I was glad to find in your book a formal contradiction, at length, of the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have usurped in their repeated decisions, that Christianity is a part of the common law.  The proof of the contrary, which you have adduced, is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever existed.  But it may amuse you, to show when, and by what means, they stole this law in upon us.  In a case of quare impedit in the Year-book, 34.  H. 6. folio 38. (anno 1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical law was to be respected in a common law court.  And Prisot, Chief Justice, gives his opinion in these words. ’A tiel leis qu’ils de seint eglise ont enancien scripture, covient a nous a donner credence; car ceo common ley stir quels touts manners leis sont fondes.  Et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obliges de conustre lour ley de saint eglise:  et semblablement ils sont obliges de conustre nostre ley.  Et, Sir, si poit apperer or a nous que Pevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en tiel cas, adong nous devons ceo adju-ger bon,ou auterment nemy,’ &c.  See S. C. Fitzh.Abr.  Qu. imp. 89.  Bro.  Abr.  Qu. imp. 12.  Finch in his first book, c. 3. is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and mistakes it thus.  ’To such laws of the church as have warrant in holy scripture, our law giveth credence.’  And cites Prisot; mistranslating ‘ancien scripture’ into ‘holy scripture.’  Whereas, Prisot palpably says, ’to such laws as those of holy church have in ancient writing, it is proper for us to give credence;’ to wit, to their ancient written laws.  This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot.  Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot.  Wing.  Max. 3. and Sheppard, title, ‘Religion,’ in 1675, copies the same mistranslation, quoting the Y. B. Finch and Win-gate.  Hale expresses it in these words; ‘Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.’ 1 Ventr. 293, 3 Keb. 607.  But he quotes no authority.  By these echoings and re-echoings from one to another, it had become so established in 1728, that in the case of the King vs.  Woolston, 2 Stra. 834, the court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against Christianity was punishable in the temporal court at common law.  Wood, therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase and say, that all blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law; and cites 2 Stra.  Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale, that ‘Christianity is part of the laws of England,’ citing Ventris and Strange.  And finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in Evans’s case, in 1767, says, that ’the essential principles of revealed religion are part of the common law.’  Thus ingulphing Bible, Testament, and all into the