THE OATH QUESTION; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE NEW INQUISITION. 
 
 BY JOSEPH BARKER. 
 
 The great importance of the subject, and the necessity 
 that it should be clearly and thoroughly understood, must 
 be our justification for calling the attention of our readers 
 to this matter again. It is an old proverb that the know¬ 
 ledge of a disease is half the cure, and the proverb is 
 not altogether untrue. If you know exactly the nature of 
 a disease, you may be able to apply a proper remedy; while 
 if you mistake its nature, you may adopt a mode of treatment 
 which may kill the patient whom you meant to cure. A 
 correct idea of the evil to be remedied is as necessary to 
 the political and legal Reformer, as to the physician; and 
 for want of it, men may waste their strength, their time 
 and their resources, and only make things worse than they 
 were before. We have a sad illustration of this m the 
 present agitation on the subject of Oath Reform. Ihe 
 leaders in this movement have gone on the supposition that 
 the evil to be complained of is the legal requirement t at 
 witnesses shall qualify themselves to give evidence by 
 taking an oath; and that the remedy required is an act 
 substituting a form of affirmation for the oath. -Now tne 
 legal requirement of an oath is not the evil; an t ie su 
 Btitution of a form of affirmation would not prove a remecy. 
 The case that gave rise to the present agitation was a case 
 m which the person offering to give evidence had no obje - 
 hon to take the oath. The oath was not the difficulty. 
 
2 
 
 THE OATH QUESTION ; 
 
 difficulty was this :—The Judge held the doctrine, that the 
 testimony of persons is good for nothing, and ought not 
 therefore to be received, unless they believe in the doctrine 
 of eternal punishment in hell. He also held the doctrine, 
 that either he, or the opposing counsel, had a right to 
 question persons offering themselves as witnesses, with re¬ 
 gard to their belief on this subject, and that unless they 
 were willing and able, in open Court, to make a profession 
 of faith in eternal punishment, he had a right, or was legally 
 bound, to refuse to take their testimony. Here, then, is the 
 evil. The Reform that is wanted, therefore, —the only 
 Reform that can meet the case, is an enactment to the effect, 
 that neither a belief in eternal punishment in hell, nor a 
 profession of such belief, shall be necessary to qualify 
 persons for giving evidence in Court; — or an act to the effect 
 that Judges shall not be allowed to question witnesses, or 
 to allow others to question them, with regard to their re¬ 
 ligious belief. 
 
 We are aware that there are people who have conscien¬ 
 tious scruples against taking oaths, and that there are others 
 who, though they do not object to oaths of every kind, 
 object to take the form of oath administered in English 
 Courts; but the persons who were non-suited at Rochdale, 
 at Wigau, and at Maidstone were not of that class. We 
 are desirous that persons who are unable to swear should be. 
 allowed to affirm instead. But the Reform which would be 
 a relief to them, would be no relief to such persons as were 
 non-suited by Judge Temple and Judge Green. As we 
 have said, if the Oath stood in the way of but one man’s 
 rights, we would ask for its modification or abolition. But 
 we must not mix up and confound cases that are essentially 
 different, and ignorantly ask for measures which would 
 afford the parties for whom we profess to be labouring, no 
 relief. The evil of which we have to complain at present, 
 is the re-institution by our Judges of the abhorred and 
 infamous Inquisition, and our object should be to obtain 
 an enactment declaring the conduct of those Judges unconsti¬ 
 tutional, illegal, and intolerable. 
 
 Unconstitutional, illegal, and intolerable the conduct of 
 those Judges is. It is unconstitutional to deprive a British 
 citizeii of his civil rights except as a punishment for crime. 
 And it is not a crime, it is not a violation of the law, to 
 disbelieve in the doctrine of eternal torments. Yet, on the 
 
OK, THE NEW INQUISITION. 
 
 3 
 
 ground of their inability to believe this doctrine, our new 
 Inquisitors have undertaken to strip their virtuous fellow-citi- 
 zensof every right they had, and place them in the condition of 
 outlaws. It is the revival of the two worst features of the 
 olden time, the right of Inquisition into our religious 
 opinions, and the right of excommunication and outlawry 
 for supposed theological heresy. If England is a Chris¬ 
 tian natiop at all, it is a Protestant nation; and the funda¬ 
 mental principle of Protestantism is the right of private 
 judgment. And he who claims the right to question 
 us in a Court with regard to our religious opinions, and 
 who, m case we refuse to answer, or answer not to his 
 satisfaction, deprives us of our civil rights, and turns us 
 forth as outlaws, violates the first principles of our Constitu¬ 
 tion, goes contrary to the fundamental doctrine of the Pro¬ 
 testant religion, commits a crime second only to the crime of 
 treason, and, so far as his influence goes, destroys the very 
 government, the laws, and the liberties which it is his duty 
 to uphold. 
 
