Anthony Collins (1676-1729), in his Discourse of Free-thinking, shows the right of free thought (i. e., of judgment on rational grounds) in general, from the principle that no truth is forbidden to us, and that there is no other way by which we can attain truth and free ourselves from superstition, and the right to apply it to God and the Bible in particular, from the fact that the clergy differ concerning the most important matters.  The fear that the differences of opinion which spring from freethinking may endanger the peace of society lacks foundation; on the contrary, it is only restriction of the freedom of thought which leads to disorders, by weakening moral zeal.  The clergy are the only ones who condemn liberty of thought.  It is sacrilege to hold that error can be beneficial and truth harmful.  As a proof that freethinking by no means corrupts character, Collins gives in conclusion a list of noble freethinkers from Socrates down to Locke and Tillotson.  Among the replies to the views of Collins we may mention the calmly objective Boyle Lectures by Ibbot, and the sharp and witty letter of Richard Bentley, the philologist.  Neither of these attacks Collins’s leading principle, both fully admitting the right to employ the reason, even in religious questions; but they dispute the implication that freethinking is equivalent to contentious opposition.  On the one hand, they maintain that Collins’s thinking is too free, that is, unbridled, hasty, presumptuous, and paradoxical; on the other, that it is not free enough (from prejudice).

After Shaftesbury had based morality on a natural instinct for the beautiful and had made it independent of religion, as well as served the cause of free thought by a keenly ironical campaign against enthusiasm and orthodoxy, and Clarke had furnished the representatives of natural religion a useful principle of morals in the objective rationality of things, the debate concerning prophecy and miracles[1] threatened to dissipate the deistic movement into scattered theological skirmishes.  At this juncture Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) led it back to the main question.  His Christianity as Old as the Creation is the doomsday book of deism.  It contains all that has been given above as the core of this view of religion.  Christ came not to bring in a new doctrine, but to exhort to repentance and atonement, and to restore the law of nature, which is as old as the creation, as universal as reason, and as unchangeable as God, human nature, and the relations of things, which we should respect in our actions.  Religion is morality; more exactly, it is the free, constant disposition to do as much good as possible, and thereby to promote the glory of God and our own welfare.  For the harmony of our conduct with the rules of reason constitutes our perfection, and on this depends our happiness.  Since God is infinitely blessed and self-sufficient his purpose in the moral law is man’s happiness