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seatcrs for relief from the sacramental Test , it has been a favourite topic of argument , that the acts annually passed for indemnifying persons who have not qualified for office according to law , give the Dissenters a substantial practical protection against the
penalties and disabilities incurred by noncotopliance with the Test , and render their petitions for relief factious an 4 unreasonable . * Without examining the consistency of this view of the subject with the supposed
necessity of the Test , it may deserve some little inquiry , how far the argument is in itself founded upon fact ; in other words , how far a professed Nonconformist , who scruples the Test as a qualification for civil offices , is
protected by the present practice of passing annual Indemnity Bills . The inquiry will derive some interest from the circumstance , that there are understood to be at the present time individuals personally and materially affected in the determination of the
question . It will be necessary shortly to state the tenor of the original enactments , in order to bring the subject more clearly into view . The Corporation Act ( 13 Charles II . Stat . 2 , c . 1 f ) is intituled , "An
Dissenters for refusing to support the Catholics , prevailed upon the clerk to steal the bill . With respect to the Corporation Act , which passed in the year 1661 , when the kingdom was still agitated with the effects of those storms that had
so lately overwhelmed it , it was allowed to have had the sectaries of that day , who had borne a conspicuous part in the preceding troubles , for its object . But the Dissenters of the present day were not responsible for them , and were as well affected and peaceable subjects as those of any other description . "
* Mr . Pitt concluded his speech against lUr . Beaufoy ' s motion in 1787 , with declaring , 4 < that the discretionary power wisely lodged and liberally exercised every year in Bills of Indemnity , left the
Dissenters no reasonable ground of complaint . " Mr . Canning and others have since echoed the game declaration , and the Dissenters themselves appear to have felt the force of the reproof .
t The Act * of the l ' Ath of Charles II . are formally stated to have been enacted 44 to the high pleasure of Almighty God , and to the weal public of the realm ;"
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Act for the well-governing and regulating of Corporations , "—to the end that the succession in corporations might be most probably perpetuated in the hands of persons well-affected to his Majesty and the established
government : ( such are the words of the preamble : ) it enacts , that no person should be placed , elected or chosen in or to any the offices or places aforesaid , ( viz . mayors , aldermen , recor ders , bailiffs , town-clerks ,
common-councilmen and others bearing any office of magistracy , or places , or trusts , or other employment * relating to or concerning the government of cities , corporations , boroughs , cinque-ports and port towns , ) that should not have , within one year next before such election or choice , taken the
sacrament of the Lord ' s Supper , according to the rites of the Church of England ; and in default thereof , every such placing , election and choice , is declared to be void . The Test Act ( 25 Charles II . c . 2 )
is intituled , " An Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants , " f and enacted that all persons that should be admitted into any office , civil or military , or should have command or place of trust , from
or under his Maiestv . &c . should , at or under his Majesty , &c , should , at specified times and places , take the oaths prescribed by the statute , and should also receive the sacrament according to the Church of England ,
and include , besides the law as to Corporations , Acts for a free and voluntary present to his Majesty , for providing necessary carriages for his Majesty in his royal progress , and against the unlawful coursing of deer , &c . &c . ? It was even once contended , that
common freemen ought to take the Test , hut decided otherwise in the case of the Borough of Christchurch . 2 Strange ,
828 . + The grand source of danger , against which this statute was directed , is impressed upon its forehead . It would be a climax of injustice , as whimsical as it would be detestable , if , as it has been i
whispered , the present government , » consenting to the emancipation of the Catholics , should leave Protestant Dissenters under the ban of a law which originated in the dread entertained l > y Protestants in general of the return ol Popish ascendancy .
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182 The Nonconformist . No . XXIV .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 132, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/4/
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