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Untitled Article
people on the face of the earth , except the English , ever dreamed of such a measure of fitness for civil office . It does not ascertaiu a man ' talents or virtues , or Christian faith , or even his sanity of mind . It proves nothing but his desire of office , and his power of swallowing a morsel of bread and a drop of wine .
The object of the Test is to keep out Nonconformists from places of trust and power : but it does not answer this end . Some Dissenters can allow themselves ( I say not how consistently ) to conform in this particular . The only persons that can
be stopped by the bar of the Communion Table a re those that possess niceness of honour and scrupulosity of conscience . If amongst the Dissenters there be persons whom the oath of allegiance cannot bind , these will not be tied up by the Sacramental Test : and thus the State shuts the door
against that class of people whose characters would serve and adorn it , and opens it to another class whose want of character may make them dangerous . The honest and religious Protestant Dissenter may be excJuded by the Sacrament , but it opposes no barrier to the unbeliever ; *
* Test Laws were not repealed . There is no Sacramental Test , however , in Scotlaud , as there is in England : whence this palpable injustice follows , that a member of the Church of England has fall and free access to all the offices of Scotland ; while a member of the Kirk of Scotland is
incapacitated from holding- one in England , unless he takes the Sacrament , according to the rites of her Established Church . The same national injustice now exists with regard to Ireland , for there is no religious test in that country . "
The effect of the Test Laws upon the Church of Scotland is deplorable . Most of the Scottish nobility and gentry are Conformists to the Established Church when they come into England . ? Protestant Dissenters , who only differed from the Church in some minute
points of discipline , were excluded from offices and persecuted , at the time when JLord Shaftshury was Lord High Chancellor of England , and when Mr . Si . John ( afterwards Lord JBolingbroke ) was Secretary of State , and high in favour with a princess of pious memory . Anthony . Collins ^ Esq ,, who wrote seycral treatises against Christianity , wa * in
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The use , or rather abuse , of the Lord ' s Supper as a civil Test has been , from the first , lamented by religious men of all communions . That rite of peace and charity is surely profaned , when it is made a standard of
political party . The profanation i& the greater in the Church of England , since her articles and rubrick represent it as a saving or condemning ordinance , the seal of absolution on the one hand or of damnation on the
other . Conscientious clergymen of the English Church are reduced by the Test Act tp an alternative , which even Nonconformists cannot but pity . They are required by their religious vows to exclude from the Sacrament
all dissolute and profane persons , and yet if they refuse to administer it to one who applies for it as a civil qualification , be his character what , and as notorious as it may , they subject
themselves to a prosecution , and may incur heavy penalties . * Were the clergy , therefore , more intent upon the spiritual interests of their church , than upon the temporal endowments and immunities of their ecclesiastical
corporation , they would * be the first to petition the Legislature for the abolition of the Sacramental Test . It may be remarked here , as a
sinthe commission of the peace ; and being ' obliged to qualify himself according to the Test Act , is said to hare given notice of his design in the following ludicrous and profyne manner , tc Sir , I design U > take a bit of bread and a cup of wine with you ; ' * and when he was pressed by a friend upon the impropriety of a person professing his principles , receiving" the Sacrament , he answered , u I only do it to pay a compliment to the custom of my country /*
* The clergy are in a pitiable condition . A pious man , feeling * exquisitely for the interests of religion , is obliged , under the peril of a suit at law , which may bring * ruin upon himself and famil y * to administer the Sacrament without
reserve to the most profligate unbelievers , and to wretches whose lives are a scandal to human nature ; at the same time that he is solemnly bound , by the ties of duty and office , to exclude them from the altar , and runs the risque of a prosecution irt the Spiritual Courts for admitting * them . '—' Hi ght tfProt . jDiss . p . 69 «
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428 The Nonconformist . No . XII .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1819, page 428, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1774/page/28/
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