 It is terrible to think what a fearful amount of evil this 
 New Inquisition must inflict on the community, if it be 
 allowed to become a fixed institution. There are probably 
 several millions of the people of Great Britain who do not 
 believe in this horrible doctrine of eternal punishment. 
 Among those are numbers of the most enlightened, the 
 most virtuous, and the most able men in the land. There 
 are, first, the Unitarians, a class of men who have always 
 distinguished themselves by their love of learning and 
 science, by their private and social virtues, by their 
 patriotism and their philanthropy, by their labours in the 
 cause of education and constitutional Reform, and by all the 
 graces and accomplishments that can adorn humanity. Ot 
 this respectable class of citizens are many who have been 
 raised to the magistracy, and many others who fill offices of 
 trust under the general Government. All these and all 
 their wives, and all their children, if this New Inquisition 
 be tolerated, must be pronounced unfit to appear as wit¬ 
 nesses in Court;—must be branded as unworthy of credit, 
 —must be placed, as outlaws, at the mercy of any wretch 
 "who may be base enough to insult, to libel, to rob, or to 
 murder them. On the same list must be placed all the 
 old-fashioned Quakers of the William Penn or Hicksite 
 school; a class of persons who are only second, or hai y 
 
4 
 
 THE OATH QUESTION ; 
 
 second, in point of moral excellence, and philanthropic labours, 
 to the Unitarians. To thesemust be added all the philosophical 
 Theists,—all such men as Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart 
 Mill, William Rathbone Gregg, Francis William Newman, 
 Thomas Buckle, Mr. Darwin, and a multitude of others, 
 who, by their writings, have added to the glory and renown 
 of their country, and who, by their virtues, have made 
 humanity itself more hopeful and more glorious. To these 
 must be added a large and ever-increasing multitude of 
 Sceptics, who make no profession of faith in theological 
 doctrines at all, but who do, nevertheless, give themselves 
 to the acquisition and diffusion of science, to the cultiva¬ 
 tion of virtue, and to the service of their country and their 
 kind. To this loug list of worthies you must add no incon¬ 
 siderable number of the clergy of the National Church, 
 such as the authors of the celebrated “ Essays and Revieies” 
 together with several of our Bishops, and a number of 
 enlightened and virtuous members of the Church who 
 sympathise with the more liberal portion of the 
 clergy. You must then add a considerable number of our 
 statesmen, including some of the most honoured and most 
 honourable members of the aristocracy. You must further 
 add a large and growing party among the Dissenters, both 
 Calvinistic andMethodistic, both laymen and ministers. All 
 these, if the conduct of Judge Temple and Judge Green is 
 to be accepted as law, must be branded as infamous;—must 
 be pronounced as unworthy of credit;—must be consigned 
 to all the disadvantages and horrors of outlawry? for none 
 of them believe in the doctrine of eternal torments. Not 
 one of these, if this New Inquisition is nationalised, can 
 have justice, or can even aid others in obtaining justice, 
 when justice depends on their testimony. All these, if asked 
 whether they believed in a future state of eternal punish¬ 
 ment, would be obliged to remain silent, or to answer, 
 No. 
 
 Besides these, another class would be outlawed, who 
 though they believe in eternal punishment, would notencou- 
 rage the establishment of a Protestant Inquisition by acknow¬ 
 ledging the right of Judge or Counsel to question them in 
 Coui t with regard to their belief. It must be remembered 
 lat some millions of our fellow-countrymen lately protested 
 y their representatives against the right of the Government 
 o question them as to their religious profession, and that 
 
OR, THE NEW INQUISITION. 
 
 5 
 
 their protest assumed so serious a form, that the Govern¬ 
 ment thought it necessary, out of regard to it, to revise their 
 regulations for the taking of the National Census. We are 
 far from supposing that the whole of those persons would 
 be consistent enough to protest against an immeasurably 
 worse form of Inquisition in Courts of Justice; but that 
 many of them would protest against it we know, and that 
 all would be justified in protesting against it is certain. 
 There are many who would sooner be outlawed than be 
 compelled to acknowledge the right of any man to questiou 
 them for political or civil purposes, as to their private reli¬ 
 gious opinions. 
 
