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    obligation to government , by oaths , &c . ceasethy and Christian religion is part of the law itself , therefore iujuries to God are as punishable as to the King

    or any common person . " The next case which occurred was that of Curl , in which the power of the temporal

    courts was disputed , and the ground of their interference expressly declared . This case is reported in Q Strange , 789 , 1 Geo . II . before Raymond , Chief Justice . " It was an information against defendant , for printing and publishing a lewd and obscene

    book ; the defendant moved in arrest of judgment , contending that , however he might be punished for this in the spiritual court , as an offence contra bonos mores , yet it would not be a libel for which he was punishable in the temporal courts . The Attorney General contended , that it was an offence at common law , as it tended t © corrupt the morals of the King ' s

    subjects , and is against the peace of the King . Peace , he observed , includes good order and government , and may be broken several ways without actual force . 1 . If it be an

    act against the constitution or civil government . 2 . If it be against religion ; and , 3 d , if against morality . It is a libel if it reflects upon religion , that great basis of civil government , and may be both a spiritual and temporal offence . The cases we have noticed before , and particularly

    Taylor ' s case , are quoted in support of this principle , and also two cases ( the particulars of which are not reported ) of punishment , for buffooning or writing libels about the Trinity , in which this principle , it is observed , was not made a doubt of , and in . which , as Lord Raymond in the next case , of the King against Woolston , observed , * it had been settled , that to write against Christianity , in general , was an offence . ' " The Chief Justice is then reported to have said , in deciding the question , * ' If it reflects on religion , virtue , or morality , if it tends to disturb the civil order of society , I think it is a

    temporal offence . " And Probyn , Just . * ' inclined this to be punishable at common law , as an offence against the peace , in tending to weaken the bonds of civil society , virtue and morality . ' * The next case is the famous one of Rex v . Woolston , likewise before

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    Raymond , 2 Strange 834 . The defendant had been convicted on four informations for blasphemous discourses , denying the miracles of our Saviour ; and the court there declared they would not suffer it to be debated ,

    whether to write against Christianit y in general was not an offence at common law punishable in the temporal courts , it having been so settled in the cases above-mentioned . " They desired , however , it might be taken notice of that they laid their stress on the word

    general , and did not intend to include disputes among learned men upon particular controverted points . " The same case is reported in Fitzgibbons , 64 , and there it appears the question was debated at considerable length , whether this was an offence in the

    temporal courts , and also , whether the prosecution ought not to have been under the statute 9 and 10 Wm . III . c . 32 . Raymond is there reported to have said , " Christianity in general is parcel of the common law of England , and therefore to be protected by it .

    ] Sow , whatever strikes at the very root of Christianity tends manifestly to a dissolution of the civil government , and so was the opinion of my Lord Hale in Taylor ' s case . " " I would have it taken notice of , that we do not meddle with anij difference

    of opinion , and that we interpose only where the ver ?/ root of Christianity itself is struck at , as it plainly is by this allegorical scheme , the New Testamerit and the whole relation of the life and miracles of Christ being denied " " As to 9 and 10 Wm . III ., it is true , where a statute introduces a new

    offence and inflicts a new punishment , it must be followed ; but where it only inflicts a new punishment for an offence at common law , it remains an offence as it was before . Forgery , notwithstanding 5 Eliz ., remains punishable as it was before . "

    In the King v . Annett , Blackst Rep . 3 Q 5 , the same doctrine was held in a prosecution " for writing The Free Inquirer / in which it was contended , that Moses was an impostor , " &c . And the last case I shall

    mention is , that of the King v . Williams , for publishing Paine ' s Age of Reason , in which Ashhurst , in giving the judgment of the court , said , " It was fit to shew our abhorrence of such wicked doctrines * which were not only an

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    544 On Religious Offences indictable at Common Law ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1817, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2468/page/32/