There has probably been no period in which liberty of thought on religious subjects has been debated in this country so anxiously, so vehemently, so generally, as in the earlier part of the eighteenth century.  The Reformation had hinged upon it; but general principles were then greatly obscured in the excitement of change, and amid the multiplicity of secondary questions of more immediate practical interest.  For a hundred and fifty years after the first breach with Rome, it may be said that private judgment was most frequently considered in connection with a power of option between different Church communions.  A man had to choose whether he would adhere to the old, or adopt the new form of faith—­whether he would remain staunch to the reformed Anglican Church, or cast in his lot with the Puritans, or with one or other of the rising sects,—­whether Episcopacy or Presbyterianism most conformed to his ideas of Church government.  When at last these controversies had abated, the full importance of the principles involved in this new liberty of thought began to be fully felt.  Their real scope and nature, apart from any transient applications, engaged great attention, first among the studious and thoughtful, among philosophers and theologians, but before long throughout the country generally.  Locke among philosophers, Tillotson and Chillingworth among divines, addressed their reasonings not to the few, but to the many.  Their arguments however would not have been so widely and actively discussed, had it not been for the Deists.  Free-thought in reference to certain ecclesiastical topics had been for several generations familiar to every Englishman; but just at a time when reflecting persons of every class were beginning to inquire what was implied in this liberty of thought and choice, the term was unhappily appropriated by the opponents of revelation, and, as if by common consent, conceded to them.  Notwithstanding all that could be urged by a number of eminent and influential preachers and writers, freethinking became a term everywhere associated with Deism and disbelief.  It was a suicidal error, which rapidly gained ground, and lingers still.  The Deists gained great advantage from it.  They started as it were with an unchallenged verbal assumption that the most fundamental principle of correct reasoning was on their side.  All inquiries as to truth, all sound research, all great reforms, demand free thought; and they were the acknowledged Freethinkers.  A name could not have been chosen more admirably adapted to create, especially in young and candid minds, a prejudice in their favour.  For the same reason, all who asserted the duty of fearless investigation in the interests of Christianity could only do so under penalty of incurring from many quarters loudly expressed suspicions of being Deists in disguise.  Tillotson was by strong conviction an advocate of freethought.  ‘He is a Freethinker,’ said all who were afraid of liberty.  ’Therefore