of the effects of a very denial of a God, and says the effects of that are not dangerous to society. How less can that opinion be dangerous to society, which maintains the being of a God, and our duty to love and serve him? The celebrated Burnet, in his theory of the earth, gives the highest possible praise to the Deistical system as contra-distinguished from Atheismi: "The hypothesis of the Deist," says this writer, "reaches from the top to the bottom, both through the intellectual and material world with a clear and distinct light every where; is genuine, comprehensive and satisfactory; has nothing forced, nothing confused, nothing precarious." It is not faith, but practice, which after all, must put our characters to the test, and the loudest assertion of his faith, and claimer of the kingdom of Heaven, if he does not act in his station worthily of that station, we are told, shall be unknown to the Saviour of mankind. "For modes of faith then," what hinders us from exclaiming with the philosophic poet,

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right.”

Could Deism throw citizens out of the reach of their Government, were it in possession of a charm, which should free them from control, and suffer them to act with impunity after the desires of their eyes, then indeed the encouragement of Deism would be attended with unspeakable evil; but Deists, as well as Christians, are subject to the same laws, and the same punishments for robbing from a neighbour, or casting a foul spot on the fair character of another. Observe the confessions of Bishop Beveridge in regard to the education of children: "To speak to them," says he, "of heaven and eternal glory will not encourage them so much as to give them their childish pleasures and desires: and the denouncing of a future hell will not affright them so much as the inflicting a present smart.” If Christians would only consider that the Jewish legislator never once spoke of a future state to his subjects, if they would observe that his promises and his threats were all of a present interest, of the interest of this world, they would observe how they are libelling that legislator when they contend that there is no Government suited to persons who are led only by their present hopes and fears.

The great question here again, even if we lose sight of what I have just now said, is whether Deism is true or false: and it cannot be determined by particular individuals for the whole community. There are high candidates for belief, and for scepticism. This society however, calls itself a Society for the Suppression of Vice, and it takes the question as proved, and calls Deisin, VICE. What considerate men hesitate in asserting, this Society takes upon itself to assert with confidence; they would have the impudence if they could to stare Mr. Hume, Dr. Adam Smith, Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Bolingbroke, in the face, and tell them they were men of vicious principles, and deserving of fine and imprisonment, and I doubt not, of eternal punishment: unparalled effrontery! inexpressible impudence! But I ask who ought to be bold enough to be sURE he is right no

this subject? That very Christian who laughs at the infallibility of the Pope, claims it for himself, and injures the persons and property of others by his confidence in his claims. How gross a contradiction is here?

“ His weak unknowing hand presumes,

The bolts of God to throw,

And deals damnation round the land

On each he thinks his foe."

Is he so weak as to suppose that the almighty God of Heaven and Earth is in need of his services? How long will it be before he asks humbly with Eliphaz the Temanite: "Can a man be profitable unto God, as he that is wise may be profitable to himself?" and how long will he delay before he closes with the exhortation of St. Paul; "Who art thou, that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth."

But the best reason, which can be urged against the folly of such a man is the confessions of the acknowledged champions of Christianity. Bishop Butler has written a whole work to prove that religion is a matter of probability, not of certainty. Bishop Watson has the candour to acknowledge that the "History of the Old Testament has without doubt some difficulties in it," and that "real difficulties occur in it.”

The celebrated and pious Dr. Watts himself, suffered extreme misery in his investigations after Christian Doctrines, and was at one time on the brink of Deism: observe his language, “Great God, who seest all things, thou hast beheld what busy temptations have been often fluttering about my heart, to call it off from these laborious and difficult enquiries, and to give up thy word and thy gospel as an unintelligible book, and betake myself to the light of nature and reason: but thou hast been pleased by thy divine power to scatter these temptations, and fix my heart and hope again (observe again) on that Saviour, which thou hast revealed in thy word." Again: in speaking about the attested Resurrection of Christ, Dr. Paley has the following singular expressions: "I do not mean," he says, "that nothing can be more certain than that Christ rose from the dead, but that nothing can be more certain, than that his apostles gave out that he did so.” But why need I go out of Court for supports of my assertion, when a late address of the Judge to Mary Ann Carlile gives me so powerful an instance of its truth. He says, that he has himself given the subject a deep and attentive consideration; and, I have been informed, was formerly of a very opposite opinion from that which he now professes, and besides this, he expresses himself confident that sooner or later (observe these words, sooner or later) most persons will make up their minds to the truth of Christianity. How strongly does this shew what a great gulf is fixed between the universally acknowledged guilt of fraud and murder! a guilt, which requires no time or study to investigate; a guilt, which is allowed to be so even by the most hardy veteran in-the

