THE charge of blasphemy, which is put upon the record against the printer of this publi­cation is not an accusation of the servants of the crown, but comes before you sanctioned by the oaths of a grand jury of the country. It stood for trial upon a former day; but it happening, as it fre­quently does, without any imputation upon the gentlemen named in the pannel, that a sufficient number did not appear to constitute a full special jury, I thought it my duty to withdraw the cause from trial, till I could have the opportunity which is now open to me of addressing myself to you, who were originally appointed to try it. I pursued this course, however, from no jealousy of the common juries appointed by the laws for the ordinary service of the court, since my whole life has been one con­tinued experience of their virtues; but because I thought it of great importance, that those who were [Page 4] to decide upon a cause so very momentous to the public, should have the highest possible qualifica­tions for the decision: that they should not only be men capable from their educations of forming an enlightened judgment, but that their situations should be such as to bring them within the full view of their enlightened country, to which, in character and in estimation, they were in their own turns to be responsible.

Not having the honour, Gentlemen, to be sworn for the king as one of his counsel, it has fallen much oftener to my lot to defend indictments for li­bels, than to assist in the prosecution of them. But I feel no embarrassment from that recollection; since I shall not be found to-day to express a sentiment, or to utter an expression, inconsistent with those in­valuable principles for which I have uniformly con­tended in the defence of others. Nothing that I have ever said, either professionally or personally, for the liberty of the press, do I mean to-day to contradict or counteract. On the contrary, I desire to preface the very short discourse I have to make to you with reminding you, that it is your most solemn duty to take care that it suffers no injury in your hands. A free and unlicensed press (in the just and legal sense of the expression) has led to all the blessings both of religion and government, which Great Bri­tain or any part of the world at this moment enjoys, and is calculated still farther to advance mankind to higher degrees of civilization and happiness. But this freedom, like every other, must be limited to be enjoyed, and like every human advantage, may be defeated by its abuse.

Gentlemen! the defendant stands indicted for having published this book, which I have only read from the obligations of professional duty, and which I rose from the reading of with astonishment and disgust. Standing here with all the privileges be­longing to the highest counsel for the crown, I shall [Page 5] be entitled to reply to any defence that shall be made for the publication. I shall wait with patience till I hear it. Indeed, if I were to anticipate the de­fence which I hear and read of, it would be defaming by anticipation the learned counsel who is to make it. For if I am to collect it, even from a formal notice given to the prosecutors in the course of the proceedings, I have to expect, that, instead of a defence conducted according to the rules and prin­ciples of English law and justice, the foundation of all our laws, and the sanctions of all our justice, are to be struck at and insulted. What is the force of that jurisdiction which enables the court to sit in judgment? What but the oath which his Lordship, as well as yourselves, have sworn upon the gospel to fulfil? Yet in the king's court, where his Ma­jesty is himself also sworn to administer the justice of England—in the king's court—who receives his high authority under a solemn oath to maintain the Christian religion, as it is promulgated by God in the Holy Scriptures, I am nevertheless called upon as counsel for the prosecution, to produce a certain book described in the indictment to be the Holy Bible. No man deserves to be upon the rolls of the court, who dares, as an attorney, to put his name to such a notice. It is an insult to the authority and dignity of the court of which he is an officer; since it seems to call in question the very foundations of its jurisdiction. If this is to be the spirit and tem­per of the defence; if, as I collect from that array of books which are spread upon the benches behind me, this publication is to be vindicated by an attack of all the truths which the Christian religion pro­mulgates to mankind, let it be remembered that such an argument was neither suggested nor justified by any thing said by me on the part of the prosecu­tion. In this stage of the proceedings, I shall call for reverence to the Sacred Scriptures, not from their merits, unbounded as they are, but from their au­thority [Page 6] in a Christian country—not from the obliga­tions of conscience, but from the rules of law. For my own part, Gentlemen, I have been ever deeply devoted to the truths of Christianity; and my firm belief in the Holy Gospel is by no means owing to the prejudices of education (though I was religi­ously educated by the best of parents), but arises from the fullest and most continued reflections of my riper years and understanding. It forms at this moment the great consolation of a life, which, as a shadow, must pass away; and without it, indeed, I should consider my long course of health and prosperity (perhaps too long and too uninterrupted to be good for any man) only as the dust which the wind scatters, and rather as a snare than as a bless­ing. Much, however, as I wish to support the au­thority of Scripture from a reasoned consideration of it, I shall repress that subject for the present. But if the defence shall be as I have suspected, to bring them at all into argument or question, I shall then fulfil a duty which I owe not only to the court, as counsel for the prosecution, but to the public, to state what I feel and know concerning the evidences of that religion which is reviled without being exa­mined, and denied without being understood.

