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equal laws , with integrity in the administration of them ? , will I frrust be exhibited io the history of our country . I have been much gratified by hearing of the petition about to be presented to the House of
Commons , prepared by the Rev . Mr . Wyvill , praying a repeal of all those penal and disqualifying laws , which operate against those who , in the exercise of private judgment in matters of religion , dissent from the established religion *
and which are a disgrace to our statute book . That the present times are most auspicious to agitate the claims of those who are suffering under the unjust influence of these laws , the revival of a spirit of
enquiry and resistance to long-practised abuses , occasioned by late public discussions and discoveries , renders highly probable . The total indifference to the public interest , which has characterized the past ten years , whether as it regarded the civil or religious rights of men ? begins now to be shaken off , and if the great body of Dissenters now appear as claimants of those just rights and privileges , from which they have been so long excluded , I trust their appeal will not be quite in vain , though it should not be attended with all the success we wish . '
ft has been asserted , that as these are rights of which we ought never to have been deprived , so it is lessening the dignity of our cause , to make application for their restoration , and that the petition *) f Mr , Wyvill and others , as the petition of members-of I he established church , will have better tfhanco of being attended
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to , they having no personal interest in the application ,- hut what is common to every member of the community ; while the intervention of the Dissenters would be stigmatized as founded in selfintcreift .
But surely the argument the opposers of the petition will derive from the silence of the Dissenters , will be much more plausible , when they urge , and thejr will hardly fail so to do , in reply to Mr . W-, that under the
influence of these laws the empire has attained to great prosperity , unanimity every where existing ; and that it is wise to let that alone , which experience has not proved to be incompatible with the existence of so much cood , as those
most interested are quite Silent upon the subject , and from theit silence it may be inferred they are not very dissatisfied * This consideration , combined with what I deem the favourable temper of the
public mind , induces me to look : upon the design of the Committee of Deputies of the Protestant Dissenters , to agitate the expediency of a petition to the House of Commons , to repeal these ob *
noxious laws , with great satisfaction , and to anticipate from their intelligent counsels the mfrst favourable result ; &n 3 , as far as I am able ; , I wish to arouse the attention of our Unitarian bre
thren , who I hope will always prove themselves thezealousadvoeates of everyfmeasure , that tends to the increase of a liberal Christian spirit , that would extend to all the charity and good-will which our grtat fouuder has taught us most anxiously to cultivate : and in this undertaking * I trust that not only every Disseai-
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m 210 Mr . JftyxfilPf Intended Petition *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1809, page 210, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1735/page/34/
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