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the present royal family . One of the first acts of his reign was to repeal the persecuting laws , which had been passed in the reigu of his predecessor . In the second year of his reign the Tories raised a rebellion in flavour of
the Pretender . On this occasion the Dissenters distinguished themselves by their attachment to the present royal family . Two of their ministers in Lancashire particularly deserve to be mentioned . Mr . Wood , minister of Chow bent , and Mr . Turner ,
minister of a chapel in Walton , near Preston , who placed themselves at the head of the young men of their respective congregations , and joined the royal arm \ , to the easy success of whose operations their efforts very materially contributed , and for their
exertions they received the thanks of the general . Many other Dissenters took commissions , and contributed very much to the ease with which the rebellion was suppressed . By these acts , however , they had rendered themselves liable to all the penalties of
the Test Act , but the government passed an act of indemnity for them : an act of pardon for haying assisted in suppressing the rebellion ; an act of pardon for having been main instruments in preserving the government ! Caft any argument prove more clearly
than this simple fact , the folly and absurdity of the Test Act , and the injury which it must produce to the country ? Whenever that law is executed , it deprives the nation of the benefit which it might derive from the exertion of the talents of some of
the best men in it ; and if on this occasion it had been put in force , these men must have been punished for having assisted the government , and rendered the suppression of the rebellion much more easy and speedy than it otherwise would have been .
In the year 1717 , Dr . Hoadly , Bishop of Ban go r , a great favourite with George I ., having published a Sermon on the Nature of the Kingdom of Christ , which was very favourable to Dissenters , the Lower House of
Convocation censured it in very severe terms . The King put a stop to their proceedings by a prorogation , and since that time no more Convocations of tfie clergy have been called in this country , fa the year 17 & 1 , a bill was brought into the House of Lords , iitti-
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tled For the Suppression of Blasphemy and Profaneness , but containing many persecuting clauses , and re-enacting the worst parts of the bill against Occasional Conformity . It was supported by several bishops , but was rejected . On this occasion the Earl
of Peterborough said , that he was for a parliamentary king , but not for a parliamentary God , or a parliamentary religion ; and should the House declare for one of this kind , he would go to Rome and endeavour to be chosen a cardinal , for he had rather
sit in the conclave than with their lordghips upon those terms . About this time the disputes about the Trinity , which had been excited by the writings of Whiston and Clarke , began to shew their effects among the Dissenters . While thev haa .
been carried on in the church , whose ministers are confined to an established liturgy and to established articles , they had had little effect , but among the Dissenting ministers , who were not under these restraints
from freedom of inquiry , their effect was great . It was , however , principally apparent among the Presbyterians . The Dissenters who went under that denomination , which in England was a mere name , had no church-government among them , an < J no one was excluded from them on
account of thinking more freely than the rest of the congregation - but among the Independents , any one who should express doubts concerning the truth of orthodox opinions was
prevented from attending at the . Lord ' s supper , or from having any share in the concerns of the congregation . This church-government , by which they certainly forfeit their claim to the title of consistent
Dissenters , still remains among those who call themselves Independents , but who are in fact , on this account , far less independent than those who are styled Presbyterians , and it has had the effect of restraining freedom of relisious inquiry both among their
ministers and people , and of keeping them strict Calviuists . The first place where the effect of doubts concerning tbe Trinity began to appear among the Presbyterians , was at Exeter , where Mr . Pierce left the old chapel , and established a new congregation on Arian principles . The Devonshire
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Brief History of the Dissenters from the Revolution . 38 $
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VOL . XII . S I >
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1817, page 385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2466/page/9/
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