The Attorney-General here interrupted the defendant. He submitted that he could not proceed further with such a line of defence. The expression of the defendant was, that he would go into an examination of the book of which Paine's work was an investigation. He contended that he could not go into such an examination. The question was whether, according to the law of the country, the defendant had been guilty of the offence with which he was charged? It was neither competent for his lordship nor the gentlemen of the jury to go into such an examination as the defendant proposed--an examination of the truth of the Scriptures.
The Chief Justice: You hear the objection taken by the Attorney-General?
Mr. Carlile: Yes, my lord. The Attorney-General states that it is not competent for your lordship or the jury to go into such an examination as I propose; but he has quite forgotten that it is necessary to my defence. I have been brought into this Court to answer charges, and must avail myself of every means of defence. The Attorney-General has stated that I have published a work in which the Scriptures are spoken of as containing obscene stories, voluptuous debaucheries, cruel and tortuous executions, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Now I feel it to be my duty to justify what has been published by appealing to the Bible, which contains them.
The Attorney-General: I did not at all forget that the defendant is very deeply interested in the result of this trial; but this, like all other causes, must be proceeded in according to the rules of law. And, looking to those rules, it is not competent for a defendant, charged with this offence, to go into such an investigation. I beg to call your lordship's attention to the trial of an individual charged with a similar offence--I mean Williams. When he was brought up to the Court of King's Bench to receive judgment, Lord Kenyon said, that "having re-considered what had been done during the trial, he took blame to himself for having listened even to the arguments used on that occasion". In that case of the King and Williams, the whole Court expressed their opinion that they could not allow anything to be said against the established religion of the country--the Christian religion. That is the proposition for which I contend. I trust it will receive the sanction of your lordship, and that the defendant will not be suffered to promulgate blasphemous doctrines as part of his defence.