the creed professed by the Jewish church, by
the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the
Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my
own church.

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or
Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify
and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe
otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to
mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally
faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in
disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not
believe.

It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express
it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far
corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe
his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared
himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade
of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for
that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more
destructive to morality than this?

Soon after I had published the pamphlet COMMON SENSE, in America, I saw
the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government
would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The
adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place,
whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited, by
pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon
first principles of religion, that until the system of government should
be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before
the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the
system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priest-craft
would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed, and
unadulterated belief of one God, and no more.

CHAPTER II - OF MISSIONS AND REVELATIONS.

EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending
some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The
Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles
and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not
open to every man alike.

Each of those