Letter To Sir Samuel Shepherd Part 1

Letter To Sir Samuel Shepherd.

by Anonymous.

LETTER,

Sir,

As you have commenced the prosecution of Carlile, a printer, for publishing an edition of Paine's Age of Reason, in conjunction with the self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, I take the liberty to submit to your consideration a few remarks, upon the nature and tendency of this purposed suit. Since prosecutions of this kind are not novel, and as it may be fairly conjectured that you will follow the ordinary routine of men in your office in these causes, and moreover as the accused will be subjected to the usual disadvantage of meeting three pleadings to the one which will be allowed him, besides the probable interruptions from the Judge on the bench, I think it needful and reasonable to antic.i.p.ate and meet beforehand those hacknied arguments, which it seems to me most probable that you will advance in the court on the days of trial.

That the accuser should be permitted to plead three times to the once with which the accused is but imperfectly indulged, though it may be law, is most flagrant injustice. But, perhaps, you may not be quite satisfied with my arithmetic, and may ask me, how I make out my three pleadings to one. It were much to the honour of this country, and its laws, if I should be mistaken in my calculation, but I fear to be put to the blush as an Englishman, (if you serjeants at law are not,) by my computation, being found to be but too true.

In the first place, you open the case. This you do not reckon pleading: but as you are allowed to say whatever you think proper, it becomes as truly a pleading in reality as your latter speech, which alone you call by that name. The second is what is styled so on both sides. And this would be injustice, if I stopped here; but having engaged to reckon up three pleadings, I fix upon the most unfit person that could be named; that is, my Lord Judge, to plead on the third occasion.

This speech of the Judge, you crown-lawyers term summing up the evidence; but I believe you can never adduce one solitary instance in a crown prosecution, in which the Judge has not acted completely the part of a retained counsel for the crown.

That my Lord Judge should be unable to divest himself of the habit of pleading as an advocate, since he has formerly followed that employment, though far from equitable or decorous, is still very natural, like as the mail-coach horse which has aforetime been a hunter,

"When hounds and horns the forest rend,"

p.r.i.c.ks up his ears, and longs to join in the pursuit. But the Judge also discharges a still more exceptionable office, that of interrupter on the part of the crown.

He is apt to lug in his observation, that what the accused is saying in his own defence is _irrelevant_ to the question; though a man's penetration must be astonishing who can determine beforehand that any particular sentence uttered shall not, by a concatenation of argument, be brought to bear forcibly upon the point in question.

If the accused adduces instances of opposite decisions in similar proceeding suits, with a view to point out an inconsistency, the Judge will exclaim, "That is not the cause before us;" though how in the world can inconsistency be shewn without bringing forward more than one particular?

These ill-timed interruptions, by breaking the thread of connection of the defence of the accused, must so maul it, and put it out of shape, that the jury become unable to make either head or tail of it, even though it should have been previously drawn up with good judgement, and contain the soundest reasonings.

In trials for alledged blasphemy, if the accused complains that a garbled extract made from his book does not convey its true sense, and wishes to read it at large, the court object, and cry out, that the book is too bad to be read in that place, and that it will poison the ears of the audience.

If the accused desires that the Bible may be referred to, in proof of its contradictions or blameable pa.s.sages, the court bawls aloud that it is too good a book to be produced before the profane. If reference be thus objected to, by what means, then, shall the truth be brought to light?

And now, Mr. Attorney-General, let us proceed to your own probable allegations and arguments in court in this particular cause; and I will suppose you to say to the gentlemen of the jury, that you have been urged by the representations of a respectable body of men, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, to prosecute R. Carlile, whom you have discovered and proved before the court to have gone _vi et armis_, by violence and with weapons of war, and not having the fear of G.o.d before his eyes, to have published a blasphemous libel, the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine, which libel had been previously condemned by a Jury, and burnt by the common hangman. That the wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a general disbelief of your and their most holy religion, that pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which, having emanated from the Deity, is, to its adherents, the basis of their comforts in this life, their solace in the hours of affliction, sickness, and death, their moral instruction in this world, and their providitor of everlasting happiness in a world to come; that libels of this impious description were with a malignant zeal thrown in the way of the young and inexperienced, too undiscerning to detect their sophistry, or suspect the poison contained in them, and too ignorant yet of the world to be on their guard against the practices of bad men: that irreligion and; immorality are necessarily connected; and that the propagators of infidelity are actuated by a malice too virulent to be attributed to mere human pa.s.sion, and for which a motive and stimulus would be in vain sought for, unless it be a.s.signed to the instigators of the great enemy of mankind, the Devil. The jury will be conjured, as they value the preservation of good morals, the peace and good order of society, both individual and public welfare, the happiness of their fellow-subjects both in this world and in a future life, to arrest the fatal poison in its progress, and give a verdict of conviction and condemnation against the accused.

