He was able to boast in his preface that "if books and writings would not, God be thanked the Parliament would confute" his adversaries.

Nevertheless, though coming late in the day, Defoe's pamphlet was widely read, and must have helped to consolidate the victory.
Thus late in life did Defoe lay the first stone of his literary reputation.

He was now in the thirty-eighth year of his age, his controversial genius in full vigour, and his mastery of language complete.

None of his subsequent tracts surpass this as a piece of trenchant and persuasive reasoning.

It shows at their very highest his marvellous powers of combining constructive with destructive criticism.
He dashes into the lists with good-humoured confidence, bearing the banner of clear common sense, and disclaiming sympathy with extreme persons of either side.