I will still suppose you to proceed in the beaten, track of your predecessors in office, and omitting to reply to the technicality _vi et armis_, on which, I imagine, you lay no stress, I take the liberty to question the propriety of the accustomed phrase, "not having the fear of God before his eyes." You will admit, Mr. Attorney-General, that to forge the Great Seal of England would be a criminal deception, and also, that to examine whether it was forged or not, or to state reasons for believing it to have been forged, would be allowable. Now, as the authority of the Creator is a higher one than the British Government, so to forge a revelation from him would be a more criminal imposture than the former one; and a rigid examination and scrutiny into its truth or falsehood, and all doubts and rational exceptions against a supposed revelation, would always be innocent, and might sometimes be laudable. Therefore, as Paine's Age of Reason is an objection against the truth of the supposed revelations of Moses and Jesus, the conduct of R. Carlile in publishing it must be innocent, at least, if not meritorious, and therefore would consist well with a pious veneration towards the Supreme Being; and this invalidates your assertion. "Which libel had been condemned by the legislature." But as the legislature is composed of fallible men, their sanction does not prove the truth and validity of Jesus's pretensions; and as the conduct of the legislature in sanctioning this revelation might be directed and influenced by political motives, their sanction is an argument rather against than in favour of its truth. "And burnt by the common hangman." Jean Jaques Rousseau says, and so must every reasonable man, _Bruler un livre n'est pas y repondre_, "Burning a book is not answering it." "The wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a general disbelief of your and their most holy religion." The truth can only be ascertained by leaving inquiry free, that arguments on both, sides of a question may be brought forward, in order that it may be seen on which side the preponderance lies. Therefore, the same objection would hold good against producing the arguments on the wrong side of any other question, as well as this before us now; this would militate against truth in general, and is, of course, absurd. Besides, as the Deists have made the offer to argue with Jesus's followers upon the truth or falsehood of Jesus's pretensions upon fair and equal terms, which offer Jesus's followers have thought proper to divine, therefore, to use a figure borrowed from pugilistic combats, the Deists throw up the hat and claim the victory.