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the penalties denounced against them foy the law as being- considered a little too severe . It is by full , free and reiterated discussion alone , that the friends of the Dissenting interest , I would rather say of the general interests of truth and liberty , ( apart from
these the Dissenting interest shews paltry and base , ) can hope finally to eradicate that dissocial , antichristian system under which the Saviour has been so often mocked with the purple robe of worldly dominion , and conscience has been made tributary to Cresar ' s treasury . It is said , however
that preliminary discussion will expose our weakness , and lay open our assailable points to the attack of the enemy ; but with reference to the Corporation and Test laws , are we not also concealing from our friends
the precise situation of danger in -which they stand , if , relying upon fancied indemnity , they should aspire to serve the public in civil offices ? There are not many , it is to be hoped , who Tire perfectly contented to enjoy their birth-right , as it were , by stealth ; and
if amongst us there be any individual who has enough of the spirit of a Hampden publicly to hurl defiance against these degrading laws , or of another Curtius boldly to leap into the gulf of civil incapacity and penalties which they denounce , his glorious aim is to be
answered , not by concealment , but by a full disclosure of the risk and danger he encounters , and by a fearless challenge to the supporters of these favourite laws to display their excellence in their amiable operation . In short , ours is not a petty question of duties ami drawbacks , or of
agricultural or commercial preferences , upon which we must necessarily approach the bar of the Legislature through the audience-chamber of the First Lord of the Treasury : w-e boldly but temperately ask , Is it fitting that large classes of the community should remain under the proscription of statutes which
^ vere not originally levelled against them , and which were enacted under the pressure of a political exigency 'ong since parsed away ? If we are still denounced as unfit to be invested
Wl * h civil trust and honour , let us be ^ ontent to dignify our private stations ^ v consistency in profession und uri - ^ enng integrity in practice ; but if 2 £ < Hry and intolerance receive a pub-
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lie defeat , and our just claims be conceded , we shall have " our charter and freehold of rejoicing to us and our heirs , and our triumph will consist not so much in the advancement of our
personal and sectarian interests , as in rescuing our great and beloved country from the taunts of other nations , far behind her in religious knowledge , but whose renovated codes are happily free from the abomination of imposing a theological shibboleth at the threshold of the council-chamber or the
custom-house . It was my intention to have brought into discussion the inconveniences to which Nonconformists are subjected by the present state of the law with respect to the registration of the births of their children ; inconveniences which , like the grievance of the Marriage Law . are the result of that
incongruous union which subsists between functions purely civil and those of an ecclesiastical nature ; but I must be brief . It is well known that Dissenters have made provision against the loss , destruction or negligent keeping of their congregational registers , by a
Register at Dr . Williams ' s Library , the great utility of which cannot be disputed , and ought to be still more generally known . But as this register is unsupported by any legal sanction , the evidence supplied from it is not in a legal point of view of the highest and most conclusive kind , and a recent
instance occurred at the Rolls' Court in which the Register was not adrmitted . See 1 Jacob and Walker ' s Reports , p . 483 . It is understood that the evidence has since been
accepted ; but the legal difficulty unquestionably remains , and may prove a fruitful source of vexatious and cx ^ pensive delay whenever it is urged . It is passing strange , that in a case of such general concern in-cut , and which by no means presses exclusively upon Dissenters , ( for the children of Dissenters sometimes swell the ranks of
Conformity , ) the Jlegislature should suffer the squeamish scruples of a few of the Church clergy to stand in the way of reformation . If the object were to make the clergy the collectors
of a tax for some just and necessary war , how few of them would express any distaste for the office , or that part of it in particular which would bring them into collision with the self-ex ,.
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The Nonconformist . No . XXIV . 139
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 139, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/11/
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