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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
whtfi hjt yva $ ejiact ^ d ,, " that any person who held ajiy pfBqe , vwho should attend gny meeting of Dissenters , should oe disabled from his employment , and pay a fine of ^ 100 , and £ r > for every day that he continued to act in his office ,
after having been at a meeting . He was also rendered incapable of holding ^ ny other employment , till after one whole year ' s conformity , ami upon a relapse the penalties were doubled . " This act , after violent disputes , and
after having been rejected several times , was at last passed in the 10 th year of the Queen ' s reign ; but after the accession of George I . it being well known that the bill had been supported by that party who wished to deprive hirn of the throne , in order that the
Dissenters , who were the firmest friends to his succession , might not be able to defend his claims , it was speedily repealed . In the 8 th year of the Queen ' s reign , Dr . Sacheverel preached and published two sermons , which were considered as
reflecting on the Revolution ; and the Whig ministry under the influence of the \ Duke of Marl borough and Lord Godolphin , very imprudently and contrary to the principles of toleration and freedom which they professed , procured his impeachment . He was suspended for three years and his sermons burnt .
The people however were violent in his favour , and the employment of a military force was necessary to guard the houses of those who had voted against him . During his suspension he made a kind of triumphal progress through the middle of the kingdom ,
and excited the people in various places to riot against tne Dissenters . Many chapels and houses of the principal Dissenters were | burnt by the mobs whom he raised . At "Wolverhampton , however , the rioters were repulsed , and the chapel was preserved principall y through the exertions of Mr . Elwalf , who will come under our notice again
in the account of the following reign . This is not the only event which has proved that even the high Churchmen of this country have no objection to exciting riots and using the utmost violence of the mob against their adversaries , and that they blame popular tumults . only when directed against themselves : while the Dissenters and
all true friends of civil and religious liberty feeA sentiments of abhqrrence too strong to be expressed in Janguage
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for all riotous effusions of popular violence agairj ^ t whomsoever that violence may be directed . During the whole of this rei ^ n the violent disputes in . the convocation concerning the right , of the Archbishop to prorogue th ^ e jLpwqr
House , continuec , ! . The Bishops who hi \ d been created during the preceding reign , were mostly men of tolerant and liberal principles , but the Lower House were very bigoted , and were mostly under the influence of
Atterbury , who towards the conclusion of this reign was made Bishop of Rochester , and who was one of , the principal leaders of that party who wished to have restored the Pretender and to
have excluded the present lloya ! Family from the throne . In consequence of his attempts for this purpose , he was at the beginning of the following reign obliged to leave the kingdom .
In the 9 th year of Anne ' s reign , Mr . Wliiston was deprived of his professorship of mathematics , and expelled from the University of Cambridge , in consequence of his having declared and published Arian opinions . He had been desired to suppress them , though he believed them to be trae , that the
common opinion mi ghtgoundisturbed ; but such motives were of no weight with him , compared with the desire for the discovery and propagation of truth . In the following reign , George I . with whom he was a great favourite , desiring him to conceal his opinions on account of the odium under which
they lay , and the disadvantage they were of to his worldly interests , he replied , " Tf Martin Luther had acted so , where would your Majesty have been now ? " And upon another occasion , Lord Chief Justice King urging him
to conform by saying that he might do more good in the Church , he . asked , " Pray , my Lord , in the courts in which you preside would such excuses be admitted ? " And the Chief JuMice confessing that they would not * he v sa | d , * . ' Well tjien , my Lo , rd , supposing God
Almighty to be as just in the next world as my Lord Chief Justice is , in this , where are we then ? " A question which every conformist to the Church who does not sincerely believe the whole of her Common Prayer Book creeds and articles to be agreeable to Scripture , ought to put to his . own heart . The Lower House of convocation wished to frave punished Whiston for the books in which he had published
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202 Brhe £ - History of th $ Xfose \ iizx& frmpa the Revolution .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1817, page 202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2463/page/10/
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