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    port only in the ^ Upper House , the other branches of the Legislature being favourable to its repeal . Can a measure so introduced , and so retained , be deliberately ranked amongst the fundamental laws of the State , or the essential barriers of the State religion ? It mig ^ t , however , still be urged , that experience had proved the laws under consideration to be wise and salutary ,

    and that the question is , not how thesfe beneficial enactments took their rise , or by what series of fortuitous circumstances they have stood their ground ; but whether they are not now interwoven into the spirit and practice of our Constitution , so as to render their repeal an innovation pregnant with danger ? Upon this ground , historical facts enable us confidently to meet the advocates of the Sacramental Test .

    1 . The practice of occasional Conformity , has , in a great measure , defeated the Test laws , so far as the design to exclude Protestant Dissenters from civil and military offices can be fairly imputed to them . We are not about to defend the practice , though it originated not in secular motives , but in the wish to avoid the scandal of an open schism , and was not unnaturally continued under the plausible plea that it amounted to no more than making

    the declaration against Popery prescribed to Members of Parliament . The reiterated attempts to pass an Act against occasional Conformity in the reign of Queen Anne , and their final success by means of a political juggle between X-ord Nottingham and the Whigs , are well known ; as is the repeal of the Act five years after the accession of the House of Hanover , to which repeal the occasional Conformist refers , as justifying by implication the practice which the abrogated statute was intended to repress .

    2 . Such were the inconveniences and risks to which even the conscientious Churchman was exposed by the Corporation Act , that an Act was passed in the 5 th year of George the First , by which not only the existing members of corporations were quieted in their offices , notwithstanding past omissions to take the Sacrament , but all future incapacities on that account were done away , unless the party were removed from his office , or prosecuted fjr his neglect , within six months after his election . Under the protection of this statute , it is well known that many Dissenters , who would disdain occasional Conformity , retain offices in corporations without fear of molestation ; and

    that in some corporations they are the predominant party . Yet , it is clear that the election of any such Dissenter may be rendered null by giving notice of his previous neglect to qualify , or by a quo warranto Information granted within the six months ; and that in man y a petty corporation , from whose influence , either against or in favour of the Established Church , it would be preposterous to expect any perceptible result , the most enlightened and public-spirited inhabitants , if Dissenters , are unwilling to encounter the ordeal of an election , where their civil incapacity might be exposed , and their useful ambition defeated , by the most vulgar brawler for the safety of the Church .

    3 . In what precise views and feelings towards Protestant Nonconformists the practice originated , of passing Bills of Indemnity against penalties incurred by neglect to take the Test , it is not easy to discover . The language of these acts has confessedly fallen short of the case of intentional and conscientious omission , for they constantly refer to ignorance of the law , absence or

    unavoidable accident , as the grounds of indemnity . Yet , it is not improbable that indirect relief to the Dissenters was contemplated by many who supported these bills , from time to time , in the reign of George II ., but who had not sufficient political firmness to appear as the open advocates of religious liberty . For more than half a century , the Indemnity Act has passed without exciting discussion ; and curious would be the reception of that

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    Corporation and Test A&s . 29

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1827, page 29, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1792/page/29/