The Sun.
London, England, 1827-10-25 00:00:00

with nothing but facts and certainties--with nothing
but what can be known, and may be proved,—into
a Popish chapel ? Will you turn your jury-box into.
a confessional, dub yourselves a conclave of holy
friars, and sit there to hear these wiseacres offer their
prayers and. belief as evidence ? But, gentlemen,
whatiVerimpression the garbled extracts from my
orations, derived from the venal report of that
booby, might for a moment make upon you, must
in all fairness yield to the unpurchased testimony of
thousands, who can attest that the great aim of all
my orations has been the promotion of universal be-
nevolence, of extended knowledge, and of exalted
virtue. Now, gentlemen, ere we proceed, if it is to
be the inexorable fiat of law that shall plant its
cannon against me, in proportion as it shall be
peremptorily ruled that that law shall be brought to
bear upon me, are you bound to see that the evi-
dence upon which it proceeds is the best and clearest
that it possibly can be, which I am sure' you must
see it is not, for these six unanswerable reasons :

Ist, Becaise it is really too much' to trust to the
memory of even clever and good men, to the extent
of punishing a man for words spoken a long while
ago; and no clever or good men in the world would
think it right to do so. I call that a reason. 2dly,
Because the witness in the present case, is neither a
clever nor a good man: 3dly, Because. this man has
not come forward,upon his own spontaneity to bear
his testimony, but has been bribed by other_persons
to do so. I call that a reason. 4thly, Because this
matter being of a religious character, from the in-
firmity of human reason in the wisest, and the
strength of human prejudice in the best of men, any
evidence whatever in such a case must be in the

highest degree suspicious. IlMaxime habenda in
suspicione suet qua pendent quo modo cunque a
religione! It hath been held to be so—even to
" The wisest, greatest, meane3t of mankind."

I call that a reason. sthly, Because the evidence
in the present case really is a sad farrago of absurdi-
ties and contradictions. 6thly, Because this prose-
cution has originated in corrupt and wicked motives,
and been conducted in envy, hatred, and malice,
and all uncharitableness. I call that a reason—and
reason enough, I am sure it will be with all honour-
ably-minded men, to insure my acquittal, even if
the evidence were ten thousand times more than it

is pretended to be. Gentlemen, I shall trouble you
with no further arguments in proof of the-incompe-
tence of the evidence, but shall proceed to show
you, that even if that evidence were respectable
(which it is not), this prosecution is untenable;
which it is on Christian grounds; for, if it be a
maxim " that Christianity is part and parcel of the
law of the land"—a maxim which must somewhat
startle those who have been so much deceived as to
be led it.to a belief that Christianity was of divine
origin—then, as part and parcel of the law of the
land, I quote it as I have a right to de, to serve
my turn, and call upon you, gentlemen, to quash
this prosecution in pursuance of its express enact-
ments, exactly for such.a case as this made and pro-
videsl. Punish me not for doing the very thing
which your law either allows or commands to be
done, and trample not on its authority yourselves,
for the poor satisfaction of trampling on me, who
am so far from wishing to interfere with your Chris-
tianity, that the Almighty knows, that after the most
intimate knowledge of its doctrines, and the most
laborious investigation of its evidences, of which he
bath made me capable, my nature shudders at it,
my understanding despises, and my heart abhors
it. You may destroy that understanding with
vexation, and bieak that heart with sorrow, but
you cannot reconcile me—l cannot reconcile
myself—to Christianity. The weapons of your
warfare, saith your holy text—your part and parcel
of the law, are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty
through God. Then, for God's sake, gentlemen,

let me not have to find your spiritual weapons so
vastly like the bolts and bars of a prison, that there
shall be no knowing the one from the other. " The
men of God," saith your part and parcel of the law
of the land, must.not strive, but be patient towards
all men, apt to teach in meekness, instructing them
that oppose themselves." Now, gentlemen, that
was all I ever did. I opposed myself ; but where is
the instruction ? where is the meekness ? What
effect they might have upon me I cannot tell, because
they have never . been tried. " Judge not, that ye
be not judged; for with what measure ye mete, it
shall be measured to you again." And surely, gen-
tlemen, you would not think it just measure, should
Deists one day become possessed of the power now
in your hands, and persecute and punish you for the
conscientious maintenance of your faith in revela-
tion. If the pretence of such a thing is not an in-
sult upon us, your 7th Matthew, 12th verse, has in-
terpolated the 24th maxim of Confucius,: " hatso-
ever ye would that men should do to you, do ye
even so to them, for this is the law;" and if it be
the law, let it be administered, and that which is a
law to you shall be a shield to me. I shall not tres-
pass on your time, gentlemen, by adducing corrobo-
rative quotations from the writings of Christian di-
vines, who have borne their testimony against pro-
secutions on the score of religion under any pretext
whatever; for who can count the stars of heaven, or
number the leaves of the forest ? The difficulty
would be to find a single Christian writer, above the
level of an evangelical journalist, who wonld not
blush to be convicted of a sentence which could keep
such a prosecution in countenance. But if against
the clearest demonstration that Christianity for-
bids such a prosecution as this, and that all
Christians are agreed as to that forbiddance, it
shall be set up, that when it is asserted that Chris.
tianity is part and parcel of the law of the land, it is
to be understood to be se, not with respect to any
necessity that it binds upon the administrators of the
law to respect its doctrines or obey its precepts, but
abstractedly, in the mass and total of it as Christia-
nity. I then beg leave, with deference to his Lord-
ship, to assure you that this, though a popular and
r
prevalent conceit, is an absolute falsehood, a dictum
on no valid authority whatever, but originat-
ing in a mistake which arose from a case of Quare
inipedit, in the Year Book of the 34th Henry VI.,
folio 38, anno Domini 1458, in which case Prisot
uses the, words Ancient Scripture, as being 'part and
parcel of the law of the land; which words were
afterwards mis-translated by Finch, Holy Scripture,
instead of ancient writings, and the mistake has been
adopted by successive judges down to the present
times. It nevertheless is a mistake, and it will be
incumbent on his Lordship, if he shall countenance
and what that
foundation
whichsure, that there 'will not be found a
sincere better
its availing to my prejudice, both to show you that
it
Ifoaumndsautiroen he
cannot do. Of
ies
in the world, who will admit that
Christianity
is or could be made to be part or parcel
of the has
law sot
Christian
0
f the land, or who would not consider
tdlaa tmi
alsoim
the maintaining it to be so the most caustic sarcasm
that could be levelled against it, a complete surreni
der of its divine pretensions, a direct admission of its
absolute falsehood ; for the law of the land is, and
every man in it knows it to be, of merely human
authority. To say that Christianity is part and
parcel of that law, is to say that Christianity is no
better than an old coin, venerable for its anti-

quity, but contemptible for its value. Allow me,
now, to insist on the untenableness of this prosevu-
tion on moral grounds. A prosecution of this cha-
racter is morally wicked, because it is, in principle,
manifestly repugnant to that great and immutable
law of everlasting righteousness which God, the
Creator and Judge of all men, bath marked out and
implanted in the moral constitution of man's nature
itself. That law is—that " that all that man bath a
right to claim from man is, an interchange of kind
offices and of affectionate feelings." That claim
satisfied, there is no man that bath a right to con-
sider his brother as a,bad man, or to treat him as
such; there is no man that bath a right to say to
another " You shall think as I think—you shall
as
I speak, if. your sentiments accord with
mine; if not, you shall keep your sentiments
toelied up
in your own bosom, and. I alone will speak.
speak