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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
• ncrs perceive in the Bill introduced to your Lordships , provisions generally restrictive , and likely in their operation essentially to prejudice all who may be desirous of exercising the Christian ministry among Protestant dissenters , and also those who are "
already engaged in the duties of that profession . Your petitioners , adverting to those provisions , beg leave humbly to represent , that in their judgment , they all proceed upon the assumption , that the right of determining in ecclesiastical matters , even for dissenters
from the established form of worship , is vested in the legislature , and that if carried into a law , they will most materially interfere with the principles and arrangements long since adopted and still prevalent in their congregations . The Bill before your lordships , purports to be An Act to Explain and render more effectual certain Acts of the First of William and Mary , and the Nineteenth of his Present Majesty , which are recited in its preamble ; but it contains provisions not existing in those
statutes , and by no means according with their liberal spirit and design . Your petitioners humbly
subftnt , that the interpretation given , in the preamble of the Bill , of those clauses of the recited Acts , which describe the persons who niay claim the benefits and
immunities proposed to be granted by them , is unwarranted by those statutes , which , under the denominations of persons in holy orders , pretended holy orders , or pretending to holy orders , or ministers and teachers of congregations , have , hitherto , been liberally con-• trued , to mean and include all
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who appear in the character of dissenting ministers , whether appointed to the charge of particular congregations , or officiating occasionally to any assemblies of
Protestant dissenters , lawfully met together for public worship ; and that this interpretation , if made the ground of legislative enactments , will occasion serious injury to those who had thus far rested
in security , under the protection and immunitiesof former statutes . Your petitioners beg with all humility to lay before your Lordships , their objections to the provisions of the Bill , as they affect the several classes of persons which it proposes to embrace .
Your petitioners would humbly represent , in the first place , that the clause relating to ministers of congregations , will operate most oppressively in their circumstances , when through illness , or any other
accidental cause , they may be reduced to the necessity of resigning their situations , though but for a season . Your petitioners also hjambly , but most strongly , object to the tenor of the certificate pro
vided lh this case , to be produced before the magistrate , in order to be legally qualified to engage in their ministerial duties , requiring the subscribers to that ceitificate
to testify from their own knowledge , that their minister is in holy orders , pretended holy orders , or pretending to holy orders , while A . t J V it appears to your petitioners , that some of these terms are wholly
inapplicable to the dissenters of the present day , and others of doubtful and undefined signification . Your petitioners would farther represent to your Lordships , that the provisions for granting legal qualification to persons not minis *
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Toleration Act . S 3 J
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1811, page 339, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2417/page/19/
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