next the idolatry of the gods THOR and WODEN, and finally Christianity again, to say nothing of what religion existed under the Danish Conquest. Then how can this religion be part and parcel of the common or unwritten law of the land? It is not sufficient that Sir Matthew Hale or Lord Chief Justice Coke have said such things; it is not of immemorial usage, and of itself has varied, as much as one system of mythology varies from another. It has been scarcely alike in any two centuries since it has borne the name of Christianity. At the farthest, it has been known but twelve centuries in this country, and it is not above two centuries back, when it began to be suspected as founded in error, by a few persons who had the courage and the honesty to examine it, that it was first pronounced by our lawyers as part of the common law; for as the last paragraph selected into the indictment says: in the time of the Pope's power over this country, when the Bible was unknown even to the clergy, much less the people, there was no suspicion about the Christian religion; because there were no means of examining it, and consequently it needed not the protection of the law. No sooner was printing invented, and the Bible printed, but it began to be examined, and men of sense and discernment began to see in what it consisted; then, and not till then, was it taken under the protection of the law; then, and not till then, was Christianity called part and parcel of the common law of the land. So that this part of the common law is an evident abuse and oppression originated in fraud and injustice, and in the support of established error. If the Pope of Rome could have retained the summit of his power, the Bible had never been printed in the English language: it was by examining the Bible for the purpose of invalidating the authority of the Pope, that opened the way to all that variety of sectarianism which has sprung up since that time: for a book that has no fixed principles in morals, or any thing else, cannot produce uniformity in the minds of mankind.

Cardinal Wolsey, who lived soon after the discovery of printing, predicted most truly, that if the priests did not put down the Printing Press it would put down them; for it would go on to make the people as wise as themselves.

I will now make a few extracts from the history of the Bible, to shew that the priests of former times always dreaded an examination of it, and that it cannot claim any connection with the common law. In the year 1390, in the reign of Richard the Second, a bill was brought into the House of Lords to prohibit the use of English Bibles.

About the year 1408, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, decreed in a convocation of the clergy at Oxford, that no unauthorized person should translate any text of Scripture into English, or any other language, by way of book or treatise, and that no translation made either in or since Wickcliffe's time, should be read, till approved by the bishop of the diocese, or in a provincial council. This decree was enforced by great persecutions; and, as about the same time, Pope Alexander the Fifth condemned all translations into the vulgar tongue, they were, as much as possible, suppressed till the Reformation. It appears, indeed, from our bishop's registers, that in consequence of Arundel's commission, several persons were burned, on refusing to abjure their principles, for having read the New Testament, and the Ten Commandments in Wickliffe's translation. So you see, Gentlemen of the Jury, that as soon as this reading began, there was an end to all unanimity about the Bible and the Christian religion; and as soon as printing began, and reading became general, sectarianism started into life; and it will go on increasing until a mutual toleration, on all matters of opinion, become both the common and the statute law of this and every other country.

In Townley's Biblical Anecdotes, we are informed that, in the second year of Henry the Fifth, a law was passed by which all Lollards, or those who read any of Wickliffe's books, were declared to be guilty of treason, and their goods ordered to be confiscated. This law was considered as particularly directed against those who read the New Testament in English of Wickliffe's translation.

The following is the view of our old chronicles upon this act:

"In the said Parliament (viz. one held at Leicester) the king made the most blasphemous and cruel act, to be a law for ever, that whatsoever they were that should read the Scriptures in their mother tongue, (which was then called Wickleu's Learning) they should forfeit land, cattle, body, life, and goods, from their heirs for ever, and be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most errant traitors to the land." In the year 1543, an act of Parliament was obtained against Tyndal's Bible, and the prefaces and notes of all other editions. It was therefore enacted"That no women, (except noblewomen and gentlewomen, who might read to themselves alone, and not to others, and for which indulgence they were indebted to the courtesy of Cranmer,) nor artificers, 'prentices, journeymen, serving

men, nor labourers, were to read the Bible or New Testament in English, to himself or to any others, privately or openly, upon pain of one month's imprisonment."

In the early part of the reign of Henry the Eighth, several severe proclamations were issued, at the request of the clergy, against all who read or kept by them Tyndal's translation of the New Testament; so that a copy of this book found in the possession of any person, was sufficient to convict him of heresy, and subject him to the flames.

Here it is evident, that the priests of those days were as much alarmed at the examination of the Bible as the priests of the present day are alarmed at the circulation of the writings of Thomas Paine. I shall here say all that I have to say, on the third and last paragraph selected into the Indictment, and that is, that the Deists, well knowing the contents of the Bible, are most anxious to have it circulated and read as widely as possible, and submitted to the fullest examination. They know that truth cannot be elicited but by the freest and fullest enquiry; and knowing this, they fear not to read any thing themselves, and wish the same disposition to be followed by those who ignorantly, brutally, and maliciously, endeavour to raise a clamour against them. I am bold to say, that each sentence in the last paragraph combines an historical or positive fact; and as such, I can rejoice that I have published it, whatever may be the consequence.

