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There arc not a few events in the history of the two first Georges which prove that religious freedom was favoured by those monarch s . I am even inclined to believe that
they were desirous of doing more in behalf of this holy cause than the spirit of the times and the state of knowledge among the people would permit . Gratitude is a motive of resistless force with generous minds : and Protestant
Dissenters had obtained the gratitude of the Hanover family in the rebellion of 1745 no less than in that of 1715 . A judicial and legislative decision pronounced in the present
reign ( 1767 ) , was eminently auspicious to the ease of nonconformists , to their freedom from harassing demands and prosecutions . It had been , for some
time , the practice of the city of London to put opulent dissenters in nomination for sheriffs , with the view © f compelling them either to serve the office or to pay the fine . If they served the office , it was ,
of course , requisite that they should qualify according to the Corporation Act : if they refused to take it upon them , they were liable , or , more strictly , were considered as being liable , to the payment of a heavy sum , by way
of compensation . At length , a puMtc-spirited nonconformist , who had been nominated as sheriff , and who was convinced of the illegality of enforcing the nomination , made his appeal to the laws : and , after the cause had been removed
from one court to another , the highest of all our tribunals , the house of Peers , gave judgment unequivocally in his favour . From that moment Dissenters have ceas-« 4 * f > b * that molested : for the
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principle was then recognited that nonconformity is not a crimt . * If a professed Dissenter now bear a corporate office , it must be by his personal choice . His dissent
is not interpreted by the laws , nor will they allow it to be used , to his disadvantage . This was a grand improvement in his situation . Previously to the accession of the Brunswick family , it could not have been effected . We owe it ,
under Providence , to the milder spirit , the increased knowledge , the superior justice and indepen . dence in judicial proceedings , which have marked the country since it has been governed by princes of that race .
In the nineteenth year of George the Third , Protestant Dissenting ministers and school-masters were
relieved , by parliament , from an obligation to sign the articles of the church of England ; t in the room of which subscription , a declaration of their belief in the au *
thority of the holy scriptures 1 * now required . By an act which passed so lately as the year 1812 , their acconu modation in respect of the tiro * and the manner of making this declaration , is greatly consulted : some vexatious and inconvenient
clauses in the original Toleration Act are repealed ; and the bene * fits of it are extended to ministers unconnected with congregations .
It must be remembered , too $ that these amendments in the To * leration , so far as Protestant Dissenters are concerned , had been not long preceded fcy the defeat
* Fornemux's Letters to BUdwW * - See , particularlyv Che Appendix . t Subscription to the article on d **™ muihvrit y wa * 4 i * pcxm 4 witfc .
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( Jlf Essay on the Progress of Religious Liberty .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1814, page 612, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2445/page/24/
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