As a friend to the universal freedom of mankind, civil and religious, I take leave to address you, for the purpose of contributing my sincere congratulations on the honours that await you, and the fine opportunity presented to you of benefiting mankind. I regret that the nature of my situation constrains me to conceal my name. To disclose it would, in all probability, prove my ruin in worldly circumstances, and thus both my present and future usefulness in this very cause be destroyed. I know many individuals, eminent for public and private virtue, who entertain the same sentiments as myself, who, by the prejudices so assiduously kept up, are equally obliged to be silent.
I have felt desirous, too, of sending you a few unconnected thoughts which have occurred to me on your case. It is very likely that they are quite common, and may have been much better expressed by others; yet, nevertheless, I shall state them.
I can easily suppose, that, even if you had an intention to employ counsel in your defence, you would find some difficulty, in the present servility of the bar to the powers that be, to obtain any assistance. But you require none, and you will be your own best advocate. I am not a lawyer, and therefore am I neither deeply read in musty statutes, nor skilled in legal subtleties. I apprehend, however, that there is not a law in the statute book forbidding theological controversy. The crime with which you are charged is called a libel. Now, what a libel is I do not know, nor can any body tell me; yet you are doubtless pretty well aware, that your prosecutors will, in a strain of inflated declamation and bombast, describe this libel as a thing of the most atrocious and diabolical nature and tendency. Your mode of defence against this attack is obvious. Since the question at issue between you and your accusers is not one of law, but of fact, your object is to get behind their ambuscade of words, and beat down their phillippics by that irresistible weapon, common sense, wielded by an honest man.
It has always appeared to my understanding that the most powerful argument that can be used with well-meaning people who assisted in, or approve of, prosecutions to support the ascendancy of their religion, is, that which shews such prosecutions to have a directly opposite tendency. Persecution is the very scandal of religion: it confesses weakness at once, and is a complete admission that the origin, doctrines, and progress of that religion cannot bear investigation.
It proves that the professors of and believers in it, are not themselves convinced of its truth and divine nature. But a system of things being established, of which these persons form apart, in which they live, move, and have their being, they wish it to be true. They themselves take it for granted, and live very comfortably under that system of machinery of which it is a wheel, and so their interest and indolence combine in prompting them to wish every one else to have the same belief. There are people, however, who cannot, and will not, believe what appears to their judgements to be false; but, should they go farther than this, and consciously wishing their fellow-creatures to perceive the truth, endeavour to shew by writings on what grounds they cannot, and others ought not, to believe in falsehood and impositions, then, in default of counter argument, or refutation by the same instrument of reason, courts of law and armed authority are called on, to compel those unbelievers either to believe, and of course such belief would be against their consciences, or to hold their tongues. In former ages, shooting, stabbing, burning, and flaying alive, were the means used for propagating religion for the good of men's souls; now they are imprisonment, fine, pillory: but these remnants of barbarity are also fast sinking into disgrace and disuse, and I cannot help thinking that you are destined to give the finishing blow, in this country at least, to the cruelties of bigotry.
Now, as inspiration or direct revelation from Heaven is not believed even by Christians (at least the more rational) of this day, though in the early and middle ages of Christianity priests and monks would have sworn that God communicated with them every day, let me suggest that, in the course of your defence, you ask the Jury trying your guilt or innocence as a libeller of that religion, whether they believe it to be founded on truth? And since it would be to insult them, you can add, to suppose they should profess belief of a subject doubtless considered by them of the highest importance to their present and future welfare, without having thoroughly examined it, again ask—whether in their hearts and consciences they think that any sophistical reasoning, which every thing contrary to it they must deem so, could shake their principles thus established on the basis of demonstration? If so established, what can hurt it—what can be a libel on it? Unless their religion be capable of demonstration, it is at best but doubtful, and may, therefore, be at least susceptible of confutation. If, in spite of the objections and attacks to which it has been exposed, it can be shewn to be the true religion after all, such discussion, instead of doing harm, must do good, inasmuch as it fixes the religion on a firmer basis. On a subject where so many men of the most acute intellect and most respectable character differ in opinion, you, as a humble inquirer after truth, may be allowed to have yours. Speculative opinions on religion, you can tell the jury, are nothing: whether you are a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, a Mohammedan, a worshipper of Vishnu, or a Free Thinker, or none of all these, is of no consequence to mankind, either governing or governed—It is a matter between you and your Maker only. All that governments can have to do with individuals, is their conduct as members of the state towards their neighbours. Had you been charged with any acts of disturbance, with the violation of any of the laws for the protection of persons and property, then it would have been intelligible; you might have been a fit object for trial, and, if found guilty, of punishment. Not one of the books which you have published have the slightest tendency to promote disorder, but, on the contrary do they profess and are calculated by a diffusion of their principes to extend and consolidate universal peace, virtue, happiness, and prosperity.
If, then, the gentlemen of the Jury's religion be founded on what they have satisfied their understanding to be truth, nothing can injure it; since, if it really come from God, to imagine that any writings, whether argumentative or satirical, could maintain a doubtful contest with books said to contain a revelation of the divine will, is actually to raise the author of such writings, and you their publisher, to a level with God himself! or, rather, to degrade that Almighty, wise, and good Being, your Creator, to a level with you, the creature. Hence it follows, that persecution may destroy, but never can support any religion.
You cannot have a better ground-work for your defence than the theological works of Paine, which, indeed, settle the question about the inspiration of the scriptures and the divinity of Christ. On the subject of religion generally there is a book which every lover of truth must regret is not so well known as it will infallibly be in no long time—I allude to a work entitled "Principles of Morality," by George Ensor, Esq. It displays the most extensive research and erudition, combined with good sense and an amiable disposition; the subject is pursued with much perspicuity of order, and expressed in an easy, neat, appropriate style. The book forms a very useful companion to Hume's ingenious and philosophical Essays on the Natural History of Religion.
I have now to advert to what you will doubtless consider the most valuable part of this communication. At the period of the late Mr. Eaton's cruel and abominable treatment under the chief persecutorship of Lord Ellenborough and his high priest, Sir Vicary Gibbs, a letter appeared in the Morning Chronicle on the subject of that unfortunate gentleman's unmerited punishment. It purported to be written by one who believed in the Christian religion; but it evinced sentiments so liberal, reasoning so just and forcible; it placed the right of conscience, even as good policy, in so striking a point of view; arguing the subject in such good temper, and with such conciseness, as to appear to me a masterpiece of its kind, and a standard to which every member of the Christian church ought to be referred. I preserved a copy of it at the time, and now send you one transcribed, believing that it may be useful to you, or that it may at least be interesting to you in the perusal.
The public mind has, of late years, been making rapid progress towards a true knowledge of its rights. Priestcraft and bigotry must and will be destroyed. Once trampled upon by man in the energy of his wrath, these monsters can never again rear their Gorgon heads. Like the Apollo represented by the Grecian sculptor, in the act of destroying the Pythian serpent, man will then stand as God created him, the impress of his own image, erect, free, noble, and grand. We have seen the glorious result of the attempt to crush, not Hone, but in him the spirit of a free press, and it is not permitted us to doubt that a similar triumph and reward awaits you.