When nobody read and examined, and consequently, nobody doubted the truth of the history of the Bible and the Christian system of religion, nothing was then ever heard about its being part and parcel of the common law of the land; and it is only since the invention of printing, when reading became more general, and honest men examined what they read to see if it were consistent with truth, that this doctrine has been preached by our lawyers. Just so with regard to Spain in the present day: whilst the Inquisition existed, there was no need of making the law protect the Christian religion, but now the Inquisition is abolished, something like a free press established, and a spirit of enquiry abroad, the clergy of that country have introduced the punishment of death into their penal code, for any attempt to substitute any other religion for the Roman apostolic religion. How far this law will prevent the examination of this holy, Roman catholic, apostolic, orthodox, religion I cannot pretend to say; but this I venture to say, that, seven years will not elapse, under the present representative system of govern

ment in Spain, before that part of the penal code he abolished.

If a lawyer had broached the doctrine in any century between the ninth and the fourteenth, or even the fifteenth, that the Christian religion, that this divine religion, was part and parcel of the common law of the land, and that this law would protect it, he would have been sent to the stake as a daring blasphemer and an incorrigible heretic, for presuming that, this divine religion stood in need of human laws to protect it, and for imagining such a profanation as to connect with the common laws of the country, a religion which professes to emanate from the Deity.

History informs us that in every instance during the power of the Pope in this country, the priests of the Christian religion assumed a superiority over the laws, and always claimed an exemption from the operation of those laws, by an appeal to their Bishop or the Pope. Therefore, it is evident, that not only was the religion itself considered superior to and independent of all human law, but, that, even the ministers of that religion claimed the same.

From all these observations, quotations, and references, I feel that I am justified in the inference that the Christian religion has been falsely and corruptly connected with the common law; and that, in point of fact and justice the Christion Religion makes no part of the law of the land, as far as it relates to the exclusion of other systems. It is certainly mixed up with all our modern forms and ceremonies but, those forms and ceremonies are subject to continual change; therefore, it cannot be said to be comprised under the common law, which, our lawyers tell us, is known but by immemorial usage, and the dicta and decisions of our judges as to that immemorial usage, and which no lawyer will admit ever has been subject to any known change.

The religion of the country, and in fact, all religions, being founded upon metaphysical opinions, will ever be subject to continual change. It is a moral impossibility that any thing can render metaphysical opinions stedfast. The opinions of mankind are ever varying, and closely connected with the continual change of the human body, it is therefore madness to attempt to confine them to any standard, as well might the attempt be made to bring the size and features of mankind to an invariable standard; and who is he that has ever seen two human faces alike so as not to know the one from the other?

As to the charge of blasphemy, or the pamphlet which I have published being a blasphemous libel, I can feel nothing but contempt for such accusations. Blasphemy is a

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word terrible in sound to weak and ignorant minds, and a word which in the course of religious persecutions has been substituted for the less terrible sound of heresy. Although schism and sectarianism rages more than ever, among those who call themselves christians, we hear nothing about heresy now a-day! Each of those words is undefinable when applied as a religious term.

"Will the council for this prosecution undertake in his reply to define what blasphemy means; I mean that which is charged in the Indictment? Will he shew us how it is to be defined so as to make it amenable to the law? If he can do this, in plain and intelligible language, I shall feel obliged, as I must confess, that I cannot define it, as expressed in the Indictment; neither has it ever been defined in a court of Law when it has been made the subject of an Indictment. It is a word which fools and bigots have been trained to shudder at, and to make a great clamour about, without knowing what it meant, whether it has any real application to their religion, or in fact, without being able to attach an idea to the word. It is a phantom of the brain of a madman, and when fairly analysed can excite nothing but the contempt and indignation of honest men to see how the word has been used and abused. The Christians formerly confined their charge of blasphemy to an evil speaking of one of their Gods, (for the word blasphemy is of Greek origin, and signifies nothing more than an evil speaking or a calumniation.) There was blasphemy against God the father, there was a blasphemy against God the son, and there was a blasphemy, which was deemed unpardonable, and that was called blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. Not being a christian I have not learnt to define the metaphysical part of christianity, therefore I must leave this definition, and that of the different kinds of blasphemy, as applying to the Trinity, to the very learned counsel for the prosecution in his reply, who, having been so often employed on this subject, by the members of the Vice Society, doubtless, has obtained that instruction from Mr. Wilberforce, who has lately, in Parliament avowed himself a leading member of this association.

Now at the time the very learned and very pious Judge Bailey, passed sentence on my brother, for publishing Thomas Paine's Theological Works, and Elibu Palmers's Principles of Nature, he distinctly stated to my brother in his address, preparatory to the sentence, that he had not been guilty of a blasphemy towards God, but of a blasphemy towards his fellow countrymen, in having reviled their religion, and in having sought to deprive them of the comforts of that religion by such reviling. But here Gentlemen, there is no reviling,