en with the
Pandects and 'Novellae' of the most Christian Justinian, aided by all his
Bishops. Observe, the Barrister is asserting a fact of the historical
origination of our laws,--and not what no man would deny, that as far as
they are humane and just, they coincide with the precepts of the Gospel.
No, they were "transcribed."

Ib. p. 113.

Where a man holds a certain system of doctrines, the State is bound to
tolerate, though it may not approve, them; but when he demands a
'license to teach' this system to the rest of the community, he
demands that which ought not to be granted incautiously and without
grave consideration. This discretionary power is delegated in trust
for the common good, &c.

All this, dear Southey, I leave to the lash of your indignation. It
would be oppression to do--what the Legislature could not do if it
would--prevent a man's thoughts; but if he speaks them aloud, and asks
either for instruction and confutation, if he be in error, or assent and
honor, if he be in the right, then it is no oppression to throw him into
a dungeon! But the Barrister would only withhold a license! Nonsense.
What if he preaches and publishes without it, will the Legislature
dungeon him or not? If not, what use is either the granting or the
withholding? And this too from a Socinian, who by this very book has, I
believe, made himself obnoxious to imprisonment and the pillory--and
against men, whose opinions are authorized by the most solemn acts of
Parliament, and recorded in a Book, of which there must be one, by law,
in every parish, and of which there is in fact one in almost every house
and hovel!

Part IV. p. 1.

The religion of genuine Christianity is a revelation so distinct and
specific in its design, and so clear and intelligible in its rules,
that a man of philosophic and retired thought is apt to wonder by what
means the endless systems of error and hostility which divide the
world were ever introduced into it.

What means this hollow cant--this fifty times warmed-up bubble and
squeak? That such parts are intelligible as the Barrister understands?
That such parts as it possesses in common with all systems of religion
and morality are plain and obvious? In other words that ABC are so
legible that they are legible to every one that has learnt to read? If
the Barrister mean other or more than this, if he really mean the whole
religion and revelation of Christ, even as it is fou