but a doubt calmly and cautiously expressed; therefore I am quite at a loss to know what kind of blasphemy it is of which I have been guilty, or how I have offended the laws of my country. The whole drift of the article for which I am prosecuted is about two books, and the bearing of one of those books upon the other, which every individual has an opportunity of examining for himself; so that it is an utter impossibility that the article could have led any person into error, who was capable of reading, and those who cannot read of course cannot read my pamphlet.

It will not be amiss, Gentlemen, if we analyse this word blasphemy a little further, and in the first place, I will shew you how futile a word it is, if it be attempted to be applied to the God of Nature, or any of his works. Now, Gentlemen, we all admit the God of Nature to be an incomprehensible being, yet, we admit that incomprehensible being, to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient: now, Gentlemen, reason with yourselves, can you believing in the omnipotence of this incomprehensible being, and meditating upon that incomprehensible omnipotence, which meditation constitutes adoration or natural worship; can you conceive the possibility of any individual believing in that incomprehensible omnipotence and speaking blasphemously or speaking evil of it: and if, on the other hand, any individual human being cannot conceive the existence of that incomprehensible omnipotence he cannot speak blasphemously of that of which he has no conception. Either way the act of blasphemy towards that incomprehensible omnipotence, is a natural, physical, and moral impossibility. I challenge all the powers of logic to contravene this statement; and I repeat the statement made by my brother in this court that the laws of the coun try cannot be justly made to take cognizance of the charge of blasphemy; and that the word has been used solely for the purpose of injustice and oppression, when an individual was to be ruined, who had not offended the known and definable laws of his country. Mr. Justice Best has asserted from the bench that the crime of blasphemy is as easily defined as the crime of murder or perjury, and that it equally formed a part of the common law, but can Mr. Justice Best, or any other Judge or Lawyer, contravene the statement which I have made above, as to the impossibity of blasphemy being committed against the God of Nature. If an idol be set up for worship, instead of the God of Nature, it is possible to blaspheme that idol, and as proper as it is possible therefore, in no case whatever, can the charge of blasphemy be sustained if that charge be fairly analysed. Certainly it

cannot be a crime at common law to blaspheme a book, for the act cannot injure any individual in any sense of the word, because he that can read the book can judge of the propriety or impropriety of that blasphemy, and, he that cannot read the book, as he cannot judge whether the charge of blasphemy be right or wrong, nor yet receive any impression from the book, or the blasphemy imputed, so can he not receive any possible injury from the act. In no way whatever can the word blasphemy, when applied to matters of religion, be justly designated an offence against what is commonly called the common law. I know our judges and lawyers will continue to scout this argument and analysis, but durst they trust themselves to contravene it in a similar analytical manner? I challenge them to do it, or call upon them to be silent in future about blasphemy being an offence against the law of the land.

We have a most forcible proof of the effect of this clamour about blasphemy in the New Testament in St. Matthew's gosin the 26th chapter, beginning at the 63d verse. Gentlemen, the very founder of your religion was actually charged with blasphemy, and put to death upon that charge! Jesus Christ himself was the victim of this charge, and why? because men in power found it necessary to sacrifice him to preserve their own corruptions and abuses, and knowing that this moral and innocent man, had not offended the laws of his country, in any shape whatever, or in the least instance, they brought up this clamour of blasphemy against him, and deprived him of life; in just the same manner as my prosecutors are now seeking to deprive me of liberty. I will read the account to you, Gentlemen, although I doubt not it is already quite familiar.

"But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ the son of God. Jesus saith unto him, thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold now ye have heard his blasphemy what think ye? They answered and said he was guilty of death. Then did they spit in his face, and buffetted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands.”

I shall now, Gentlemen, read to you four pages from the pamphlet in question which are strictly applicable to my

defence but I beg to observe that I still retain my claim upon you to examine the whole of it.

"Great is Diana of the Ephesians," was the cry of the people of Ephesus *; and the cry of "our holy religion," has been the cry of superstition in some instances, and of hypocrisy in others, from that day to this.

