several of whom I knew to be predetermined, as to submit to drop my intended defence, because they were weak enough to pronounce it improper, from the influence of a wily and subtle Judge, goaded by a set of legal gamblers, who had every thing at stake, as well as myself, on the result of the trial. Time, that great innovator, will, I have no doubt, find a substitute both for Christianity and the Bible, that is holy according to law; and such is the present rapid declension from those two absurdities, that I doubt not but some of you, who might have acted conscientiously, will live to regret and feel ashamed of the punishment you have inflicted upon him, who rather pities your blindness than condemns your prejudices. I have now to apply myself to one of your body, who, I think, has acted more inconsistent, and has more to answer for than all the rest; because I think I can make it plainly appear, that he has given as his verdict what was contrary to his conscience, and the evidence adduced before him. The person I allude to is Mr. John Wilson, of Queen Street. This Gentleman, if his open avowal of opinion on matters of religion were consistent with his private feelings, was opposed to at least ten of his fellow Jurors, or should-be Jurors. From the mouth of many Gentlemen who have been intimate and on friendly terms with Mr. Wilson for many years, I have been informed that he holds the same opinions on matters of religion with myself; that he holds the Book called the Bible in the same view-that he left a sick-bed for the purpose of adhering to that opinion as a Juror, and, strange to say, that he was found, in the language of bis friend Paine," neither bold enough to be honest, nor honest enough to be bold." But to proceed further-how cau Mr. Wilson reconcile to what he calls his verdict (and what is not improbable will destroy its victim, if not exactly in life, in health and property) his subsequent observations, "that he had no doubt of the sincerity of the heart of Carlile that he believed him to act from the most conscientious conviction; from a conviction that he (Wilson) believed Carlile would have maintained and defended, if it had led him to the scaffold!!!" What blind fatality could have induced Mr. Wilson thus to have perjured himself by pronouncing me Guilty? Did not his conscience sting him when the officer of the court inquired," Is the verdict of guilty the verdict of you all?" Did not that internal monitor respond, No? 'Tis done. The victim of your verdict is still happy-nothing can destroy that happiness whilst he sees his wife and family comfortably provided for, or as comfortable as the separation will admit of. He rejoices in what he has done, and if at liberty to-morrow, would go and do the same thing again. Have you, Gentlemen, acted upon your oaths ?-that oath which the Attorney-General endeavoured to impress so strongly on your minds-that oath by which you promised well and truly to try? Has it appeared that at least six of you twelve Gentlemen had any dread of perjury? Did you protect me, the defendant, in my defence, or did you unite with the Court and Law-Officers to deny me a hearing? Did you judge of the law, the Judge's common law, and my statute law? Did you resent that insult to your understandings, as well as violation of the law, when you sent for the statutes to examine, after your retirement, when the law says, "that you as Jurors should hold no communication with any individual until your verdict be agreed on," when, instead of receiving the statutes agreeable to your request, you suffered yourselves to be brought back into Court, and to receive an address of a quarter of an hour from a venal Judge, when the law says, that you, the Jury, shall judge of the law as well as of the fact?" Have you acted upon your oaths? Have you done your duty as Jurors to the victim of your verdict? RICHARD CARLILE. The following Subscriptions have been received towards defraying the Expences incurred by R. Carlile, and as expressive of approbation of his Conduct. .... S. Smith, an enemy to Religious Persecution.. Richard Matland, Lynn, Norfolk... £. s. d. 10 10 0 J. M'Arthur... 0 5 0 John Shipley.... 050 Nine Believers in one God only. 056 James and William Sharman, 4, Rhood's Well, Lime Thomas Read, Ironmonger Row, Broker...... N. B. The names which have been received as expressive of their approbation are too voluminous for these pages, they will therefore be shortly published in separate sheets as appendages to the Report of the Mock Trials: the sums of money subscribed will also in future be noticed in the same manner. THE FOLLOWING LETTER ON SUPERSTITION, Addressed to the People of England, by the Right Hon. William Pitt, (afterwards Earl of Chatham,) the most illustrious Minister of the British Empire, was first printed in the London Journal in 1733; and is a strong proof of what this Celebrated Man thought of Christianity. "Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this; to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their afflictions, and to keep one's self unspotted from the World." GENTLEMEN, whoever takes a view of the World, will find, that what the greatest part of mankind have agreed to call religion, has been only some outward exercise esteemed sufficient to work a reconciliation with God. It has moved them to build temples, flay victims, offer up sacrifices, to fast and feast, to petition and thank, to laugh and cry, to sing and sigh by turns: but it has not yet been found sufficient to induce them to break off an amour, to make restitution of ill-gotten wealth, or to bring the passions and appetites to a reasonable subjection. Differ as much as they may in opinion, concerning what they ought to believe, or after what manner they are to serve God as they call it, yet they all agree in gratifying their appetites. The same passion reigns eternally in all countries and in all ages, Jew and Mahometan, the Christian and the Pagan, the Tartar and the Indian, all kinds of men who differ in, almost every thing else, universally agree with regard to their passions: if there be any difference among them it is this, that the more superstitious they are, always the more vicious; and the they believe, the less they practice. This is a melancholy consideration to a good mind; it is a truth, and certainly above an things, worth our while to enquire into. We will therefore probe the wounds, and search to the bottom; we will lay the axe to the root of