and immoral, and if it were false and immoral it bad better even then be left to the good sense of the people than be prosecuted as an offence in this Court; I should be able to turn over the pages of the book to shew that the record contained a false charge; but as it does not profess to charge any thing of the kind, I am not called upon to answer to it, and we have the precedents, that this Court, in the cases of the King against Carlile and the King against Tunbridge, for the same publication, would not allow the Defendants to shew any thing from the contents of the book itself, which is tantamount to a proof that the contents were not in themselves a breach of law. If the contents of the book were the matter complained of, upon what principle of law were those two defendants prevented from explaining those contents before the Juries which tried them; and what but ignorance and perjury can account for the verdicts of those Juries?

This

The second point averred in the information which cannot be sustained in law, and which, therefore, this Court has no jurisdiction to try, is, the accusation that I have published this book to the scandal of the Christian religion, that it is, an unlawful comment upon that religion. accusation is not and cannot be any offence whatever, no law takes cognizance of it, and it cannot by any possibility be justly determined by any Jury, it can never be legally before the Jury. It is a subject wholly unfit for discussion in a court of law. I am uot going to enquire whether the Christian Religion be or be not founded in truth, or whether its foundation be sound or unsound: this is no part of the question before the Court, and I shall be careful not to introduce any thing irrelevant: but, as I really wish to respect every thing that is respectable, I will now state in the first instance, that as the words Christian Religion are introduced into the record as a matter connected with the law, I shall treat of those words in the sense attempted to be put upon them, without discussing their merits or meaning in any other way than as they are foisted upon the law of this country.

It would be idle for a man in this country, to say that he did not know to what the words Christian Religion related in a general sense; therefore, I do not wish to plead any false ignorance upon that matter: but I do think, and do aver, that it is worse than idle to say, among the multitude of Christian sectaries in this and other countries, that the words can, in any particular sense, be defined according to

law, or made part and parcel of the law. The law of this country is a thing made up of particulars, and a thing which it is supposed the plainest man in the country is capable of understanding; as it is a maxim in our courts of law, that ours being a representative legislature, every man is presumed to be a party to the making of every particular law, and that ignorance of the law is no excuse for a breach of the law. It is therefore clear, that no general subject, incapable of particular definition, and which is subjected to a multiplicity of different definitions by the very legislature itself, can constitute any part of law; and if an argument be offered, that any one of the particular definitions of the words Christian Religion be that particular one which connects itself with the law, or which the law protects, it follows, that there is no toleration, and that every sect which differs from that definition arrays itself against and becomes a party to violate the law.

The Christian Religion, or what has been called the Christian Religion, has undergone a multitude of changes during seventeen hundred years. What it is now no man can say, except that his own particular opinion constitutes the Christian Religion. How various and contradictory these opinions are, need not be explained to the Court, they are notorious. These multitudinous opinions could not by any possibility be recognized by law as constituting the Christian Religion. The law could by no possibility recognize more than one of those opinions. If it recognizes any particular one, it must reject all the others as illegal; and what will become of the dissenters who form a vast majority of the people of this island?

A Jury may be called into the box, composed of twelve men, belonging to twelve different Christian sects in this country. To tell them that the Christian Religion was that particular thing which one of them defined it to be, and that the law knew no other, would be an outrage on the consciences of the other eleven; and how are they conscientiously to agree upon it? The law requires unanimity, and how is it possible that twelve men, no two of whom agree as to what constitutes the Christian Religion, can try me for any thing that relates to those words taken into the information? This argument appears to me conclusive against the Court's proceeding any further.

If the words Christian Religion could be defined to be the property of any man, or a thing that could by any means be injured by me, then the Jury would have a clear

and intelligible matter to try; but as no man in the Court, not even the Prosecutor himself, can shew that such is the case, it is clear, that there is nothing on the Record relating to the words in question that can be lawfully submitted to the Court and Jury for trial. The prosecutor does not know what is to be tried: I, the defendant, do not know what is to be tried, or what I am to be tried for, nor can a Jury know what they have to try in this instance. Even if the law had made it a crime to question the truth of the Christian Religion, which it has not done: if the law had accurately defined what the Christian Religion was, which it has not done: if the law had impowered this Court to try the offence, which it has not done: still it would be an enormous injustice to compel a Juryman to outrage his conscience and condemn himself by his verdict against me. I, therefore, most solemnly protest against my person being exposed to any peril, through any mockery of the law and I do solemnly proclaim, in the face of this Court and the country, that no further proceedings can be gone into, on the Record now before the Court, other than as a mockery, and consequently as a violation of law.