But, Mr. Attorney General, you would not take shining pinchbeck counters instead of sovereigns for a fee, with as little close examination as you will wish the jury to admit the weight and validity of your arguments, and the accuracy of your a.s.sertions.

The imposing name a.s.sumed by the Society who are the ostensible movers of the prosecution, might, at the first glance, seem sufficient to carry all before it, and to dispatch the business at one blow. For what could such a Society direct their efforts, against but vice? However, men are not to be judged of by the t.i.tles they choose to give to themselves, without some scrutiny being made into their conduct. This self styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, exhibit themselves to us as the foes to free inquiry, and stifling the arguments on one side of a question. In vain will they excuse themselves as preventing the poisonous effects of reasonings on the wrong side; for to decide in that way which side is wrong is a _pet.i.tio propositi_, a begging of the question. Real truth is best established by the free production of the arguments on both sides; for thereby suspicion of unfairness is re moved. So many absurdities attend upon error and falsehood, that truth has a very preponderating advantage against them, where enquiry is left free. The arguments then adduced on the wrong side of a question, are not so noxious and poisonous as disingenuous men wish to insinuate. The truth abhors to be indebted to suppression of argument, from that it never can derive advantage; therefore it is only resorted to by the party who are in the wrong. This endeavour to suppress argument implies disingenuousness, and this last named quality is always at variance with real truth. Error may be designed, but disingenuousness never can be; and, therefore, when accompanied with violence, it is always criminal.

Disinenuousness, as far as it extends, cannot consist with the love of truth, but error may. Now as the love of truth is the basis of all real morality, this disingenuous self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, are, therefore, detected to be a Society for the Suppression of Virtue.

I will still suppose you to proceed in the beaten, track of your predecessors in office, and omitting to reply to the technicality _vi et armis_, on which, I imagine, you lay no stress, I take the liberty to question the propriety of the accustomed phrase, "not having the fear of G.o.d before his eyes." You will admit, Mr. Attorney-General, that to forge the Great Seal of England would be a criminal deception, and also, that to examine whether it was forged or not, or to state reasons for believing it to have been forged, would be allowable. Now, as the authority of the Creator is a higher one than the British Government, so to forge a revelation from him would be a more criminal imposture than the former one; and a rigid examination and scrutiny into its truth or falsehood, and all doubts and rational exceptions against a supposed revelation, would always be innocent, and might sometimes be laudable.

Therefore, as Paine's Age of Reason is an objection against the truth of the supposed revelations of Moses and Jesus, the conduct of R. Carlile in publishing it must be innocent, at least, if not meritorious, and therefore would consist well with a pious veneration towards the Supreme Being; and this invalidates your a.s.sertion.

"Which libel had been condemned by the legislature." But as the legislature is composed of fallible men, their sanction does not prove the truth and validity of Jesus's pretensions; and as the conduct of the legislature in sanctioning this revelation might be directed and influenced by political motives, their sanction is an argument rather against than in favour of its truth.

"And burnt by the common hangman." Jean Jaques Rousseau says, and so must every reasonable man, _Bruler un livre n'est pas y repondre_, "Burning a book is not answering it."

"The wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a general disbelief of your and their most holy religion." The truth can only be ascertained by leaving inquiry free, that arguments on both, sides of a question may be brought forward, in order that it may be seen on which side the preponderance lies. Therefore, the same objection would hold good against producing the arguments on the wrong side of any other question, as well as this before us now; this would militate against truth in general, and is, of course, absurd. Besides, as the Deists have made the offer to argue with Jesus's followers upon the truth or falsehood of Jesus's pretensions upon fair and equal terms, which offer Jesus's followers have thought proper to divine, therefore, to use a figure borrowed from pugilistic combats, the Deists throw up the hat and claim the victory.

