for why should not theirs be a revealed religion
as well as that of Christ?) Cicero likewise tells us, as his own
opinion, that they who study philosophy, do not believe there are any
Gods: He denies the immortality of the soul, and says, there can be
nothing after death.

[Footnote 27: "De Natura Deomm." [T. S.] ]

And because the priests have the impudence to quote Cicero in their
pulpits and pamphlets, against freethinking; I am resolved to disarm
them of his authority. You must know, his philosophical works are
generally in dialogues, where people are brought in disputing against
one another: Now the priests when they see an argument to prove a God,
offered perhaps by a Stoic, are such knaves or blockheads, to quote it
as if it were Cicero's own; whereas Cicero was so noble a freethinker,
that he believed nothing at all of the matter, nor ever shews the least