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yt would have brought amongst the Dissenters of the present Amir Ave Parliament with a day that our cause will be best proprobably have been long ago things as they are, until, by means of which it was attempted to stretch some few leading individuals may have mused from that bed of Procrustes a series of amicable discussions, which all legal eligibility to offices which, the minister of the day, they have though burdensome, every good citi succeeded in convincing him, by our ment which presumes to interpose that the right moment is arrived for from our Code every impious enact as to the removal of our disabilities, en will wish to share; but by erasing apparent insensibility and indifference connect criminality and civil incapa- risk to the sacred but puny twin-sister city with a conscientious desire to of the state. I readily admit that between man and his Maker, or to our complete enfranchisement without tainted allegiance to the King of make their appeal to the Legislature preserve an unsullied loyalty, an un- Dissenters would be ill-advised to offer a remark upon the strange notion institutions of their country, many of Before I close this subject I would lence or of marked disrespect to the defendant, as Sheriff of Norwich, for re- theory, are yet by the general liberality Justice, argued for the defendant, (and ratively innoxious in practice; nor fusing to be sworn into office. S. Eyres, of the public mind rendered compaKeeper Somers) that the exclusion from upon the high but disputable ground his opinion was said to be that of Lord would I be disposed to take my stand punishment of itself, and, of abstract right as separated from therefore the party should not be fined: expediency. But I would ask those Justice, said, the intent of the Corpora- are horrified at the indiscreet downbut G. Eyres, Justice, and Holt, Chief- silent negociators, who, whilst they from serving the King, or to give ease or tion Act was not to exempt any man rightness of Dr. Priestley in the year

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favour to Dissenters, but rather to draw 1790, would in some sort realize his them to a reconciliation with the Church, most appalling metaphor, by depositin the government; this was the design of grain, under the edifice of intolerance, the Act; and if the plea in that case was and reckon upon enlisting my Lord as a way to render them capable of offices ing explosive materials, grain by good, a man should be excused for not Liverpool as one of their corps of serving the King, which is one offence, sappers and miners: I would ask them, for (by) not receiving the Sacrament I say, What is the experience upon within the year, which is another offence. which they ground the delusive notion, In the same case, Holt, Chief-Justice, that the clear and manly cause of remarked, that the design of the Corpo- religious liberty will be most subration and Test Acts was the same, the served by a patient waiting until the one to exclude Dissenters, and the other to exclude Papists; and it never had hearts of kings and senators are melted been thought that if a man would not by the edifying spectacle? The hisqualify himself, it was an excuse under tory of the Test Act appears to read the Test Act; that there never was any them a very different lesson, for it distinction between Protestant and other was upon private assurances of a Dissenters, till after the Toleration Act; speedy repeal as to the Dissenters that and that it had been for thirty years the they concurred in its enactment; nor opinion of men learned in the profession, will the late statute for the relief of that the Corporation Act did not exempt Antitrinitarians be regarded as an inDissenters, and they had always sub- stance in favour of this quiet policy, (mitted to fines in London and Norwich whilst we have the Lord Chancellor's also. But the reasoning of the two latter declaration sounding in our ears, that Judges, or, at least, their judgment, proceeded upon the circumstance of the Tole- the Legislature, in passing that staration Act being not specially pleaded in tute, had no idea of establishing a bar, it being at that time regarded as a general principle of forbearance toprivate Act, though since declared a pub- wards Antitrinitarians, but merely to lic Act by Stat. 19 George III. c. 44. repeal, or rather to mitigate, some of

The Nonconformist. No. XXIV.

