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HOUSE QF COMMONS , June 4 . Corporation and Test Acts . Mr . Hume presented a petition from Chichester for the repeal of these Acts . — Mr . J . Smith hoped more such petitions would come \ i \ agaiust that disgrace to
the Statute-book . Sir J . Newport remarked , that Dean . Swift had asserted , that if the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed , the Dissenters would overthrow the Church Establishment in Ireland . They were , however , repealed in 1782 , without producing that effect . "To
shew , " continued the Honourable Baronet , € t how little was known of this repeal by Ministers , I may mention , that within these five years , I was speaking to a minister on the subject of Catholic Emancipation , and he told me that one
of his greatest objections to that measure was , that it would be impossible to prevent the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts . [ told him that the Test and Corporation Acts in Ireland had been repealed , so far as Protestant Dissenters
were concerned , forty years ago . He would not believe the fact , and was only convinced by my producing the Statute . Such is the effect of being led by prejudice , rather than by judgment . " - —The petition , of which the following is a copy , was ordered to be printed .
The humble petition of the undersigned persons , being Protestant Dissenters of several denominations , in the city of Chichester , Respectfully sheweth , That your petitioners , conscientiously dissenting from the National
Church-Establishment of England upon the same principle on which Protestants separate from the Church of Rome , and conceiving that all civil disabilities and penal statutes are utterly inconsistent with that true Protestant principle , the right of
private judgment in matters of religion ; and that religious tests afford great advantage to the unprincipled and insincere , by whom they are disregarded over the tionest and conscientious ; humbly beg leave to call the attention of your Right "Honourable House to those penalties , to which the Disseniers rfroin the
Establishment are still liable ; in the confident conviction , that , from the increasingjiberaiity of the times , a liberality th ^ t has frequently been displayed in the Acts of
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your Bight Honourable House , the relief they beg thus humbly to solicit will not be refused . That without entering into the question , whether or not it was the intention of the Legislature , in passing the Acts of
the 13 th and 25 th of his Majesty Charles Ilnd , commonly called the Corporation and Test Acts , to exclude from civil offices Protestant Dissenters , your petitioners would beg to suggest , that though withdrawing from the Ecclesiastical Establishment of the country , Protestant Dissenters have ever shewn themselves
the most streuuous defenders of its constitutional liberties , and while they disclaim the charge of seeking political power for themselves , they cannot but feel that to close against them the avenues to honourable distinction , is not only to
deprive the country of their services , but cruelly and unjustly to stigmatize them with comparative disaffection , after upwards of a century of tried loyalty , and thereby to hold them forth to the ignorant , the bigoted and the malevolent , as marks of obloquy and persecution .
The circumstance of some persons belonging to the body of Protestant Dissenters , accepting offices , or becoming members of corporations , notwithstanding these excluding statutes , does not , in the apprehension of your petitioners , detract from the weight of the foregoing
observations , nor diminish the injustice and impolicy of the statutes themselves ; for , not to do more than remark , that Dissenters so accepting offices , or becoming members of corporations , are few
compared with the whole body , your petitioners feel assured , that conscientious Nonconformists must , ere they determine what course to pursue , experience a severe mental conflict between
the calls of civil duty and their religious opinions , or must trust to the Indemnity Act , annually passed by your Honourable House , to protect them from the penalties incurred by violation of the statutes in question .
That your petitioners beg , with all humility , to submit to your Honourable . House , whether the Indemnity Act , pass * ed from tiifce to time by your Honourable House , be not , a virtual acknowledgment , that the statutes , of which your petitioners crave the repeal , are improper , and cannot , in these enlightened times , be
strictly enforced ; and your petitioners , without inquiring whether it be not more wise to repeal Jaws which are thus kept in continual abeyance , beg to submit to your Honourable House that whatever the protection , incidental or otherwise , afforded by the Indemnity Acts , those Acts can never restore Dissenters to that
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doors and out of doors . He had no doubt , when the subject was understood , all denominations oi Christians would wish the law amended .
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3 £ 8 Intelligences—Parliamentary : Corporation and Test Acts .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 378, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/58/
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