eligion among us. Great wits
love to be free with the highest objects; and if they cannot be allowed a
god to revile or renounce, they will speak evil of dignities, abuse the
government, and reflect upon the ministry, which I am sure few will deny
to be of much more pernicious consequence, according to the saying of
Tiberius, _deorum offensa diis curoe_. As to the particular fact
related, I think it is not fair to argue from one instance, perhaps
another cannot be produced: yet (to the comfort of all those who may be
apprehensive of persecution) blasphemy we know is freely spoke a million
of times in every coffee-house and tavern, or wherever else good company
meet. It must be allowed, indeed, that to break an English free-born
officer only for blasphemy was, to speak the gentlest of such an action,
a very high strain of absolute power. Little can be said in excuse for
the general; perhaps he was afraid it might give offence to the allies,
among whom, for aught we know, it may be the custom of the country to
believe a God. But if he argued, as some have done, upon a mistaken
principle, that an officer who is guilty of speaking blasphemy may, some
time or other, proceed so far as to raise a mutiny, the consequence is by
no means to be admitted: for surely the commander of an English army is
like to be but ill obeyed whose soldiers fear and reverence him as little
as they do a Deity.

It is further objected against the Gospel system that it obliges men to
the belief of things too difficult for Freethinkers, and such who have
shook off the prejudices that usually cling to a confined education. To
which I answer, that men should be cautious how they raise objections
which reflect upon the wisdom of the nation. Is not everybody freely
allowed to believe whatever he pleases, and to publish his belief to the
world whenever he thinks fit, especially if it serves to strengthen the
party which is in the right? Would any indifferent foreigner, who should
read the trumpery lately written by Asgil, Tindal, Toland, Coward, and
forty more, imagine the Gospel to be our rule of faith, and to be
confirmed by Parliaments? Does any man either believe, or say he
believes, or desire to have it thought that he says he believes, one
syllable of the matter? And is any man worse received upon that score,
or does he find his want of nominal faith a disadvantage to him in the
pursuit of any civil or military employment? What if there be