the penalties denounced against them by the law as being considered a little too severe. It is by full, free and reiterated discussion alone, that the friends of the Dissenting interest, I would rather say of the general interests of truth and liberty, (apart from these the Dissenting interest shews paltry and base,) can hope finally to eradicate that dissocial, antichristian system under which the Saviour has been so often mocked with the purple robe of worldly dominion, and conscience has been made tributary to Cæsar's treasury. It is said, however, that preliminary discussion will expose our weakness, and lay open our assailable points to the attack of the enemy; but with reference to the Corporation and Test laws, are we not also concealing from our friends the precise situation of danger in which they stand, if, relying upon fancied indemnity, they should aspire to serve the public in civil offices? There are not many, it is to be hoped, who are perfectly contented to enjoy their birth-right, as it were, by stealth; and if amongst us there be any individual who has enough of the spirit of a Hampden publicly to hurl defiance against these degrading laws, or of another Curtius boldly to leap into the gulf of civil incapacity and penalties which they denounce, his glorious aim is to be answered, not by concealment, but by a full disclosure of the risk and danger he encounters, and by a fearless challenge to the supporters of these favourite laws to display their excellence in their amiable operation. In short, ours is not a petty question of duties and drawbacks, or of agricultural or commercial preferences, upon which we must necessarily approach the bar of the Legislature through the audience-chamber of the First Lord of the Treasury: we boldly but temperately ask, Is it fitting that large classes of the community should remain under the proscription of statutes which were not originally levelled against them, and which were enacted under the pressure of a political exigency long since passed away? If we are still denounced as unfit to be invested with civil trust and honour, let us be content to dignify our private stations by consistency in profession and unwavering integrity in practice; but if bigotry and intolerance receive a pub

139

lic defeat, and our just claims be conceded, we shall have "our charter and freehold of rejoicing to us and our heirs," and our triumph will consist not so much in the advancement of our personal and sectarian interests, as in rescuing our great and beloved country from the taunts of other nations, far behind her in religious knowledge, but whose renovated codes are happily free from the abomination of imposing a theological shibboleth at the threshold of the council-chamber or the custom-house.

It was my intention to have brought into discussion the inconveniences to which Nonconformists are subjected by the present state of the law with respect to the registration of the births of their children; inconveniences which, like the grievance of the Marriage Law, are the result of that incongruous union which subsists between functions purely civil and those of an ecclesiastical nature; but I must be brief. It is well known that Dissenters have made provision against the loss, destruction or negligent keeping of their congregational registers, by a Register at Dr. Williams's Library, the great utility of which cannot be disputed, and ought to be still more generally known. But as this register is unsupported by any legal sanction, the evidence supplied from it is not in a legal point of view of the highest and most conclusive kind, and a recent instance occurred at the Rolls' Court in which the Register was not admitted. See 1 Jacob and Walker's Reports, p. 483. It is understood that the evidence has since been accepted; but the legal difficulty unquestionably remains, and may prove a fruitful source of vexatious and expensive delay whenever it is urged. It is passing strange, that in a case of such general concernment, and which by no means presses exclusively upon Dissenters, (for the children of Dissenters sometimes swell the ranks of Conformity,) the Legislature should suffer the squeamish scruples of a few of the Church clergy to stand in the way of reformation. If the object were to make the clergy the collectors of a tax for some just and necessary war, how few of them would express any distaste for the office, or that part of it in particular which would bring them into collision with the self-ex

umph to the Dissenting cause, for a contrary result would have brought Dissenters before Parliament with an unquestionable grievance, and they might probably have been long ago released from that bed of Procrustes, upon which it was attempted to stretch them, not by exonerating them from all legal eligibility to offices which, though burdensome, every good citizen will wish to share; but by erasing from our Code every impious enact ment which presumes to interpose between man and his Maker, or to connect criminality and civil incapacity with a conscientious desire to preserve an unsullied loyalty, an untainted allegiance to the King of kings.

Before I close this subject I would offer a remark upon the strange notion

defendant, as Sheriff of Norwich, for refusing to be sworn into office. S. Eyres, Justice, argued for the defendant, (and his opinion was said to be that of Lord Keeper Somers,) that the exclusion from office was a punishment of itself, and, therefore the party should not be fined: but G. Eyres, Justice, and Holt, ChiefJustice, said, the intent of the Corporation Act was not to exempt any man from serving the King, or to give ease or favour to Dissenters, but rather to draw them to a reconciliation with the Church, as a way to render them capable of offices in the government; this was the design of the Act; and if the plea in that case was good, a man should be excused for not serving the King, which is one offence, for (by) not receiving the Sacrament within the year, which is another offence. In the same case, Holt, Chief-Justice, remarked, that the design of the Corporation and Test Acts was the same, the one to exclude Dissenters, and the other to exclude Papists; and it never had been thought that if a man would not qualify himself, it was an excuse under the Test Act; that there never was any distinction between Protestant and other Dissenters, till after the Toleration Act; and that it had been for thirty years the opinion of men learned in the profession, that the Corporation Act did not exempt Dissenters, and they had always submitted to fines in London and Norwich also. But the reasoning of the two latter Judges, or, at least, their judgment, pro'ceeded upon the circumstance of the Toleration Act being not specially pleaded in bar, it being at that time regarded as a private Act, though since declared a public Act by Stat. 19 George III. c. 44.