I am well aware that by the communications of a free press, all the errors of mankind, from age to age, have been dissipated and dispelled; and I re­collect that the world, under the banners of reformed Christianity, has struggled through persecution to the noble eminence on which it stands at this mo­ment, shedding the blessings of humanity and sci­ence upon the nations of the earth. It may be asked, by what means the reformation would have been effected, if the books of the reformers had been suppressed, and the errors of condemned and exploded superstitions had been supported as unques­tionable by the state, founded upon those very su­perstitions formerly, as it is at present upon the doc­trines [Page 7] of the established church? Or how, upon such principles, any reformation, civil or religious can in future be effected? The solution is easy:— Let us examine what are the genuine principles of the liberty of the press, as they regard writings upon general subjects, unconnected with the per­sonal reputations of private men, which are wholly foreign to the present inquiry. They are full of simplicity, and are brought as near perfection, by the law of England, as, perhaps, is consistent with any of the frail institutions of mankind.

Although every community must establish su­preme authorities, founded upon fixed principles, and must give high powers to magistrates to administer laws for the preservation of the government itself, and for the security of those who are to be protected by it: yet, as infallibility and perfection belong neither to human establishments nor to human indi­viduals, it ought to be the policy of all free esta­blishments, as it is most peculiarly the principle of our own constitution, to permit the most unbounded freedom of discussion, even by detecting errors in the constitution or administration of the very govern­ment itself, so as that decorum is observed, which every state must exact from its subjects, and which imposes no restraint upon any intellectual composi­tion, fairly, honestly, and decently addressed to the consciences and understandings of men. Upon this principle, I have an unquestionable right (a right which the best subjects have exercised) to examine the principles and structure of the constitution, and by fair, manly reasoning, to question the practice of its administrators. I have a right to consider and to point out errors in the one or in the other; and not merely to reason upon their existence, but to consi­der the means of their reformation. By such free, well-intentioned, modest, and dignified communi­cation of sentiments and opinions, all nations have been gradually improved, and milder laws and purer [Page 8] religions have been established. The same princi­ples, which vindicate civil contentions honestly di­rected, extend their protection to the sharpest con­troversies on religious faiths. This rational and le­gal course of improvement was recognized and ratified by Lord Kenyon, as the law of England, in a late trial at Guildhall, when he looked back with gratitude to the labours of the reformers, as the fountains of our religious emancipation, and of the civil blessings that followed in their train. The English constitution, indeed, does not stop short in the toleration of religious opinions, but liberally ex­tends it to practice. It permits every man, EVEN PUBLICLY to worship God according to his own conscience, though in marked dissent from the na­tional establishment, so as he professes the general faith, which is the sanction of all our moral duties, and the only pledge of our submission to the system which constitutes a state. Is not this system of free­dom of controversy, and freedom of worship, suffi­cient for all the purposes of human happiness and improvement? And can it be necessary for either, that the law should hold out indemnity to those who wholly abjure and revile the government of their country, or the religion on which it rests for its foundation? I expect to hear, in answer to what I am now saying, much that will offend me. My learned friend, from the difficulties of his situation, which I know, from experience, how to feel for very sincerely, may be driven to advance proposi­tions which it may be my duty, with much freedom, to reply to; and the law will s [...]ction that freedom. But will not the ends of justice be completely an­swered by that right, to point out the errors of his discourse in terms that are decent, and calculated to expose its defects; or will any argument suffer, or will public justice be impeded, because neither pri­vate honour and justice, nor public decorum, would endure my telling my very learned friend, that he [Page 9] was a fool, a liar, and a scoundrel, in the face of the court, because I differed from him in argument or opinion? This is just the distinction between a book of free legal controversy and the book which I am arraigning before you. Every man has a legal right to investigate, with modesty and decency, con­troversial points of the Christian religion; but no man, consistently with a law, which only exists un­der its sanctions, has a right not only broadly to deny its very existence, but to pour forth a shock­ing and insulting invective, which the lowest esta­blishments in the gradations of civil authority ought not to be permitted to suffer, and which soon would be borne down by insolence and disobedience, if they did.

