ve 'that the Act of 1758 had every characteristic of a
good law; that it was a law of general utility, and could
not, consistently with what he called the original compact
between the king and people ... be annulled.' Hence he
inferred, 'that a king, by disallowing acts of this salutary
nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated
into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects'
obedience.' He further urged 'that the only use of an
established church and clergy in society, is to enforce
obedience to civil sanctions, and the observance of those
which are called duties of imperfect obligation; that when a
clergy ceases to answer these ends, the community have no
further need of their ministry, and may justly strip them of
their appointments; that the clergy of Virginia, in this
particular instance of their refusing to acquiesce in the
law in question, had been so far from answering, that they
had most notoriously counteracted, those great ends of their
institution; that, therefore, instead of useful members of
the state, they ought to be considered as enemies of the
community; and that, in the case now before them, Mr. Maury,
instead of countenance, and protection, and damages, very
justly deserved to be punished with signal severity.' And
then he perorates to the following purpose, 'that excepting
they (the jury) were disposed to rivet the chains of bondage
on their own necks, he hoped they would not let slip the
opportunity which now offered, of making such an example of
him as might, hereafter, be a warning to himself and his
brethren, not to have the temerity, for the future, to
dispute the validity of such laws, authenticated by the only
authority which, in his conception, could give force to laws
for the government of this colony,--the authority of a legal
representative of a council, and of a kind and benevolent
and patriot governor.' You'll observe I do not pretend to
remember his words, but take this to have been the sum and
substance of this part of his labored oration. When he came
to that part of it where he undertook to assert 'that a
king, by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a
nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated
into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects'