tion of the
Lower House of Convocation, and produced as so many proofs of the
profaneness, blasphemy, and atheism of the nation; there being nothing
more profane, blasphemous, or atheistical in those representations, than
what these prophets have spoke, whose writings are yet called by our
priests, "the word of God." And therefore these prophets are as much
atheists as myself, or as any of my freethinking brethren whom I lately
named to you.

[Footnote 29: Collins, after making the charge, which has been repeated
by all freethinkers down to Thomas Paine, that the prophets acquired
their fervour of spirit by the aid of music and wine, allows,
nevertheless, that they were great freethinkers, and "writ with as great
liberty against the established religion of the Jews, which the people
looked on as the institution of God himself as if they looked upon it
all to be imposture."--_Discourse_, p. 153, _et sequen._ [S.] ]

Josephus was a great freethinker: I wish he had chosen a better subject
to write on, than those ignorant, barbarous, ridiculous scoundrels, the
Jews, whom God (if we may believe the priests) thought fit to choose for
his own people. I will give you some instances of his freethinking. He
says, Cain travelled through several countries, and kept company with
rakes and profligate fellows; he corrupted the simplicities of former
times, &c., which plainly supposes men before Adam, and consequently
that the priests' history of the creation by Moses, is an imposture. He
says, the Israelites' passing through the Red Sea, was no more than
Alexander's passing at the Pamphilian sea; that as for the appearance of
God at Mount Sinai, the reader may believe it as he pleases; that Moses
persuaded the Jews he had God for his guide, just as the Greeks
pretended they had their laws from Apollo. These are noble strains of
freethinking, which the priests knew not how to solve, but by thinking
as freely: For one of them says, that Josephus writ this to make his
work acceptable to the heathens, by striking out everything that was
incredible.

Origen, who was the first Christian that had any learning, has left a
noble testimony of his freethinking; for a general council has
determined him to be damned; which plainly shews he was a freethinker,
and was no saint; for people were only sainted because of their want of
learning and excess of zeal; so that all the fathers, who are called
saints by the priests, were worse than atheists.