"The Brahmin, the follower of Zoroaster, the Jew, the Mahometan, the Church of Rome, the Greek church, the Protestant church, split into several hundred contradictory sectaries, preaching, in some instances, damnation against each other, all cry out, "our holy religion." The Calvinist, who damns children of a span-long to hell to burn for ever for the glory of God. (and this is called Christianity) and the Universalist, who preaches that all shall be saved and none shall be damned, (and this also is called Christianity) boasts alike of their holy religion and their Christian faith. Something more, therefore, is necessary than mere cry and wholesale assertion, and that something is TRUTH; and as inquiry is the road to truth, he that is opposed to inquiry is not a friend to truth.

"The God of truth is not the God of fable: when, therefore, any book is introduced into the world as the word of God, and made a ground-work for religion, it ought to be scrutinized more than other books to see if it bear evidence of being what it is called. Our reverence to God demands that we do this, lest we ascribe to God what is not his, and our duty to ourselves demands it lest we take fable for fact, and rest our hope of salvation on a false foundation. It is not our calling a book holy that makes it so, any more than our calling a religion holy that entitles it to the name. Inquiry, therefore, is necessary in order to arrive at truth. But inquiry must have some principle to proceed on, some standard to judge by, superior to human authority.

"When we survey the works of creation, the revolutions of the planetary system, and the whole economy of what is called nature, which is no other than the laws the Creator has prescribed to matter, we see unerring order and universal harmony reigning throughout the whole. No one part contradicts another. The sun does not run against the moon, nor the moon against the sun, nor the planets against each other. Every thing keeps its appointed time and place. This harmony in the works of God is so obvious, that the farmer of the field, though he cannot calculate eclipses, is as sensible of it as the philosophical astronomer. He sees the God of order in every part of the visible universe.

Here, then is the standard to which every thing must be brought that pretends to be the work or word of God, and by this standard it must be judged, independently of any thing and every thing that man can say or do. His opinion is like a feather in the scale compared with the standard that God himself has set up.

It is, therefore, by this standard, that the Bible, and all other books pretending to be the word of God, (and there are many of them in the world) must be judged, and not by the opinions of men or the decrees of ecclesiastical councils. These have been so contradictory that they have often rejected in one council what they had voted to be the word of God in another; and admitted what had been before rejected. In this state of uncertainty in which we are, and which is rendered still more uncertain by the numerous contradictory sectaries that have sprung up since the time of Luther and Calvin, what is man to do? The answer is easy. Begin at the root-begin with the Bible itself. Examine it with the utmost strictness. It is our duty so to do. Compare the parts with each other, and the whole with the harmonious, magnificent order that reigns throughout the visible universe, and the result will be, that if the same Almighty wisdom that created the universe, dictated also the Bible, the Bible will be as harmonious and as magnificent in all its parts, and in the whole, as the universe is. But if instead of this, the parts are found to be discordant, contradicting in one place what is said in another, (as in 2 Sam. chap. xxiv. ver. 1. and I Chron. chap. xxi. ver. 1. where the same action is ascribed to God in one book and to Satan in the other), abounding also in idle

*Acts, chap. xix. ver. 28

and obscene stories, and representing the Almighty as a passionate, whimsical Being, continually changing his mind, making and unmaking his own works as if he did not know what he was about, we may take it for certainty that the Creator of the universe is not the author of such a book, that it is not the word of God, and that to call it so is to dishonour his name. The Quakers, who are a people more moral and regular in their conduct than the people of other sectaries, and generally allowed so to be, do not hold the Bible to be the word of God. They call it "a history of the times," and a bad history it is, and also a history of bad men, of bad actions, and abounding with bad examples.

"For several centuries past the dispute has been about doctrines, it is now about fact. Is the Bible the word of God or is it not? for until the point is established no doctrine drawn from the Bible can afford real consolation to man, and he ought to be careful he does not mistake delusion for truth. This is a case that concerns all men alike.

There has always existed in Europe, and also in America, since its establishment, a numerous description of men, (I do not here mean the Quakers) who did not, and do not believe the Bible to be the word of God. These men never formed themselves into an established society, but are to be found in all the sectaries that exist, and are more numerous than any, perhaps equal to all, and are daily increasing. From Deus, the Latin word for God, they have been denominated Deists, that is believers in God. It is the most honourable appellation can be given to man because it is derived immediately from the Deity. It is not an artificial name like Episcopalian, Presbyterian, &c. but is a name of sacred signification, and to revile it is to revile the name of God.

