25 Dec 1814

Jug Util

8

Ch.1. Course of argument

2

§. neither impious nor immoral

Impiety—blasphemy—in no instance in which it was ever made, had any charge for which expression has been found that was ever expressed in either of those words any the smallest ground.

Yet with what symptoms have not the charges made on these words been accompanied? And this passion what has it had for its cause? In the first place, in this as on every other occasion the difference of opinion, and the testimony thus borne by the opponent to the intellectual weakness of him in whose breast the flame is thus by the opposition kindled: in the next place, by the sort of humiliation which in the mind galled by the yoke is produced by the idea of the case enjoyed by the sound which remains untouched by it. +

+  Quote the words of the Apostle

3

* Never has any charge of blasphemy or impiety been other than groundless.

4.

Cause of the fury with which charges to this effect have been accompanied.

1. Testimony borne by the opposition to the intellectual weakness of the party opposed.

2. Humiliation and envy attached to the side of the case of him by whom such free discourses are uttered.