The same principle pervades the whole system of the law, not merely in its abstract theory, but in its daily and most applauded practice.—The inter­course between the sexes, and which, properly regu­lated, not only continues, but humanizes and adorns our natures, is the foundation of all the thousand romances, plays, and novels, which are in the hands of every body. Some of them lead to the confirma­tion of every virtuous principle; others, though with the same profession, address the imagination in a manner to lead the passions into dangerous excesses. But though the law does not nicely discriminate the various shades which distinguish these works from one another, so as that it suffers many to pass, through its liberal spirit, that upon principle might be sup­pressed, would it or does it tolerate, or does any decent man contend that it ought to pass by unpu­nished, libels of the most shameless obscenity, mani­festly pointed to debauch innocence, and to blast and poison the morals of the rising generation? This is only another illustration to demonstrate the ob­vious distinction between the work of an author, who fairly exercises the powers of his mind, in in­vestigating doctrinal points in the religion of any [Page 10] country, and him who attacks the rational existence of every religion, and brands with absurdity and folly the state which sanctions, and the obedient tools who cherish the delusion. But this publication appears to me to be as mischievous and cruel in its probable effects, as it is manifestly illegal in its principles; because it strikes at the best, sometimes, alas! the only refuge and consolation amidst the distresses and afflictions of the world. The poor and humble, whom it affects to pity, may be stabbed to the heart by it. They have more occasion for firm hopes beyond the grave, than those who have greater comforts to render life delightful. I can conceive a distressed but virtuous man, surrounded by children, looking up to him for bread when he has none to give them, sinking under the last day's labour, and unequal to the next, yet still looking up with confidence to the hour when all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of affliction, bearing the burden laid upon him by a mysterious Providence which he adores, and looking forward with exultation to the revealed promises of his Creator, when he shall be greater than the greatest, and happier than the hap­piest of mankind. What a change in such a mind might not be wrought by such a merciless publica­tion? Gentlemen! whether these remarks are the overcharged declamations of an accusing counsel, or the just reflections of a man anxious for the public freedom, which is best secured by the morals of a na­tion, will be best settled by an appeal to the passages in the work, that are selected by the indictment for your consideration and judgment. You are at liber­ty to connect them with every context and sequel, and to bestow upon them the mildest interpretation. [Here Mr. Erskine read and commented upon sever [...]l of the selected passages, and then proceeded as follows:] —Gentlemen, it would be useless and disgusting to enumerate the other passages within the scope of the indictment. How any man can rationally vin­dicate [Page 11] the publication of such a book, in a country where the Christian religion is the very foundation of the law of the land, I am totally at a loss to con­ceive, and have no ideas for the discussion of. How is a tribunal, whose whole jurisdiction is found­ed upon the solemn belief and practice of what is denied as falsehood, and reprobated as impiety, to deal with such an anomalous defence? Upon what principle is it even offered to the court, whose au­thority is contemned and mocked at? If the religion proposed to be called in question, is not previously adopted in belief and solemnly acted upon, what authority has the court to pass any judgment at all of acquittal or condemnation? Why am I now, or upon any other occasion, to submit to your lord­ship's authority? Why am I now, or at any time, to address twelve of my equals, as I am now addressing you, with reverence and submission? Under what sanction are the witnesses to give their evidence, without which there can be no trial? Under what obligations can I call upon you, the jury represent­ing your country, to administer justice? Surely upon no other than that you are sworn to administer it under the oaths you have taken. The whole judicial fabric, from the king's sovereign authority to the lowest office of magistracy, has no other foundation. The whole is built, both in form and substance, upon the same oath of every one of its ministers to do justice AS GOD SHALL HELP THEM HEREAFTER. What God? And what hereafter? That God, undoubtedly, who has commanded kings to rule, and judges to decree with justice; who has said to witnesses, not by the voice of nature, but in revealed commandments—THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE TESTIMONY AGAINST THY NEIGHBOUR; and who has enforced obedience to them by the re­velation of the unutterable blessings which shall at­tend their observance, and the awful punishments which shall await upon their transgression. But it [Page 12] seems, this is an age of reason, and the time and the person are at last arrived, that are to dissipate the er­rors which have overspread the past generations of ignorance. The believers in Christianity are many, but it belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. Belief is an act of reason, and superior reason may, therefore, dictate to the weak. In run­ning the mind along the long list of sincere and de­vout Christians, I cannot help lamenting, that New­ton had not lived to this day, to have had his shal­lowness filled up with this new flood of light.—But the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak plainly and directly. Newton was a Christian! Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by nature upon our finite conceptions—Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philosophy—not those vision­ary and arrogant presumptions, which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting upon the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie—Newton, who carried the line and rule to the uttermost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together and exists. But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, perhaps, the errors, which a minuter investigation of the created things on this earth might have taught him, of the essence of his Creator. What shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all matter, even to the brute inanimate substances which the foot treads on? Such a man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine to look up through nature to nature's God. Yet the result of all his contem­pla [...]on was the most confirmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in contempt, as despicable and drivelling superstition.—But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the [Page 13] foundations of human judgment, and the structure of that understanding which God has given us for the investigation of truth.—Let that question be an­swered by Mr. Locke, who was, to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, a Christian—Mr. Locke, whose office was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper track of reasoning, the devious mind of man, by shewing him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratiocination, putting a rein besides upon false opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of human judgment. But these men were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate mankind.

