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nions vvbieh they did not believe , though eertain Right Reverend Prelates were good enough to point out the way in which the evasion might be reconciled to their consciences . He knew that in times which ought never to be referred to for
precedents , during the ascendancy of the Ilomish Church , instruments of torture had been resorted to , for the purpose of compelling an acquiescence in doctrines which its professors had resolved to propagate ; but such cases could only be referred to for the purpose of disgusting them with the example . With regard to the amendments suggested , he would willingly discuss them in the Committee , As to the objection of Lord Liverpool to the Bill ' s applying to cases where only one of the parties was an Unitarian , he was still of opinion that it ought , but was not disposed to be pertinacious on that point . The East-India Act gave the relief where either of the parties dissented . The Lord Chancellor observed , that the respect he had always felt for the Noble Lord who advocated this measure , for the other Noble Lords and Prelates who differed from him in opinion , and ( though in a much smaller degree ) for
himself , compelled him to state to their Lordships the grounds upon which he felt that he never could conscientiously vote for . sending this Bill to a Committee . He did not mean to say that it was impossible to frame a Bill which should give relief to those who were supposed to be entitled to it ; but the present Bill contained principles irreconcilable with the
security of the Established Church . He begged the House would not suppose he wished to press his opinions upon any one ; but feeling it to be his duty , and he was sure it was his inclination , to support the interests of the Church ; feeling also , after having devoted a great portion of a long- life to the consideration of the subject , that if ever that moment should arrive when this country should be deprived of her Established Church , she would lose the best security that any country ever had or could have , for the continuance of religious toleration ; upon that principle he felt it his duty , for the sake of the Dissenters themselves , to object to any change which was calculated to degrade that Church . It was not for the benefit of the Church alone , but for the security of the great principle of religious toleration , that he should oppose this
Bill , and any other which he conceived to be liable to the same objections . No one more than himself wished for a liberal and large toleration , but it could never be enjoyed securely without they had a Church established on the principles of
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a liberal and large toleration . A Nobk ? Lord , In allusion to what had passed orr a former occasion , had found fault with him , as if he had raised doubts which he himself did not entertain as to the legal situation of these parties . He would , in
vindication of himself , repeat and explain what he had stated , in the first place , then , lie wished to remind the House , that those who denied the Trinity were excepted from the Toleration Act . No man living ** could disapprove more than he did of the rigorous Act passed in the
time of William , and the still more severe enactments of the Scottish Parliament against Dissenters : it could only excite horror in every man who had his heart in his right place , that speculative opinions should be visited by such punishments . But sttll it must be remembered
that the 9 th of William spoke of the denial of the Trinity not as a dissent , but : a denial of the Christian religion . When that Act , which had imposed particular punishments upon the offence which it so described , came to be repealed ^ it was perfectly understood , ( though he knew
that the writings of some ecclesiastics had introduced an opinion , that the act of repeal let loose the common law , and ail on the subject , ) and he could confidently appeal to that respectable member who brought it into the other House , that there was no intention to affect the
common law , whatever it was . And as to that he could only repeat , that the Act of William and Mary spoke of these opinions as being contrary to the Christian religion . In the Court of Chancery , in the case of Attorney General and Pearson , ( the object of which was to cany into
effect a charitable foundation , being a meeting-house , founded after the Act oi William and Mary , and before its repeal , and which was sought to be appropriated by Unitarians , ) Sir S- Romilly ( on whom his Lordship pronounced a high eulogiuni ) argued , that as the Act of William
had declared the denial of the Trinity to be contrary to the Christian religion , it was as much out of his ( the Lord Chancellor ' s ] power , even at this moment , to establish a provision for Unitarian worship , as it had been decided to be with respect to foundations for teaching
the Jewish law . Sitting in a court oi equity , he had declined to decide any such quest ion as to the present legal condition of these parties , and he had , therefore , rested his decision on the
principle , that the trust having been founded at a time when Unitarian doctrines were illegal , it could not now be appropriated to an object which must be supposed to have been out of the contemp lation of the founder . He said this to clear
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308 Intelligence . — -Parliamentary : Unitarians ? Marriage Bid *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1824, page 308, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2524/page/52/
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