 There are others who regard it as an insult to be told by 
 a Judge that the only ground on which he can believe them 
 is an assurance that they are afraid of going to hell if they 
 should lie. It is no pleasant thing to a noble-minded man 
 to be told, “ you would lie,—you would perjure yourself,— 
 you would bear false witness against your neighbour, if it 
 were not that you are afraid of eternal damnation.” Yet 
 this is really the language of this New Inquisition. The 
 meaning of the conduct of Judge Temple and Judge Green 
 is this: “We should ourselves lie; if it were not for our 
 dread of hell-fire. We do not speak the truth, or shrink 
 from perjury, because lying and perjury are base and 
 villanou8: we do not shrink from lying and perjury out of 
 regard to the rights of others, or out of regard to our own 
 honour: we should lie and perjure ourselves without hesita¬ 
 tion,—we should bear false witness against the innocent, 
 and give our testimony in favour of the guilty, without 
 hesitation, if it were not for fear of hell: and we go on the 
 supposition that others are no better than ourselves. We 
 go on the supposition that natural truthfulness, and native 
 honour, and manly virtue have no existence, and that all 
 the goodness and truth there is in the world are the product 
 of the fear of eternal damnation.” Such is the meaning of 
 those New Inquisitorial Judges when their conduct is put 
 into simple English. Now there are those who, though 
 they may allow those New Inquisitors to make this damning 
 confession of depravity with regard to themselves, will 
 never join them in such a confession. Every man, with a 
 good, true English soul in his bosom, knows that he speaks 
 the truth, and does his neighbour justice, through nobler 
 impulses than the dre^d of hell. Every man deserving t e 
 
6 
 
 THE OATH QUESTION; 
 
 name of a man would as soon throw himself into the sea 
 and end his existence, as confess before the world that he 
 would lie and cheat, and rob and kill, were it not for fear 
 of hell and damnation. 
 
 Then look at the folly of this New Inquisitorial procedure. 
 You cannot come at a man’s religious opinions against his 
 will. If he chooses he can cheat you. The unprincipled 
 will cheat you. And some that are not exactly unprincipled 
 will cheat you. There are thousands of men who would 
 not tell a lie to wrong another, who would tell a dozen 
 rather than allow a man to be wronged. There are 
 thousands who, if they must either profess belief in hell or 
 be prevented from obtaining justice either for themselves or 
 others, would profess to believe what they did not believe. 
 If we may believe Church history, the whole Christian 
 world held, for ages, that it was not only lawful, but 
 virtuous and praiseworthy, to lie for the good of souls and 
 the promotion of religion; and why may Dot others hold 
 that it is lawful and virtuous to lie to obtain justice either 
 for themselves or others? And why may not those who 
 are really and radically base be willing to make false pro¬ 
 fessions of faith for the sake of wronging others? And 
 what security does this new-fangled infamy of au Inquisition 
 give against those- two kinds of liars? None whatever. 
 Judge Temple asks a witness; “ Do you belive in a hell of 
 eternal torments for the liar?” The man says, “ Yes.” 
 “ Then take his testimony,” says the Judge. But does it 
 follow, because the man says he believes in hell, that he does 
 believe in it? No such thing. His saying so is no proof 
 that he believes in it, when his interest, or his sense of duty, 
 urges him to say so. If a man, when questioned in Court, 
 says he does not believe in hell, when a regard to his 
 interest urged him to say the contrary, he may be believed; 
 ut not the others. But this is the man,—the man who 
 pioves himself truthful above other meu,—that the Judge 
 refuses to allow to testify. He welcomes the liars, 
 >v et they lie for good or for evil ends; but the 
 man t at cannot lie on any consideration he pronounces 
 uu lustworthy, and punishes by outlawrv. Is this to last? 
 is J^ngJand to be disgraced in the eyes of'the world by folly 
 and iniquity, by madness or villany, like this? Is it by such 
 is^usting exhibitions, by such outrageous insults to virtuous 
 
 izeus, y such fanatical excesses as hav6 disgraced the 
 
OR. THE NEW INQUISITION. 
 
 7 
 
 County Courts of Rochdale and Wigan, that England is to 
 maintain her position as the first of nations? It is by hang¬ 
 ing the rights of Englishmen on a belief in the most revolt¬ 
 ing of all doctrines, that our country is to prove herself the 
 light of the world? 
 
