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did a high sense of religion shew that he was uufit to Jbe trusted ? « 2 . An Established Religion . - ( May 8 , 1789 . ) Mr . Fox declared that , for his own part , he was a friend to an established religion in every country , and
wished that it might always be that which coincided most with the ideas of the bulk of the state , and the general sentiments of the people . In the Southern parts of Great Britain , hierarchy * was the established church , and in the Northern , the Kirkf - and
for the best possible reason , because they were each most agreeable to the majority of the people in their respective situations . It would , perhaps , be contended , that the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts might enable the Dissenters to obtain a
majority . This he scarcely thought probable j but it appeared fully sufficient to answer , that if the majority of the people of England should ever be for the abolition of the Established Church , in such a case , the abolition ought immediately to follow .
2 S . Slave Trade . ( June 8 , 1789 . ) Mr . Fox took occasion to observe , that with regard to the abolition of the Slave Trade , he felt no difficulty in saying , that , without having seen one tittle of evidence , he should have been for the abolition . Wilii respect to a regulation of the trade , a
detestation of its existence must naturally lead him to remark , that he knew of no such tiling as a regulation of robbery or a restriction of murder . There was no medium ; the legislature must either . abolish the Slave Trade , or avow their own criminality .
24 . Mr . BurJic . ( Feb . 9 , 1790 . ) His right honourable friend , in alluding- to him , had mixed his remarks with so much personal kindness towards him , that he felt himself under a difficult y in making any return , lest the House should doubt his sincerity , and consider what he might say as a mere discharge of a debt of compliments . He must , however , declare , that such was his sense of the judgment of his right honourable friend
* Episcopacy ? t Presbyterian Kirk ?
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such his knowledge of his principles * such the value which he set upon them , and such the estimation in which he held his friendship , that if he were to put all the political information which he had learned from books , all which he had gained from
science , and all which any knowledge of the world and its affairs had taught him , into one scale , and the improvement which he had derived from his right honourable friend ' s
instruction and conversation were placed in the other , he should be at a los » to decide to which to give the preference . He had learnt more from his right honourable friend , than from all the men with whom he had ever conversed .
25 . Toleration . ( March 2 , 1700 . ) [ N . B . This and the three following extracts are made from Debrett ' s Report of Two Speeches on the Corporation and Test Acts , which is far better than that given in these volumes . ]
To the recency of the origin of religious toleration he had already just alluded \ and , to this part of the subject , it might not be improper to add that , although it came forward in our own country , during the reign of King William , yet its existence and its effect were so concealed and partial , that those only who subscribed to thirty-four out 6 fthe Thirty-Nine
Articles , felt the contracted blessin g * of its influence . The Toleration Act , on which the highest encomiums had been profusely lavished , was , at the best , a sufferance more agreeable to the individuals who granted it , than to the persons by whom it was received . All this fell infinitel y short
of toleration , in the unsullied sense of the expression . The corner-stone of toleration rested upon philosophy and reason ; and upon a just diffidence and doubt of the exclusive rectitude of our own opinions . Were the sincere friend of toleration actually to perceive evil consequences attached to the religious sent intents of another , still he would , liberally ,
regard it as sufficient to avoid the adoption of such sentiments , without iiuputing their baneful effects to those by whom they were entertained j and who , perhaps , might not foresee or even think of their pernicious tendency . Toleration did not inflame
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Charles James Fox . 609
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™* . X , 4 i
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1815, page 609, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1765/page/9/
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