the tree, and shew you the true reason why men go on in sinning and repenting, and sinning again through the whole course of their lives; and the reason is, because they have been taught, most wickedly taught, that religion and virtue are two things ab more solutely distinct; that the deficiency of the one might be supplied by the sufficiency of the other; and that what you want in virtue, you must make up in religion. But this religion, so dishonourable to God, and so pernicious to men, is worse than Atheism, for Atheism, though it takes away one great motive to support virtue in distress, yet it furnishes no man with arguments to be vicious; but superstition, or what the world means by religion, is the greatest possible encouragement to vice, by setting up something as religion, which shall atone and commute for the want of virtue. This is establishing iniquity by a law, the highest law; by authority, the highest authority; that of God himself. We complain of the vices of the world, and of the wickedness of men, without searching into the true cause. It is not because they are wicked by nature, for that is both false and impious; but because, to serve the purposes of their pretended soul savers, they have been carefully taught that they are wicked by nature, and cannot help continuing so. It would have been impossible for men to have been both religious and vicious, had religion been made to consist wherein alone it does consist; and had they been always taught that true religion is the practice of virtue in obedience to the will of God, who presides over all things, and will finally make every man happy who does his duty. This single opinion in religion, that all things are so well made by the Deity, that virtue is its own reward, and that happiness will ever arise from acting according to the reason of things, or that God, ever wise and good, will provide some extraordinary happiness for those who suffer for virtue's sake, is enough to support a man under all difficulties, to keep him steady to his duty, and to enable him to stand as firm as a rock, amidst all the charms of applause, profit, and honour. But this religion of reason, which all men are capable of, has been neglected and condemned, and another set up, the natural consequences of which have puzzled men's understandings, and debauched their morals, more than all the lewd poets and atheistical philosophers that ever infested the world; for instead of being taught that religion consists in action, or obedience to the eternal moral law of God, we have been most gravely and venerably told that it consists in the belief of certain opinions, which we could form no idea of, or which were contrary to the clear perceptions of our minds, or which had no tendency to make us either wiser or better, or which is much worse, had a manifest tendency to make us wicked and immoral. And this belief, this impious belief arising from imposition on one side, and from want of examination on the other; has been called by the sacred name of religion, whereas real and genuine religion consists in knowledge and obedience. We know there is a God, and we know his will, which is, that we should do all the good we can; and we are assured from his perfections, that we shall find our own good in so doing. And what would we have more? are we after such enquiry, and in an age full of liberty, children still? and cannot we be quiet unless we have holy romances, sacred fables, and traditionary tales to amuse us in an idle hour, and to give rest to our souls, when our follies and vices will not suffer us to rest? You have been taught indeed, that right belief or orthodoxy, will, like charity, cover a multitude of sins; but be not deceived, belief of, or mere assent to the truth of propositions upon evidence is not a virtue, nor unbelief a vice: faith is not a voluntary act, it does not depend upon the will: every man must believe or disbelieve, whether he will or not, according as evidence appears to him. If, therefore, men, however dignified or distinguished, command us to believe, they are guilty of the highest folly and absurdity because it is out of our power, but if they command us to believe, and annex rewards to belief, and severe penalties to unbelief, then are they most wicked and immoral, because they annex rewards and punishments to what is involuntary, and therefore neither rewardable or punishable. It appears then very plainly unreasonable and unjust to command us to believe any doctrine, good or bad, wise or unwise, but, when men command us to believe opinions, which have not only no tendency to promote virtue, but which are allowed to commute or atone for the want of it, then are they arrived at the utmost pitch of impiety, then is their iniquity full; then have they finished the misery, and completed the destruction of poor mortal man, by betraying the interest of virtue, they have undermined and sapped the foundation of all human happiness and how treacherously and dreadfully have they betrayed it! A gift, well applied, the chattering of some unintelligible sounds called creeds; an unfeigued assent and consent to whatever the church eujoins, religious worship and consecrated feasts; repenting on a death-bed; pardons rightly sued out; and absolution authoritatively given, have done more towards making and continuing men vicious than all the natural passions and infidelity put together, for infidelity can only take away the supernatural rewards of virtue; but these superstitious opinions and practices, have not only turned the scene, and, made men lose sight of the natural rewards of it, but have induced them to think, that were there no hereafter, vice would be preferable to virtue, and that they increase in happiness as they increase in wickedness: and this they have been taught in several religious discourses and sermons, delivered by men whose authority was never doubted, particularly by a late Rev. prelate, I mean Bishop Atterbury, in his sermon on these words, "If in this life only be hope, then we are of all men most miserable," where vice and faith ride most lovingly and triumphantly together. But these doctrines of the natural excellency of vice, the efficacy of a right belief, the dignity of atonements and propitiations have, beside depriving us of the native beauty and charms of honesty, and thus cruelly stabbing virtue to the heart, raised and diffused among men a unnatural passion, which we shall call religious hatred; a hatred certain |