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The house expelled John Asgil, who, as agent to the sword-blade company, had offered to lend money to the public in Ireland, on condition that the parliament would pass an act to confirm the company's purchase of the forfeited estates.
Lock, Hobbs, the Honourable Boyle and a great many others, besides Messieurs Norris, Asgil, Coward, and the Tale of a Tub. This great Searcher into Nature has, besides all this, left wonderful Discoveries and Experiments behind him; but I was with nothing more exceedingly diverted, than with his various Engines, and curious Contrivances, to go to and from his own Native Country the Moon.
We are daily complaining of the great decline of wit among us, and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only topic we have left? Who would ever have suspected Asgil for a wit, or Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials?
And truly, when I compare the former enemies to Christianity, such as Socinus, Hobbes, and Spinosa, with such of their successors, as Toland, Asgil, Coward, Gildon, this author of the "Rights," and some others; the church appeareth to me like the sick old lion in the fable, who, after having his person outraged by the bull, the elephant, the horse, and the bear, took nothing so much to heart, as to find himself at last insulted by the spurn of an ass.
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, and forty more, imagine the Gospel to be our rule of faith, and confirmed by parliaments?
And, it is well known, that he kept the British army and nation too, in a fright for three months together, with the halter constantly around the neck of captain Asgil, expecting every day to be hung for the murder of captain Huddy. M. True; general Washington did act so. And it was policy to act against a foreign enemy.
Wherein are several large Lists of the Heretical, Atheistical, Deistical and other pernitious Errors which have been Condemn'd in that Venerable Assembly, the various Services done, and weighty Matters dispatcht, for the Honour of the English Church, for sixteen Years last past, with their formal Proceedings against Asgil, Coward, Toland and others, for reviving old Antiquated Errors in Doctrine, and Publishing them to the World as their own.
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