"Since then there is so much doubt and uncertainty about the Bible, some asserting, and others denying it to be the word of God, it is best that the whole matter come out. It is necessary, for the information of the world, that it should. A better time cannot offer than whilst the Government, patronizing no one sect or opinion in preference to another, protects equally the rights of all; and certainly every man must spurn the idea of an ecclesiastical tyranny, engrossing the rights of the press, and holding it free only for itself.

"Whilst the terrors of the church, and the tyranny of the state, hung like a pointed sword over Europe, men were commanded to believe what the Church told them, or go to the stake. All inquiries into the authenticity of the Bible were shut out by the inquisition. We ought, therefore, to suspect that a great mass of information respecting the Bible and the introduction of it into the world has been suppressed by the united tyranny of Church and State, for the purpose of keeping people in ignorance, and which ought to be known.

"The Bible has been received by the Protestants on the authority of the Church of Rome, and on no other authority. It is she that has said it is the word of God. We do not admit the authority of that church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins, its amphibious doctrine of transubstantiation, &c.; and we ought to be watchful with respect to any book introduced by her, or her ecclesiastical councils, and called by her the Word of God; and the more so, because it was by propagating that belief, and supporting it by fire and faggot, that she kept up her temporal power. That the belief of the Bible does no good in the world may be seen by the irregular lives of those, as well priests as laymen, who profess to believe it to be the word of God. end the moral lives of the Quakers who do not. It abounds with too many ill examples to be made a rule for moral life, and were a man to copy after the lives of some of its most celebrated characters, he would come to the gallows.

"Thomas Paine has written to shew that the Bible is not the word of God, that the books it contains were not written by the persons to whom they were ascribed that it is an anonymous book, and that we have no authority for calling it the word of God, or for saying it was written by inspired penmen, since we do not know who the writers were. This is the opinion, not only of Thomas Paine, but of thousands and tens of thousands of the most respectable characters in the Unit. ed States and in Europe. These men have the same right to their opinions, as others have to contrary opinions, and the same right to publish them.

With respect to morality, the writings of Thomas Paine are remarkable for

purity and benevolence; and though he often enlivens them with touches of wit and humour, he never loses sight of the real solemnity of his subject. No man's morals either with respect to his Maker, himself, or his neighbour, can suffer by the writings of Thomas Paine.

It is now too late to abuse Deism, especially in a country where the press is free, or where free presses can be established. It is a religion that has God for its patron, and derives its name from him. The thoughtful mind of man, wearied with the endless contentions of sectaries against sectaries, doctrines against doctrines, and priests against priests, finds its repose at last in the contemplative belief and worship of one God and the practice of morality, for as Pope wisely says,

"He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.”

I come now to speak more particularly of the passages selected in the Indictment, and to analyse them, and try whether they be or be not consistent with truth.

The first paragraph is a selection from the writings of Archbishop Tillotson; and I think it not a little singular, that the sentiments of a man who, when living, was the Primate of the Christian Church, should now become a subject for prosecution in a Christian court of law: but perhaps I may be told, that the bishop's article is but the text upon which Thomas Paine has founded his libel. Let us examine it. The quotation from the Archbishop's writing is thus:" The difference between the style of the Old and New Testament is so very remarkable, that one of the greatest sects in the primitive times did, upon this very ground, found their heresy of two Gods, the one evil, fierce and cruel, whom they called the God of the Old Testament; the other was good, kind, and merciful, whom they called the God of the New Testament; so great a differeuce is there between the representations that are given of God in the books of the Jewish and Christian religions, as to give, at least, some colour and pretence to an imagination of two Gods." Thus far Tillotson.

Thomas Paine's comment is thus:-" But the case was, that as the Church had picked out several passages from the Old Testament, which she most absurdly and falsely calls prophecies of Jesus Christ, (whereas there is no prophecy of any such person, as any one may see by examining the passages and the cases to which they apply,) she was under the necessity of keeping up the credit of the Old Testament, because if that fell the other would soon follow, and the Christian system of faith would soon be at an end. As a book of morals, there are several parts of the New Testament that are good; but they are no other than what had been preached in the eastern world several hundred years before Christ was born. Confucius, the Chinese philosopher, who