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 found in the original records, the Gospels and Epistles, he escapes from the silliness of a truism by throwing himself into the arms of a broad brazenfaced untruth.  What!  Is the sixth chapter of St. John’s Gospel so distinct and specific in its design, that any modest man can wonder that the best and most learned men of every age since Christ have deemed it mysterious?  Are the many passages concerning the Devil and demoniacs so very easy?  Has this writer himself thrown the least light on, or himself received one ray of light from, the meaning of the word Faith;—­or the reason of Christ’s paramount declarations respecting its omnific power, its absolutely indispensable necessity?  If the word mean only what the Barrister supposes, a persuasion that in the present state of