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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
fcacb * 'Wmwc * a ? his friends had ex-P ^ ctcdy the « oiivictton was confirmed , fj was the- intention of Mr . Nevvozadso friends to remove tire eonvictjoo mto the Court * of King ' s Bench ; but the Rector perceiving their determination , and being very well
disposed to get out of a business which £ as likely to become more troublesome to him than at fir 2 t he seemed to ap pi eh end , proposed that if they would desist from carrying the
projected measure into effect , he would not enforce the payment of the fine , but would suffer the prosecution to rest . This proposition was acceded to ; and such , Sir , is , and always bath been , either immediately or
remotely , the certain effect of a persecu ^ - ting or illiberal interference in religious matters : the Doddington prosecution , like all \ Vhich' have preceded it , halh ' terminated in the establishment and advantage of the party
intended to have been suppressed ; for a chapel hath been since erected in the parish ,-which is attended , I am informed , hy a considerable number of the parishioners ., to the extreme vexation of the orthodox spirit of the Rector .
it is important to Unitarians , and particularly so to Unitarian Missionaries , to ascertain how far this decision is correct ; and it'becomes the more important , since , if preaching abroad be illegal , I am extremely doubtful whether a prosecutiorr might aot he instituted under the statutes of
Elizabeth and James I . which do not appear to be repealed , but merely suspended , by the act of William and Mary , as well as under the late Tole ^ ration Act . At the time of the Revolution , Popish recusants were viewed with a
^ wy jealous eye ; , their principles were femed subversive of the laws of civil weiety , and their attachment to the spelled family rendered them just Ejects of suspicion" and alarm to the new dynasty . The Protestant recu-?* Qt 8 , as friends to liberty ^ were warm ll their approbation of the change ;
*** d such was the opinion which the {^ government entertained of their to fa lty , that , but for the danger which ? "f tht have resulted to it in its theft fcmrit : state , from the grant of urirer-• fcto n&r religious liberty , in covse-V «» e qf thtf avowed hostility of ihe
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Papists , awl the ? ease vyifci * wbichi they might have availed themselves of that grant to * effectuate their machiBatiorts * it is hrghly probable that no qualifications would have been required from Dissenting Protestants , nor any restrictions imposed upon them , save such as were common to Established
Protestants . The meetings of the former might , in that event , have bees of the most private kind ; and under colour of Dissenting Protestant religious assemblies , the most seditious and dangerous meetings might have
been held by the friends ot the oJd dynasty , and these might'have terminated in the subversion of the n e ^ v order of things . Hence the necessity for registration , which renders the meeting public , and enables the agents of government to resort to it without difficulty , to ascertain the cast of
its character . If then publicity be the sole object of registration , caii it be necessary to register a field r Is not a meeting in a field necessarily public 9 of that public nature ,. that no plans dangerous to the government can be there entered into , or even projected r without immediate detection ?
Publicity is certainly the only object o € registration ; and as a field is u ece $ t sarily public , the registration nf il cannot be- requisite . The words of the statutes arc " place of meeting ^* - / which w&uld
certainly oonapr ^ hend a field , if tjic object of the acts required that construction ; but the object of thesi statutes appears to be answered by th « nature of a field c and , moreover , this ¦
term , ' ' place of nueeting , " is defined , in the eleventh section df the late act > to be a place with a door capable bT being locked , bolted , or bar red . A field cannot come w ^ ithin this descri ^ tton $ it i « necessarily excluded . A building may have a door , and it is a p lace of this kind only , where meetings may be secretly held , which Wan contemplated by the legislature aft the time the Toleration Acts were
passed . Agreeably to this view of tiie subject , wherever the legislature have deemed the registration of a field necessary in order to effectuate the ofajeet of a law-, the term has been used . Thus in Pitt ' s nojtorion ? acts of 1 7 ^ 6 and $ 79 $ ) , for suppressing popular aae ^ mblies , the terms aoe ' * hiuse , roosau
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On FkH-pteacMng . . $ ||
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1816, page 641, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2458/page/13/
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