which appears to be widely prevalent amongst the Dissenters of the present day, that our cause will be best promoted by a silent acquiescence in things as they are, until, by means of a series of amicable discussions, which some few leading individuals may have an opportunity of carrying on with the minister of the day, they have succeeded in convincing him, by our apparent insensibility and indifference as to the removal of our disabilities, that the right moment is arrived for our complete enfranchisement without risk to the sacred but puny twin-sister of the state. I readily admit that Dissenters would be ill-advised to make their appeal to the Legislature and the public in the language of violence or of marked disrespect to the institutions of their country, many of which, how essentially bad soever in theory, are yet by the general liberality of the public mind rendered comparatively innoxious in practice; nor would I be disposed to take my stand upon the high but disputable ground of abstract right as separated from expediency. But I would ask those silent negociators, who, whilst they

are horrified at the indiscreet downrightness of Dr. Priestley in the year 1790, would in some sort realize his most appalling metaphor, by depositing explosive materials, grain by grain, under the edifice of intolerance, and reckon upon enlisting my Lord Liverpool as one of their corps of sappers and miners: I would ask them, 1 say, What is the experience upon which they ground the delusive notion, that the clear and manly cause of religious liberty will be most subserved by a patient waiting until the hearts of kings and senators are melted by the edifying spectacle? The history of the Test Act appears to read them a very different lesson, for it was upon private assurances of a speedy repeal as to the Dissenters that they concurred in its enactment; nor will the late statute for the relief of Antitrinitarians be regarded as an instance in favour of this quiet policy, whilst we have the Lord Chancellor's declaration sounding in our ears, that the Legislature, in passing that statute, had no idea of establishing a general principle of forbearance towards Antitrinitarians, but merely to repeal, or rather to mitigate, some of

The Nonconformist. No. XXIV.

the penalties denounced against them by the law as being considered a little too severe. It is by full, free and reiterated discussion alone, that the friends of the Dissenting interest, I would rather say of the general interests of truth and liberty, (apart from these the Dissenting interest shews paltry and base,) can hope finally to eradicate that dissocial, antichristian system under which the Saviour has been so often mocked with the purple robe of worldly dominion, and conscience has been made tributary to Cæsar's treasury. It is said, however, that preliminary discussion will expose our weakness, and lay open our assailable points to the attack of the enemy; but with reference to the Corporation and Test laws, are we not also concealing from our friends the precise situation of danger in which they stand, if, relying upon fancied indemnity, they should aspire to serve the public in civil offices? There are not many, it is to be hoped, who are perfectly contented to enjoy their birth-right, as it were, by stealth; and if amongst us there be any individual who has enough of the spirit of a Hampden publicly to hurl defiance against these degrading laws, or of another Curtius boldly to leap into the gulf of civil incapacity and penalties which they denounce, his glorious aim is to be answered, not by concealment, but by a full disclosure of the risk and danger he encounters, and by a fearless challenge to the supporters of these favourite laws to display their excellence in their amiable operation. In short, ours is not a petty question of duties and drawbacks, or of agricultural or commercial preferences, upon which we must necessarily approach the bar of the Legislature through the audience-chamber of the First Lord of the Treasury: we boldly but temperately ask, Is it fitting that large classes of the community should remain under the proscription of statutes which were not originally levelled against them, and which were enacted under the pressure of a political exigency long since passed away? If we are still denounced as unfit to be invested with civil trust and honour, let us be content to dignify our private stations by consistency in profession and unwavering integrity in practice; but if bigotry and intolerance receive a pub

139

lic defeat, and our just claims be conceded, we shall have "our charter and freehold of rejoicing to us and our heirs," and our triumph will consist not so much in the advancement of our personal and sectarian interests, as in rescuing our great and beloved country from the taunts of other nations, far behind her in religious knowledge, but whose renovated codes are happily free from the abomination of imposing a theological shibboleth at the threshold of the council-chamber or the custom-house.

