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? [Footnote 7: John Asgill (1659-1738), became a member of Lincoln's Inn, and went over to Ireland in 1697, where he practised as a barrister, amassed a large fortune, and was elected to the Irish parliament. For writing "An Argument, proving that Man may be translated from hence without passing through Death," he was, in 1700, expelled the House, and the book ordered to be burnt. On returning to England he was elected to parliament for Bramber, but suffered a second expulsion in 1712, also on account of this book. He was imprisoned for debt, and remained under the rules of the Fleet and King's Bench for thirty years, during which time he wrote and published various political tracts. His "Argument" attempted to "interpret the relations between God and man by the technical rules of English law," and Coleridge thought no little of its power and style. Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) was born at Beer Ferrers, in Devonshire. He studied at Oxford, and obtained a fellowship in All Souls. He was made LL.D. in 1685, and, although he professed himself a Roman Catholic in James II.'s reign, he managed to keep his fellowship after that monarch's flight by becoming Protestant again. His most important work was "The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted," which the House of Commons in 1710 adjudged fit for burning by the hangman. In 1730 he published anonymously, the first part of "Christianity as Old as Creation," a work which attacked strongly the authority of the Scriptures; a second volume was never published.