The preacher, under the direction of many importuning friends, loaned his name, which step was to him a permanent subject of regret. Trials succeeded trials, review after review, at Salem, and at the supreme judicial court, held at Ipswich, in 1783, 1784, and 1785.
The pleaders seemed an invincible phalanx, and the mind-bending eloquence of the honourable Mr. King was indeed a most potent aid. Men characterized the oratory of that gentleman, as persuading, commanding, and like an irresistible torrent, bearing down every obstacle. Many of the senior advocates seemed so to feel, and acknowledge the superiority of Mr. King, as to surrender to him the right of closing causes of great importance; and a high law character declared, that, had he a cause depending, of the greatest intricacy and magnitude, to be plead before the first tribunal in the world, he would prefer Mr. King as his advocate, to any man he had ever heard speak. Previous, however, to the adjudication of 1785, when a verdict in favour of the plaintiffs, by the suffrage of the jury, (exclusive of the judges) was obtained, the political career of this celebrated character removed him from their counsel, and their cause was committed to, and ably supported by, Mr. afterwards Governor Sullivan, and Judge Tudor. The late Chief Justice Parsons, and Mr. Bradbury were counsel for the defendants. The Gloucesterians, in their appeal to the "impartial public," pertinently observed that the decision of the question, agitated respecting them, ultimately involved every citizen of the commonwealth, and instantly affected the several religious orders of Episcopalians, Baptists, Presbyterians, Sandemanians, Quakers, and every other denomination of Christians, who, in this state, were called sectaries.
Upon the objection, that their teacher was not a preacher of piety, religion, and morality, they mildly observed: They were not convinced that the question could be determined from a revision of the motives he offered as to the rewards which are to be bestowed, or punishments inflicted in another world; they rather supposed it should be decided upon the evidence of his urging the people to piety and morality, as the foundation of the greatest good of which their natures were capable, and as a compliance with the will of their Almighty Creator and Preserver. They believed, that the scriptures affirmed, that God would punish men for sin, even in this world, in a manner which would far, very far overbalance the pleasures to be derived from vice. They conceived, that the idea that it was necessary to the good order of government, that the teachers of religion should thunder out the doctrine of