trade, between that and the right or wrongness of a question which costs the inquisitive mind so much labour and industry, which is agreed to by those sceptical men, who at last, renounce their doubts, after long toil and trouble; which the majority of thinking men hesitate all their life between believing and rejecting, and which so many great and distinguished men in all professions and ranks of life, have at length absolutely renounced. Besides punishment for sceptical publications has the very worst effect on society, on account of the duplicity of character, which it forces sceptical writers to adopt : thus for instance at the end of an Essay, the intention of which is to bring into doubt the Immortality of the Soul, Mr. Hume makes the following subtle observation, in words to this effect; "Nothing can so clearly point to us the infinite obligations we owe to Christianity, since without it we have no means of proving a future state:" and at the beginning of it he praises Christianity for "bringing life aud immortality to light." I need not point to you the duplicity exhibited in the termination of his "Essay on Miracles," nor that displayed by Mr. Gibbon, in his two chapters on the Christian Religion. In confirmation of what I am stating, I will read an observation of Dr. Aikin in his "Biography;"" although," says he, "there can be no doubt that Gibbon was a real enemy to Revelation, under the mask of a believer, yet while penal laws subsist against an open declaration of opinion, the practice of a prudential disguise cannot be equitably condemned." I would ask you is this spirit of disguise and dissimulation the spirit you think proper to encourage by a conviction of a publisher of sceptical opinions? Can any thing be more detrimental to society than an encouragement of duplicity of character? Yet the open, honest, undisguised man is punished; the crafty and insidious are left unpunished. Is the cause of this inequality the following one, that it matters not what the learned think, but that it is absolutely necessary the poor should be reduced to belief and to faith! If it is vice which is intended to be stopped, why are certain shops allowed to exist which are the pest and plague of London? Why does the Government encourage Lotteries? Why does the Chancellor of the Exchequer differ on this point from those, with whom on all other points of religion and morality he agrees so closely? Why are balls and card-parties allowed in the most fashionable circles after an opera on a late hour on the Saturday night? Why is the opening dawn of the Sunday morning profaned by the voice of the elegant swearer, and the accomplished drunkard? Is it that the are forced to obedience, and that the wealthy and the noble are presented with a licence to act as they desire? However, be the object of these persecutions good, or be it bad, it appears to me that it greatly fails in this respect, viz. that they encourage investigations · into religion, which would perhaps else never have engaged the attention of the public. Persecution enlists on its side the humane and the benevolent; it gives an edge to ingenuity, and excites the curiosity of the inquisitive. I have reason to believe that in America, where works on both sides of the subject of religion are tolerated with the most undistinguishing liberality, an indifference to enquiry

poor

is found to follow the licence to enquire. This is founded on a well known principle of the human nind, that it neglects what is easy of acquirement, and pursues with avidity what is difficult of access; and particularly what is anxiously and designedly kept from its grasp, only one more argument shall be adduced on this part of my defence. "No human tribunal," says the Author of Happiness, "ought to take cognizance of an error in judgment, for it comprehends no offence against the order or the happiness of society. A man is not master of his own sentiments, to believe or disbelieve what is prescribed to him or what he pleases. Can it be a crime for one not to be a logician? Conscience does not teach us to reason well but to act rightly."

The reflections I have made on the demands of society will facilitate my enquiry into the demands of the law-laws are made to support society; to do that which society demands-laws are necessary only for this object. If society does not demand prosecutions of publishers of sceptical works; if even its interests are hurt by prosecuting them, then it is useless to urge that laws exist against them. If they exist they ought to be abolished. The laws against the Unitarians were for a long time thought to be required by society, but they were afterwards abrogated. "Blasphemy, in law," said Bailey in his dictionary, "by an act made in the ninth and tenth of William III., is, when any one having been educated in, or having at any time made profession of the Christian Religion, shall deny any one of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God," &c. Observe how mutable are the claims of society on subjects which are immutable! Observe how that in one age ceases to be blasphemy, which was punished for blasphemy, in a former one! How is religion hurt by these inconstant definitions of matters which are said to be divine, and constant as their author! The fact that the Reverend Mr. Emlyu was dragged round the streets of Dublin and exposed to the contempt and insults of the mob at the beginning of the last century for his Arian publications is hardly credible in our age. How glaring is the inconsistency! Does it not show that barbarity and ignorance have had a great deal to do with the creation of the laws in regard to religious persecutions; and may we not hope that an enlighened age, like the present, will on other subjects of theology, do that justice to particular individuals which has been done to Unitarian writers? May we not hope that enlightened men will be alive to the prepossessions and opinions of others, allow enquiry to the curious, and no longer sink the mind which is desirous to obtain and to give satisfaction on the most important of all subjects, into despondency, by presenting it with the prospect of the dark and unseemly corners of a Dorchester Prison?

If it is said, that the common law demands these prosecutions, observe that every country has its common law-and that, if libels on Christianity are to be punished in a Christian country, libels on Mahometanism deserve punishment in a Mahometan country. Observe, that the horrible law of the Turk, which strangles the Turkish convert

to Christianity, is to be justified and applauded. Observe, that this principle goes to persuade you that all religions are right, and that they all equally come from heaven! The absurdity of this plea is too evident to need any further comment.

But if the plea is, that government must be supported by reciprocally supporting the Christian Religion, be that religion true, or be it false, I blush for that religion, which indeed would in this case require the aid of the government; I blush for the government which builds itself on so sandy and weak a foundation, but I blush, most of all, for the man who can use so base an argument.

I had intended to speak at large of the inconsistencies of the Society which has brought me before you. But I have already trespassed so much on your time, and this subject has been treated on so often before, that I shall only observe, that if that Society would be undistinguishing in its attacks, if it would attack the high and the powerful, as well as the low and the weak, if it would strip the writings of Sterne and of Swift, two Christian divines; of our old Comedians; and of numerous other writers,-if it would strip these of matter, which is incontestibly prejudicial to the mind; I should more willingly bear my present situation, because, I should have at least, the satisfaction of believing that its exertions were founded on pure, on honourable, and on conscientious principles. It were more to be endured, if this Society would imitate the conduct of their God, who is no respecter of persons-if they would remember that the wealthy and the powerful are really more in danger of contamination, and require to be placed more out of the reach of temptation, on the principles of him who assured them that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven." I am here unconsciously led into an observation on a particular class of the community. Booksellers, who effect to be scrupulous as to the publications of Mr. Gibbon, and Mr. Hume, affect none as to those I have now alluded to, and if they are too modest to attach their names to some works, they are in no way too modest to exhibit them to the public, and enrich themselves by the sale of them. The principle of all is so plain that none can mistake it; which is, that men may glut themselves with books of acknowledged vice, if they will but let alone books of enquiry into the grounds and reasons of Christian belief.

Gentlemen of the Jury, I must now address myself to you in a very particular manner. You are the Judges of this case; and, I trust, you have given a faithful attention to the arguments which have been adduced. I trust you have paid attention not only to some, but to all of them: I trust you will farther bestow on them some serious reflection, nor judge of this matter either passionately or precipitately.

Give me leave to warn you on one point against giving too much weight to the positive air, and to the "absolute musts" of the bench. I desire to respect the Judges of the realm: but I confess I have been too often struck by their dictatorial language to Juries; " you