Gentlemen! in the place were we now sit to administer the justice of this great country, above a century ago, the never-to-be-forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided; whose faith in Christianity is an ex­alted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits in man, administering human justice with a wisdom and purity drawn from the pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, which has been, and will be, in all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration. But it is said by the author, that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world, and may be easily de­tected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of the Heathens. Did Milton understand those mythologies? Was he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions of the world? No, they were the subject of his immortal song; and though shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order as the il­lustration of that real and exalted faith, the unques­tionable [Page 14] source of that servid genius, which cast a sort of shade upon all the other works of man—

But it was the light of the BODY only that was extinguished: "The celestial light shone inward, and enabled him to justify the ways of God to man." The result of his thinking was nevertheless not the same as the author's. The mysterious incarnation of our blessed Saviour (which this work blasphemes in words so wholly unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear of a court of justice, that I dare not, and will not, give them utterance) Milton made the grand conclusion of the Paradise Lost, the rest from his finished labours, and the ultimate hope, expecta­tion, and glory of the world.

The immortal poet having thus put into the mouth of the angel the prophecy of man's redemp­tion, follows it with that solemn and beautiful ad­monition, addressed in the Poem to our great first parent, but intended as an address to his posterity through all generations:

[Page 15]Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or splen­did, or illustrious, amongst created beings; all the minds gifted beyond ordinary nature, if not inspired by its universal Author for the advancement and dig­nity of the world, though divided by distant ages, and by clashing opinions, distinguishing them from one another, yet joining as it were in one sublime chorus, to celebrate the truths of Christianity, and laying upon its holy altars the never-fading of­ferings of their immortal wisdom.

