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Untitled Article
according to the newspapers , has professcd himself to be a sincere Christian ; but a sincere Christian must bend to the authority of Christ , and though a man should call the Christian religion a fable , its author an impostor , and its teachers designing and interested villains , ( as multitudes have done , emperors , kings ,
princes , priests , the great , the rich , and the learned ) the sincere Christian hears the reprpachcs with sorrow for those , from whose mouth it comes , and does not retort , either by bad language , or what is worse * by penalties , imprisonments , tortures or death . These were the instruments of infidels against Christians : if Christians use these
instruments , because they now have power in their hands , we say to them as Christ said to his erring apostles , « Ye know not what spirit ye are of . * The bookseller has been brought up
for judgment , and put in the affidavits of five respectable persons , as to his character , and he himself stated , that he had no evil intention or design against the public peace , in publishing his book , which he did not conceive to be to the
dishonour of God—that he had erroneously believed it to be the right of all persons , to discuss the authenticity of any passages in the holy scriptures—that he was born and bred , and ; continued in
the Church of England , and endeavoured to live in charity with all men—that he was sixty years of age , afflicted with a cough and very infirm , and prayed the mercy of the court , in pity to the errors and infirmities of human judgment .
Mr , Prince Smith addressed the court in a most able manner , in mitigation of punishment , shewing the state of the world under Popish laws against enquiry , and pointing out that the court was the guardian of the morals of the people , not the keeper of their souls : and the enquiry now was , how far the
public morals might be injured and the public peace invaded by the dissemination of the principles contained in this book . Great latitude had formerly been allowed in discussing opinions , and at this time there were upwards of forty
million ' s of the kings subjects , who believed Christianity to be a fabje , and whosq faith was founded on an incarnation eight hundred years older than Mose « $ . tie brought instances of divines u s ? nga grpat latitude of enquiry respectlng * h $ prophecies , and among them % he father or the Lord Chief Justice , allow-
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ing the infidel to use his own arms , in his attack upon Christianity . The informations of the Attorney General were properly treated as bars to all free in * quiry , and his inconsistency was shewn , by his sanction of the poem of Lucretius , which was an attack against all religion , whereas the hook before the court was against only a peculiar mode of it * The
Christian charity of the judges was applied to with peculiar energy , for thomgh the arm of the law , grasped at the thunders of heaven , it would be impotent to convince , it was powerful only to destroy . The bookseller was remanded to prison and ordered to be brought up for judg . nient in the next week , when he was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment , and to stand in the pillory .
A circumstance of this kind would naturally produce very little sensation . The object was an individual in an obscure situation , and the higher ranks who entertain the sentiments of Hume , Gibbons , Voltaire , Dupuis , &c . &c * were not likely to intercede for one , who was disseminating their principles
in a form not sufficiently refined . But other events , and those of a most melancholy nature , called forth all the public attention . Assassination is a crime , from which the English character turns with abhorrence , yet the instances of it of late have too often grieved our hearts . Private wrongs , real or pretended , have armed the hands of
Engl . shmen , in a manner , which has been long the reproach of the Italians : but in one case the individual gloried in his act , and did not attempt to escape from the hands of justice . In the north , the assassins have , notwithstanding great rewards for their detection , escaped hitherto undiscovered . These wretched men commit murder from revenge , as some of their confederacy have been killed
in their outrages against private property * and others have been consigned to the hands of justice . The confederacy is of an abominable nature , waging war against the improvement of machinery , by which their districts have hitherto flourished , and notwithstanding
temporary distress it is certain that the chief instigatersin the tumultuous proceedings are the least alFectcd by it . Govern * nient baa sent a very strong military force to protect the immense property employed in manufacture , and a commission has been issued to try the infatuated rioters .
Untitled Article
State of Public Affairs . 341
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1812, page 341, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1748/page/61/
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