[Footnote 30: Marcus Minutius Felix is said to have been born in Africa. He flourished in the third century, and wrote a defence of Christianity, in dialogue form, entitled, "Octavius." The work has been translated into English by Lord Hailes. [T.S.]]
Synesius,[31] who had too much learning and too little zeal for a saint, was for some time a great freethinker; he could not believe the resurrection till he was made a bishop, and then pretended to be convinced by a lying miracle.
[Footnote 31: Synesius of Cyrene, born 379, is the Platonic philosopher who became Bishop of Ptolemais. [T.S.]]
To come to our own country: My Lord Bacon was a great freethinker, when he tells us, that whatever has the least relation to religion, is particularly liable to suspicion; by which he seems to suspect all the facts whereon most of the superstitions (that is to say, what the priests call the religions) of the world are grounded. He also prefers atheism before superstition.
Mr. Hobbes was a person of great learning, virtue, and freethinking, except in the high church politics.
But Archbishop Tillotson is the person whom all English freethinkers own as their head; and his virtue is indisputable for this manifest reason; that Dr. Hickes, a priest, calls him an atheist; says, he caused several to turn atheists, and to ridicule the priesthood and religion. These must be allowed to be noble effects of freethinking. This great prelate assures us, that all the duties of the Christian religion, with respect to God, are no other but what natural light prompts men to, except the two sacraments, and praying to God in the name and mediation of Christ. As a priest and prelate, he was obliged to say something of Christianity; but pray observe, sir, how he brings himself off. He justly affirms that even these things are of less moment than natural duties; and because mothers' nursing their children is a natural duty, it is of more moment than the two sacraments, or than praying to God in the name and by the mediation of Christ. This freethinking archbishop could not allow a miracle sufficient to give credit to a prophet who taught anything contrary to our natural notions: By which it is plain, he rejected at once all the mysteries of Christianity.