It was my intention to have brought into discussion the inconveniences to which Nonconformists are subjected by the present state of the law with respect to the registration of the births of their children; inconveniences which, like the grievance of the Marriage Law, are the result of that incongruous union which subsists between functions purely civil and those of an ecclesiastical nature; but I must be brief. It is well known that Dissenters have made provision against the loss, destruction or negligent keeping of their congregational registers, by a Register at Dr. Williams's Library, the great utility of which cannot be disputed, and ought to be still more generally known. But as this register is unsupported by any legal sanction, the evidence supplied from it is not in a legal point of view of the highest and most conclusive kind, and a recent instance occurred at the Rolls' Court in which the Register was not admitted. See 1 Jacob and Walker's Reports, p. 483. It is understood that the evidence has since been accepted; but the legal difficulty unquestionably remains, and may prove a fruitful source of vexatious and expensive delay whenever it is urged. It is passing strange, that in a case of such general concernment, and which by no means presses exclusively upon Dissenters, (for the children of Dissenters sometimes swell the ranks of Conformity,) the Legislature should suffer the squeamish scruples of a few of the Church clergy to stand in the way of reformation. If the object were to make the clergy the collectors of a tax for some just and necessary war, how few of them would express any distaste for the office, or that part of it in particular which would bring them into collision with the self-ex

communicated Dissenter! This is not an uncharitable prognostication, but is grounded upon fact and experience.

By the statute 6 and 7 William III., duties were imposed upon marriages, births and burials, for carrying on the war against France with vigour; and by the 24th section, persons in holy orders, deans, parsons, &c., were, for better levying those duties, directed within their respective parishes, and to take an exact and true account, and keep a register in writing of all persons married, buried, christened or born, under a penalty of £100.

By another Act, passed in the following year, (7 and 8 William III. c. 35,) after reciting that divers children, who were born within this kingdom, were not christened according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, and many were christened in private houses, nor were the parents of such children obliged to give notice to their respective ministers, of the births of such children, for want whereof an exact register of all persons born was not kept, and many persons chargeable with the duties escaped payment: for remedy thereof it was enacted, that the parents of every child which should be born during the continuance of the Acts should, within five days after such birth, give notice to the rector, vicar, curate or clerk of the parish, of the day of the birth of such child, under penalty of 40s., the which rector, &c., was required to take an exact and true account, and keep a distinct register of all persons so born and not christened, for a fee of 6d., under a penalty of 40s. It is wonderful that a regulation of so much political utility should be made dependant upon the continuance of a paltry tax; but, at any rate, we possess in these expired Acts that allimportant ally, a precedent, in attempting, at some convenient opportunity, to impose on the clergy the duty of registering the births of all children within their parishes, without distinction of sect, or at least to press upon them the alternative of performing efficiently the office of public registrars, or of relinquishing it altogether. It is matter of notoriety, that The Act, passed a few years ago, relative to parochial registers, was rendered very imperfect in its operation through the intolerant scruples of some of the

clergy, there being, in fact, no provision for recording the date of the natural birth, which is therefore left to other evidence, or to vague presumption as to the length of the interval between the birth and baptism. The objections of the clergy on this point are the more unreasonable, as it has been solemnly decided that, according to the canons of their own Church, lay baptism is as valid as any sprinkling by consecrated fingers.

If this union of the Church and State, of ecclesiastical and civil functions, is like the union of the ivy with the oak, to blast or check all wholesome improvement in the latter, the more liberal adherents of the Church must admit that the treaty of alliance needs some revision, and that the complaints of their Dissenting fellowsubjects are not, to this extent at least, cither selfish, frivolous or vexatious. R. D.

SIR,

N adverting to the inquiry, so point

edly yet modestly proposed in a former Number, whether the ancient Patriarchs and Israelites believed in a future state, it may be observed, first, that the Christian Church in general hath been on the affirmative side of the question; and though this is not an absolute proof of the fact, yet, in a case which involves no palpable absurdity or contradiction, where it is impossible to prove a negative, and which admits at least of many plausible reasons in its behalf, general consent will operate as a considerable argument in its favour, since it is found, that, in similar circumstances, wise and reflecting men in all ages have thought nearly alike upon all great and important subjects. If, therefore, under the light of nature alone, such persons, reasoning from the best ideas they could form of the Divine perfections and character, from the present state of man, his fears and his hopes, his desires of continued existence, and his anticipations of futurity; principles which are not confined to the learned and acute, but are to be found, in different degrees, in the lowest and most degraded forms of human society, and which will bid defiance to all the opponents of natural religion, whether sceptics or ultrabelievers, to the end of time: if from

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