"That pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which having emanated from the Deity." But the Deists offer to bring arguments to disprove the purity, peaceableness, and benevolence of Jesus's system, and likewise its origin from the Supreme Being; and your laws hinder those arguments from appearing. Now, this endeavour of yours to suppress is concealment.

And if there is nothing criminal in this system of Jesus, what could you have to conceal? The Deists do not endeavour to conceal any thing, it is the hiding, hushing, concealing party which are the guilty; where morality is concerned concealment implies guilt. If the Deists venture to bring forward demonstrations from the four Gospels against the personal moral character of Jesus, you call that blasphemy. But recollect, that when the Deists make you the offer to discuss the moral character and the pretensions of Jesus to a mission from the Almighty upon honourable and fair terms, and you choose to decline this equitable proposal, the charge of blasphemy falls upon yourselves; your sneaking evasion and concealment cause the charge of blasphemy to be brought home against you, and you stand convicted yourselves as the blasphemers.

"Is to its adherents the basis of their comforts in this life." Observe, that those very men who lay heavy taxation upon this country, and, what was unknown to Pagan times, entail those taxes upon unborn children, those men are among the most zealous a.s.serters of Jesus's pretensions, and employ Jesus's priests as diligent advocates for the imposition of public burdens on the land, and sundry abuses. So that the bulk of the people of this country are not much indebted to Jesus's system for temporal comforts. Nay, it rather deprives them of many comforts, and even necessaries in this life. We have such men at present in office, of greatest power and trust, who are of such principles that they would countenance and patronize no religion but what suited their purpose, and promoted their tyranny and oppressive objects and designs. Therefore, we may see what Jesus's religion is by its suiting them so well.

"Their solace in the hours of affliction, sickness, and death." Jesus's religion has caused the affliction and death of far more people than it has solaced on such occasions.

"Their moral instructor in this world." The real moral tendency of Jesus's system is one of the points at issue between his followers and the Deists; therefore that position is not to be a.s.sumed as it has not been fairly proved. The effect of Jesus's religion may have been to repress some vices in the world, but it has greatly increased others.

When the Pagan Romans possessed Britain, there was not as much gin, brandy, and whiskey drank here as there is now. Nay, the Pagan Romans used to mix water with their wine most usually. Unpaid Bank notes were unknown to them; and thus millions of inhabitants were not employed in circulating among themselves falsehood and fraud, which horrid practice among us renders those two last crimes familiar to the view, and abates the abhorrence of them. Indeed, perjury was evidently not near so frequent among the Pagan Romans as it is now that Jesus's system has prevailed; this fact we can clearly infer from what remains to us of Greek and Roman writers. The unnatural tax on unborn children was totally unknown to those ancients: so that Jesus's morality has not done us much good.

"And their providitor of everlasting happiness in a world to come."

There are some drawbacks in this world, at any rate, if we reckon the Sunday's weekly gloom, and the tythes on all landed property. Whether this future happiness be attained to at last or not by Jesus's followers, it is a long, a very melancholy road, however, that they go to it. And as a tenth levied on all landed produce and other church dues are pretty large, payment in advance for an inheritance in an unseen country, which no man living has visited, it seems unreasonable for the law to hinder a scrutiny and examination into the validity of the t.i.tle-deeds. Besides, as the land is rated heavier than other property, the payment falls very unequally on the holders of shares in this _Terra Incognita_.

"Libels of this impious description are zealously thrown in the way of the young and inexperienced." This practising upon the minds of the young and inexperienced, if it be culpable, is not so chargeable upon the Deists as upon Jesus's priests. The deistical writings are argumentative, and therefore cannot be read by the young till they are almost grown up, and the judgement is always appealed to by the Deists; neither do they discourage the examination of the other side of the question, as Jesus's followers usually do. On the other hand, Jesus's priests burden the memory of children, not seven years old, with creeds and catechisms; besides, they labour to prejudice the young in favour of Jesus's system, and to discourage all fair inquiry into what concerns its truth; a conduct which the Deists would abhor to pursue in favour of deism. Moreover, the catechisms and other machinations of Jesus's priests are calculated to impair the discerning faculty of the young, and to blunt its ac.u.men.

