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    492 Intelllg&nck . —Corporation and Test Acfk .

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    upon the occasfon ; not because he had any doubts as to the goodness of his cause or the spirit of that Court . The ; cause he knew to be of paramount importance , and the Court had already practically testified its dislike of the Corporation and Test Acts by abstaining from compelling its members to qualify in order to take their seats ; his

    anxiety was occasioned solely by his apprehensions lest the great cause of religious liberty should suffer in his hands . He begged to say this was not to be considered as a narrow sectarian question * It involved the interests of two millions of Protestant Dissenters , and it deeply concerned the whole Scottish nation , as every Scotchman who

    crossed the Tweed was exposed to the penalties of these statutes . They were also a serious grievance to every respectable clergyman of the Established Church , who was compelled by them to administer the sacrament to all persons who applied for it as a

    qualification for office , whatever might be their character . They limited , besides , the prerogative of the Crown by putting it out of the King's power to select for his servants particular classes of his subjects ; and they were equally an infringement on the rights and privileges of the people .

    It was far from his wish in bringing forward the subject to create any embarrassment to the present administration . He had been grieved at the declaration of hostility said to have been made by the gentleman at the head of the government , against the Dissenters in their application for relief . He could not but consider such a declaration to have been hasty and imprudent ; and he confessed that he could not understand

    the reasons by which it was attempted to . justify it . He did not believe that , the repeal sought for would injure the fatholics in their applications to Parliament . On the contrary , he thought that the success of one measure must be of benefit to the other . As , however , he had been given to understand , by some members of the Legislature , that it was deemed inexpedient to agitate the

    question in Parliament at this time , he should , in deference to their opinion , not press his original proposition of petitioning for the repeal of the Acts in question . He should content himself with moving certain resolutions which might be placed on recprd as the declared sentiments of that Court . — He , t < heu said , that he considered the present ti mes peculiarly favourable , for the dis-

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    cussion of a subject like this , relating t& the rights of conscience , from the increasing knowledge and liberality of the age , and the efforts everywhere making to diffuse the light of true religion : he next took a rapid view of the history of the Acts , and pointed out in numerous particulars their absurdity , impolicy and injustice . After which , he adverted to the necessity under which the Legislature

    found itself , from the proved impossibility of enforcing them , of passing air Annual Bill of Indemnity to relieve those who had neglected to qualify from the heavy penalties they had incurred . These Indemnity Bills were , after all , imperfect in their operation , as they only allowed further time to qualify , which supposed that the parties could conscientiouslyconform , and therefore did not meet the case of Dissenters who had abstained from

    principle . They were also objectiona- * ble , as implying that such persons had been guilty of some criminal offence in acting upon their religious convictions . He could not , besides , too strongly reprobate the practice thus attempted to be enforced of prostituting a sacred ordinance of the Christian religion to be a passport to state offices . To shew that

    no danger was to be apprehended from the measure now sought to be obtained , he adverted to the case of Ireland , where the law imposing the Sacramental Test had been repealed more than forty years ; and yet the cause of Protestantism and of the Church of England had subsequently been strengthened rather than weakened . He wished his resolutions to be discussed

    on their own intrinsic merits , without reference to any particular parties in the state whom they might affect . The Court had , in former times , acted on the same liberal principle . In 1689 it had petitioned the House of Commons to be freed from all restraints in serving the public , by

    paving full liberty in the choice of its members , without reference to their religious sentiments : and in the present times it would , he was sure , be the last to maintain the necessity of these statutes as bulwarks of the Constitution , for it had ceased to enforce them in its

    own case . He had ascertained , from official authorities , that out of 260 members composing that Court , not more than 90 had taken the sacrament as a qualification . Many of those who had refrained were yet members of the Church of England . They could not then surely consistently refuse to support him in seeking the repeal of Jaws , which , by their conduct , they declared to be at least unnecessary , aud tfrerc « v

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1827, page 452, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1797/page/60/