And once again she came with my uncle to see me, when father and I were living at Foleshill; then there was some pain, for I had given up the form of Christian belief, and was in a crude state of freethinking.
"George Eliot"
Mathilde Blind
Walpole was a thorough Whig and a freethinker, so long, at least, as freethinking did not threaten danger to comfortable sinecures bestowed upon the sons of Whig ministers.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen
If some leant towards freethinking, the general tendency of the Johnson circle was harshly opposed to any revolutionary movement, and authors were satisfied with the creeds as with the institutions amid which they lived.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen