Spinoza’s TTP has several purposes, among which are to defend his own views about “true religion” and how it differs from organized religious communities, about the nature of the state and political organization and its chief purposes, and about the relation between religion and the state. Although he refers once to his audience as “philosophical readers,” his primary audience are clergy who take Scripture to be authoritative and yet who are inclined to toleration and freedom of thought and expression. In short, in this work, Spinoza seeks to use Scripture to defend freedom of thought and expression by distinguishing the primary purposes of religion, on the one hand, and politics, on the other.