What can be a more dreadful mockery of law; what can be a greater violation of law, thau, that a man shall be put upon trial, for what he knows nothing at all about, and which no one can explain to him? His fate is made not to depend upon any thing relating to his own actions, but upon what the opinions of the Jurymen may be, on an undefined and unintelligible subject, mere opinions formed before they enter the Jury box. By no possibility can any such a proceeding be lawful.

On the third head, I am accused of having done an act to the high displeasure of Almighty God! No man ever put upon paper a more awful, a more inexcusable blasphemy than the Attorney General himself has done in this instance. Here is the Almighty God introduced in the record, as if he were the patron of the Attorney General or a crown lawyer and his most intimate acquaintance! as if his very existence, like that of the Attorney General, was at stake on the existence or non existence of the corruptions and abuses of the day! I shudder at the very thought of such a blasphemy as this! What an indecent affection of familiarity? What a shocking attribute is this man's, who attaches to the name of Almighty Power the words he has put into the information. I know as much of Almighty God as the Attorney General does or can know, and I know,

that it is a Great Power not to be alarmed nor offended by pen, ink, and paper, nor even by that mighty machine the Printing Press!

A pretty character truly is this Attorney General who brings a record into this Court accusing me of having made a blasphemous publication to the high displeasure of Almighty God, when he himself, in his very accusation, exhibits an utter recklessness of respect for our common Creator! shows, that he is utterly ignorant of all its attributes, or so utterly wicked as not to respect them! My publication is throughout, an indignant vindication of more becoming sentiments of the Deity, and an indignant condemnation of all the gross notions which pervade the minds of ignorant and superstitious men upon that subject.

What then can the Jury have to enquire into, as to the contents of this record? Will this Court say, that the Jury are to try whether I have or have not displeased the Almighty God? It must do this, if it proceed any further, yet what evidence can be laid before them as a means to that end? If the book which I have published be the evidence they are to receive, then, they will find that my author has spoke of the Deity like a moral philosopher of the highest order. When are these drivelling, these wicked prosecutions, these outrages upon the knowledge of the age, to cease? When will man be allowed to be a moral being, and to contemplate with a calm and grateful mind the existences that surround him, and to which he owes his own existence? These prosecutious, these persecutions, all such proceedings as this before the Court, are at variance with, and war upon morality and human improvement! The science of the age proclaims them to be the result of gross ignorance, or abominable wickedness! A moral man in this day would not exhibit such a record to a court of law; a moral court would scout it; and a moral jury would treat it as an insult! would throw it back with indignation in the face of the Attorney General. Such a record is exhibited, but I trust in the knowledge and good sense of your Lordship, not to suffer it to be submitted to a Jury.

Having shewn, that the subject of the Record is not a matter for trial in this Court before a Jury, as it relates to either of its three heads; I shall now take a general view of the question of blasphemous publication, and shew that, in no way can it be made a matter of law, nor a subject becoming the investigation of a Jury. It is one of those matters which exactly resembles that which was called witch

craft. Though you may excite prejudice, fear, and hatred towards an accused person: though you may prosecu:e, convict, imprison, fine, hang, or burn, as was formerly done in both instances, you cannot produce an atom of legal proof as to any act or effect, as to any truth or validity in the words used in accusation and given in evidence; and the knowledge of the age has unfolded to us, not only that there can be no such thing as witchcraft, or a dealing with the devil or evil spirits; but that there can be no such thing as blasphemy towards the Almighty Power; no such thing as displeasing that Power by moral books; no such thing as scandal upon the Christian Religion cognizable by law: no such thing as an unlawful comment upon Holy Scriptures. The Witchcraft, and the Heresy, of former centuries and the Blasphemy of this, are matters of the same import and of the same purport. It is the war of priestcraft upon the morality and the growing knowledge of mankind. It is the blasphemy of morality, the scandal of human reason and intelligence, aud conducive to the high displeasure of every sensible and honest man.

There is another general argument which strikes at all pretensions to investigate such a matter in any court of law as that of which the record treats.

A book is a composition of words: words are the signs of things: and though they are often abused in being used as representations of fictions and alleged existences which do not exist; yet there is no criterion of truth but in being able to refer to the things for examination of which the words are signs. Now, how will the Attorney General be able to support the accusatory part of his information? How will he prove malice and wickedness in me? What are the things or who the person injured by my conduct? How will he prove what constitutes the Christian Religion by a reference to known existences? How will he prove the displeasure of Almighty God upon this test? Yet law requires this proof in every case on which it acts. If property be the matter in dispute it requires the proof and identity of that property. If bodily injury be inflicted or nuisance practised, law will have proof upon oath and if not ocular demonstration for the Jury, it will have the evidence of those who have had ocular. demonstration or experience upon the matter.

What evidence, what experience, what ocular demonstration can the Attorney General bring forward to support his preposterous information? How will he prove the holiness