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 likely to be but ill obeyed, whose soldiers fear and
reverence him as little as they do a Deity.

[Footnote 6: Tacitus, "Annals," bk. i., c. lxxiii. [T.S.]]

It is further objected against the Gospel System, that it obliges men to
the belief of things too difficult for free-thinkers, and such who have
shaken 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 every body 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,[7]
and forty more, imagine the Gospel to be our rule of faith, and
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 an old
dormant statute or two against him, are they not now obsolete, to a
degree, that Empsom and Dudley[8] themselves if they were now alive,
would find it impossible to put them in execution?