Let us examine the beginning of the church of England catechism as an example. "Q. Who gave you that name?"--"A. My G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ," &c. How should a child at seven years comprehend the meaning of a membership with an unseen metaphysical being? This beginning with children on subjects beyond their comprehension is playing tricks with their understanding.

"Q. What did your G.o.dfathers, &c. then for you?"

"A. They did promise and vow three things in my name: first, that I should renounce the devil and all his works." It is a monstrous proposition to instil into a child's mind that one person could swear to the certainty of another's conduct. Surely these priestly tricks must be meant to incapacitate these young children throughout life from thinking ever acutely on religious subjects. And what idea could a child have of the devil's works? Of the devil himself they might form some notion from the picture of him, and might

"Dream of the devil, and wake in a fright."

The processions [i. e. pomps] and empty things of this wicked world. Would any pious man swear that a child should not be fond of processions, pomps, and splendid shows? Neither could a child distinguish empty things or vanities of the world. It is unavailing for Jesus's priests to say that at any age of maturity these distinctions will be comprehended, for they have taken care before hand, as far as they could, to injure and debilitate the discerning faculty: and if they should afterwards distinguish vanities, they would still be less able to examine religious truths; and to place impediments in the way of this last, is the priest's object. "Secondly, that I should believe all the articles of the Christian faith." How can one person swear, to what another shall believe? and what a notion this swearing must give to young minds of the reverence due to an oath! Descant, Mr.

Attorney-General, as you think proper upon the good moral tendency of the religion as by law established, but you will find it very difficult to prove your a.s.sertions in its favour, whenever you may please to advance them. The oath extends so far as that the child shall believe not one article only but all the articles of Jesus's religion, and that without even comprehending them all, for some, as that of the Trinity, are quite unintelligible; and some of these articles contain other articles so as to embrace the whole volume of the Bible, all and singular every pa.s.sage of it.

"And thirdly, that I should keep G.o.d's holy will and commandments." Then they must swear that the boy shall never be a G.o.dfather.

All this is done to impair the intellect, and accounts, in part, for the extreme obstinacy and prejudice of Jesus's followers. Somebody must have sworn, Mr. Attorney General, that you should never be an Attorney-General; for this exercise of your office herein described, is not compatible with much scrupulosity. As for its being said that the child afterwards takes the oath upon itself, oaths cannot be so transferred; therefore that plea is futile. No description of people, besides Jesus's followers, ever admitted the execrable principle of the transfer of an oath. In fact, if the G.o.dfathers had sworn that the boy should turn out a pickle, after all the rest of priestly management, they would have stood a pretty good chance of having nothing fall upon their conscience from that quarter.

Jesus's priests are apt to injure the intellect of young people by telling them, that if they do not believe Jesus's religion they will be d.a.m.ned to eternal punishments. Now as in all natural belief, when the intellect is sound and healthy, the mind is always pa.s.sive in the act of giving its a.s.sent to any proposition, this trick of Jesus's priests disturbs, impairs, and disorders the understanding; and by this means also people are rendered incapable, throughout life, to reason and inquire with penetration, discernment, and impartiality on religious subjects. The natural belief of a sound mind is not determined by the will. If men could, in all cases, believe whatever they pleased, their minds would be a complete chaos; yet have Jesus's priests, in all ages since the days of the founder of their religion, offered this violence to the human intellect. Thus, I think, that I have shewn you, Mr.

Attorney-General, that the young and inexperienced are not more in danger of imbibing absurd notions and depraved principles from the Deists than from Jesus's priests.

I now proceed to examine a supposed a.s.sertion, rife enough among those of your side of the question that "infidelity and immorality are necessarily connected." That the Deists and other unbelievers are more immoral than Jesus's followers, is more than can be proved. And when we consider that Jesus's religion is always taken up as a prejudice, and is maintained in the world by violence, and by a pertinacious determination of Jesus's adherents to hear the reasons only on one side of the question, that side which is favourable to his pretensions, a procedure which is utterly repugnant to the love of truth, the most probable conjecture is, that the unbelievers should be, upon the whole, the more moral party. But it must be allowed to be a difficult matter to determine such a question as that to any thing like certainty. Until it be determined, however, you have no right to make the a.s.sertion alluded to.