 We have borne with these enormities too long. We are 
 too easy under these indignities. The curse of bigotry, the 
 plague of Inquisitorial intolerance, the vicious and inhuman 
 policy of the ages of darkness must be endured no longer. 
 We must rise and rid ourselves of them at once. This is no 
 party question. The honour and interest of the whole 
 nation are at stake; and woe be to us and to our children, 
 if this new-born monster of iniquity be not promptly 
 crushed. 
 
 It is astonishing to what lengths people may go in con¬ 
 demning the errors and crimes of past ages, and of distant 
 nations, and yet commit the same errors, and perpetrate 
 the same crimes, and never once suspect themselves of 
 inconsistency. If there be one thing among the abomina¬ 
 tions of the past which English Protestants have denounced 
 with more indignation and horror than all other abomina¬ 
 tions, it is the Spanish Inquisition: and yet, while horror- 
 struck with the atrocities of this monster inhumanity, these 
 very English Protestants have themselves, in this enlightened 
 nineteenth century, unthinkingly established the same re¬ 
 volting institution in their own country. According to the 
 principle laid down and acted upon by Judge Temple and 
 Judge Green, our far-famed English Government is now an 
 Inquisition, and all our Judges and Lawyers Inquisitors. 
 According to the principle laid down by Judge Temple and 
 Judge Green, no man is qualified to give evidence who does 
 not believe in the doctrine of eternal torments, and who is 
 not willing to profess his belief in this doctrine in open 
 court. According to the principle laid down by those Gen¬ 
 tlemen it is the duty of Judges and Lawyers to make 
 Inquisition into the belief of those who offer themselves as 
 witnesses, and in case they cannot make the required con¬ 
 fession of faith to refuse their evidence. The result, if the 
 conduct of the two Lancashire County Judges be sanctioned, 
 and their doctrine generally adopted, will be an amount of 
 wrong and suffering hardly ever surpassed. Some millions 
 of the people must be subjected to all the horrors of outlawry. 
 Some millions of people, including many of the most learned,. 
 
8 THE OATH QUESTION, &C. 
 
 most virtuous, and most able persons the nation can boast 
 must be placed at the mercy of the most vicious and inhu¬ 
 man of criminals or of the most ignorant and malignant of 
 fanatics, to be slandered or insulted, swindled or robbed 
 tormented or murdered, as those dupes of error, or those 
 monsters of iniquity, may think fit. Brutes or demons in 
 the form of men may outrage their wives and daughters 
 with impunity. The evil will not be confined to the 
 heretics. When the maintenance of their rights, or the 
 redress of their wrongs, depends on the testimony of 
 heretics, the orthodox themselves must suffer. The 
 robber of an orthodox priest or bishop or the mur¬ 
 derer of an orthodox peer or prince, may escape convic¬ 
 tion, if his identification depends on the testimony of 
 an Unitarian or a Sceptic. The wives aud daughters of 
 the most orthodox people in the realm will Dot be safe, if 
 they venture beyond the pale of their own communiou. 
 The devoutest Methodist or Calvinist may be robbed or 
 outraged with impunity, unless constantly attended by 
 trustworthy believers in eternal punishment. Religious 
 sects will be at the mercy of opposing sects. Catholics 
 may plunder Protestants, or Protestants murder Catholics, 
 provided they are careful to perpetrate their evil deeds 
 when none but Heretics or Sceptics are by. Heretics and 
 Sceptics themselves might commit crime with impunity, if 
 disposed to commit crime, provided they were observed by 
 none but Sceptical or Heretical witnesses. Nay; even 
 when orthodox believers have witnessed a crime they may 
 isqua 1 y t emselves for giving evidence, and so prevent 
 the conviction of a brother Sectarian bv refusing, wheu 
 questioned, to confess their belief in eternal punishment. 
 
 ?K CU .t r ° te ^ tautS ma y witness the murder of a Catholic 
 ya ro ier Protestant, and a dozen Sceptics or Heretics 
 i witnessed the crime, and yet, if the Protes- 
 thpv pnn eC \ euou ©h 1° wish to protect the murderer, 
 thefr hp/ f ,S ° 1^1 le * ,,s * n ©’ when questioned, to declare 
 In short, this new Inquisition will 
 encourao'pmp 1 ^ °^. ever ) r P ei ' 8011 in the realm, and give an 
 
 came to°bp v' °, C V mo never equalled since England first 
 came to be regarded as a civilised nation. 
 
 B great CLEAN’S BUILDINGS. 
 
 STREET, FLEET STREET, LONDON