That religion or belief of a Deity cannot bear the force of argument is well known by Divines in general, is manifest by their annexing an idea of reproach to the very term of arguing upon the subject. These arguers they call Free-thinkers, and this appellation has obtained, in the understanding of pious believers, the most odious disgrace. Yet we cannot argue without thinking; nor can we either think or argue to any purpose without freedom. Therefore free-thinking, so far from being a disgrace, is a virtue, a most commendable quality. How absurd, and how cruel it is in the professors of divinity, to address the understanding of men on the subject of their belief, and to upbraid those very men who shall exercise their understanding in attending to their arguments! No tyranny is greater than that of ecclesiastics. These chain down our very ideas, other tyrants only confine our limbs. They invite us to the argument, yet damn us to eternal punishment for the use of reason on the subject. They give to man an essence distinct from his corporeal appearance and this they call his soul, a very ray and particle of the Divine Being; the principal faculty of this soul they allow to be that of reasoning, and yet they call reason a dark lanthorn, an erroneous vapour, a false medium, and at last the very instrument of another fancied Being of their own to lead men into their own destruction. _"In the image of himself made he man."_ A favourite text with theologians; but surely they do not mean that this God Almighty of theirs has got a face and person like a man. No; that they exclaim against, and, when we push them for the resemblance, they confess it is in the use of reason; it is in the soul.