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AflT . III . —* t % e Necessity of the Corporation and Test Acts Maintained * in a Brief Review of the * ' Statement of the Case of the Protestant Dissenters . " London . Murray . 1828 . A Letter to the Right Honourable George Canning on the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts . By John Bowring . London . 1827 . We lose no time in bringing the first of these pamphlets before our readers . It is the earliest symptom of awakening attention to the claims of
the Dissenters . It is the opening of a clamour , which we have no doubt will be soon loud enough . It comes obviously from high quarters * and gives us a view of the mode in which the question is soon most likely to be argued . We shall , on this account , allow the author to speak at some length , being more desirous to prepare Dissenters for the case likely to be set up against them , than to enter , at this time , at any great length into the merits of a discussion for which most of our readers are already sufficiently prepared .
After lamenting the increase , of late , of persons disaffected to existing institutions and desirous of change , the author proceeds , " The country had almost hoped , from the long silence on the subject of the Corporation and Test Acts in Parliament , that people ' s minds were at rest upon the matter ; that the system had been found to work well and conveniently for all parties ; that Protestants of the Church of England felt they had sufficient security ; and that Protestants who dissented from that church experienced no . want . of indulgence . Those who do not always remain in the
retirement of their closets , but sometimes go abroad into the world for a brief space , have found the Dissenters pursuing their business or their " prayers , and even holding offices under government , with all imaginable contentment of spirit $ but suddenly this peaceful and pleasing state of things has undergone a remarkable change ; the law remains the same , but not so the quiet of the people whom it affects . They begin to perceive how ex * tremely dull it was to be so very contented . The ' liberality * of modern
po-Iitical teachers , the ' march of intellect , ' and r progress of Jight , ' in these times , have caused the Dissenters to perceive that it would be very laudable to become exceedingly uneasy ; and accordingly petitions innumerable have poured in , and the subject is once more to undergo a parliamentary review . " Notwithstanding , however , the marvellous enlightenment which of late years the world has received , there are not a few who are old , fashioned enough to hold those opinions which , in the freshness and youthful vigour of our
constitution of 1688 , scarcely any one dreamed of obiectmg to , namely , that these acts are the strong and necessary bulwarks of the church , which is so intimately connected and identified with the constitution , that if the church be in danger , the whole constitution must be in jeopardy ; and they are , therefore , not disposed patiently or silently to hear those laws accused as
measures of ' insult / opprobrium , ' and ' religious persecution '—the epithets by which the Dissenters at present think proper to designate them . At all events , * hoping' ( to use the words of a celebrated controversialist ) ' that it may be at least as inoffensive for me to endeavour to justify the laws of my country . as-it is for others to arraign and to condemn t ^ em , I shall go on to ^ teclare my sense in this matter . '"—Pp . 4—6 .
The Pamphleteer proceeds to comment severely upon the use of such words in the ** Statement , " as " persecution , " " oppression . " He observes , * ' It is difficult to conceive a greater or more pernicious perversion of Ian- * guage , than that by which the political disabilities of certain religious sect *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 177, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/33/
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