een discovered. [T.S.]]

In answer to all which, with deference to wiser judgments, I think this
rather shews the necessity of a nominal religion 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 curae._[6] 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 spoken a
million of times in every coffeehouse 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 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