When you declaim upon the too great prevalence of infidelity, you speak a language which implies the insane and monstrous notion that natural belief is dependent upon the will; whereas it is the known and suggested reasons which always naturally determine the a.s.sent. A man is no more culpable merely for what he believes, than he is for discovering by the taste that sugar is sweet and aloes bitter. Your slang when you speak of infidelity and belief, as virtues or vices, reprehensible or laudable, would be quite unintelligible to us, if we were not already acquainted with the tricks and machinations of priests to create prejudice, or frighten people into an a.s.sent to points, which they dare not trust and submit to the test of fair inquiry.

If the Creator were to require an a.s.sent without a sufficient reason to determine it, he would demand what is contrary to the structure of the human mind, which was formed by himself: thus he would disorder his own work, which is a thing incredible. If he has suggested reasons which would not have been otherwise thought of, let Jesus's priests produce them, and let them be examined. Then the prosecutions of Deists would be superfluous, for they would be forced to: believe when the reasons were found cogent enough. But no such reasons have been hitherto produced: reason or no reason, the a.s.sent is still required. And how shall such an a.s.sent without reasons sufficient be distinguished from what is universally allowed, by physicians and all others, to be insanity and mental derangement?

"That the propagators of infidelity are instigated by the Devil." This a.s.sertion, very usual from men in your office, Mr. Attorney-General, you are unable to prove. And hereby you remind us, that Jesus's followers universally admit the very absurd notion of two principles in the universe, a good and a bad one.

I know that the moderns being ashamed of it, wish to abrogate it, and to throw it off from themselves upon the early heretics. But we shall not allow you to escape that way. If you advance any principle, you must admit all the consequences which necessarily flow from it; and we will not suffer your evasions in this particular. When pressed hard, you followers of Jesus want to pa.s.s off the Devil upon us for a mere angel, and tell us of his war in Heaven, and that he was cast out upon the earth. This will not do, we shall not allow you this subterfuge, for in other places your received canon of Scripture maintains the ubiquity of the Devil; this extravagant notion with which we charge you, we shall bring home to you. In 2 Cor. chap. iv. ver. 4, you have, "In whom the G.o.d of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not."

implying, that the Devil, i. e. the G.o.d of this world, is present in all unbelievers. This is still further confirmed by 1 John chap. v. ver. 19, "The whole world lieth in the wicked one," i.e. the Devil. I know that it is translated, "lieth in wickedness." But this is a sneaking evasion of Jesus's followers, who are ashamed of the notion of the two principles. That is an extraordinary vicious translation of the pa.s.sage.

A man who knows the least of Greek at all must be sensible that the pa.s.sage will only admit of the rendering which I have here, and others have before me, given to it. The Devil is said by Jesus's followers to pervade the whole unbelieving world. If you complain, Mr.

Attorney-General, that this is pressing a lawyer too far on a theological question, I shall lay the blame on you, and those who have held your office, for starting this particular subject; and whenever an Attorney-General advances a position he takes the risks attending it.

The story of the Devil's fall from Heaven in Revelations, chap. xii. may establish and show an inconsistency in Jesus's religion, but it does not get you nor his followers clear of the silly notion of the two principles, when your canon of Scripture has once advanced what clearly implies that groundless notion.

"The jury are conjured." Since the detection and exposition of that infamous list of jurors, out of which a jury used to be packed for the Crown whenever it was prosecutor, some sort of reformation has taken place in the manner of appointing a jury, so as to leave a better chance of having disinterested men on the jury. Before Hone's trial the scene which used to take place in prosecutions for alledged blasphemy was scandalous and detestable. The legislature take upon themselves to a.s.sign a revelation to the Almighty, but as a revelation is a delineation of his character, they a.s.sign to him a character of their own choosing; and as they labour to suppress and hide the objections started against it, that character which they have given to the Supreme Being must of course be a bad one, because concealment in this case implies guilt in the concealing party: so that the charge of blasphemy is justly retorted upon the legislature and upon the prosecuting party in this case of R. Carlile, and also in the preceding cases of Houston, the reputed author of Ecce h.o.m.o, of Williams, who was

Paine's printer of the Age of Reason, of Daniel Isaac Eaton, too, and others. The legislative bodies, I repeat, and their accomplices, are the real blaspheming party, who have given, as they testify by their concealing practices, a bad and slanderous character to the Almighty, and whose guilt is aggravated by their endeavours to hinder other men from vindicating him from their foul aspersions.