Against all this concurring testimony, we find suddenly, from the author of this book, that the Bible teaches nothing but "lies, obscenity, cruelty, and injustice." Has he ever read our Saviour's sermon on the Mount, in which the great princi­ples of our faith and duty are summed up?—Let us all but read and practise it; and lies, obscenity, cruelty, and injustice, and all human wickedness, will be banished from the world!"

Gentlemen! there is but one consideration more, which I cannot possibly omit, because I confess it affects me very deeply. The author of this book has written largely on public liberty and govern­ment; and this last performance has, on that ac­count, been more widely circulated, and principally among those who attached themselves from principle to his former works. This circumstance renders a public attack upon all revealed religion from such a writer infinitely more dangerous. The religious and moral sense of the people of Great Britain, is the great anchor which alone can hold the vessel of the state amidst the storms which agitate the world; and if I could believe for a moment, that the mass of the people were to be debauched from the princi­ples of religion, which forms the true basis of that humanity, charity, and benevolence, that has been so long the national characteristic, instead of mixing myself, as I sometimes have done, in political refor­mations, I would rather retire to the uttermost [Page 16] corners of the earth, to avoid their agitation; and would bear, not only the imperfections and abuses complained of in our own wise establishment, but even the worst government that ever existed in the world, rather than go to the work of reformation with a multitude set free from all the charities of Christianity, who had no sense of God's existence, but from Mr. Paine's observation of nature, which the mass of mankind have no leisure to contemplate; nor any belief of future rewards and punishments, to animate the good in the glorious pursuit of human happiness, nor to deter the wicked from de­stroying it even in its birth. But I know the people of England better. They are a religious people, and, with the blessing of God, as far as it is in my power, I will lend my aid to keep them so. I have no objections to the freest and most extended dis­cussions upon doctrinal points of the Christian reli­gion, and though the law of England does not permit it, I do not dread the reasoned arguments of Deists against the existence of Christianity itself, because, as was said by its divine Author, if it is of God it will stand. An intellectual book, however erro­neous, addressed to the intellectual world upon so profound and complicated a subject, can never work the mischief which this indictment is calcu­lated to repress. Such works will only employ the minds of men enlightened by study, to a deeper investigation of a subject well worthy of their deepest and continued contemplation. The powers of the mind are given for human improvement in the progress of human existence. The changes pro­duced by such reciprocations of lights and intelli­gences are certain in their progressions, and make their way imperceptibly, as conviction comes upon the world, by the final and irresistible power of truth. If Christianity be founded in falsehood, let us become Deists in this manner, and I am contented. But this book has no such object, and no such [Page 17] capacity: it presents no arguments to the wise and enlightened. On the contrary, it treats the faith and opinions of the wisest with the most shocking contempt, and stirs up men, without the advantages of learning, or sober thinking, to a total disbelief of every thing hitherto held sacred; and conse­quently to a rejection of all the laws and ordinances of the state, which stand only upon the assumption of their truth. Gentlemen, I cannot conclude with­out expressing the deepest regret at all attacks upon the Christian religion by authors who profess to pro­mote the civil liberties of the world. For under what other auspices than Christianity have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in former ages been re-asserted? By what zeal, but the warm zeal of devout Christians, have English liberties been redeemed and consecrated? Under what other sanc­tions, even in our own days, have liberty and happi­ness been extending and spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? What work of civilization, what commonwealth of greatness, has this bald religion of nature ever established? We see, on the contrary, the nations that have no other light than that of nature to direct them, sunk in barba­rism, or slaves to arbitrary governments; whilst, since the Christian aera, the great career of the world has been slowly, but clearly advancing, lighter at every step, from the awful prophecies of the Gospel, and leading, I trust, in the end to universal and eternal happiness. Each generation of mankind can see but a few revolving links of this mighty and mysterious chain; but by doing our several duties in our allotted stations, we are sure that we are fulfilling the purposes of our existence. YOU, I trust, will fulfil yours this day!