Ib. p. 110.
We shall discover upon an attentive examination of the subject, that all those laws which lay the basis of our constitutional liberties, are no other than the rules of religion transcribed into the judicial system, and enforced by the sanction of civil authority.
What! Compare these laws, first, with Tacitus's account of the constitutional laws of our German ancestors, Pagans; and then with the Pandects and
Novellæ
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!