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Untitled Article
tiairiphlet roust shew ev ^ ry one , that the Parliament , if they could , would have formed a test distinguishing Protestants from Papists , as , in fact , they did ( when experience had made them wiser ) in framing the test for sitting in Parliament . On all this part of the subject , it would have been much better to have studied the subject at least a little before writing upon it .
He then seeks the authority of William for the Test laws , in defiance of known facts . If it be true that William , in answer to James , supported these Acts by his representations , the reason is obvious , namely , that suspending them would have let in the Papists to destroy his hopes , and that the proposal was , as he knew , directed solely to meet their case . The Toleration Act , he also observes , maintained the Corporation and Test Acts ; but this he must or ought to have known , was against William ' s opinion and wishes .
Again he revives the old argument from the Union with Scotland ; but if he had sought for information , he would have learnt that an attempt was made to include the Test and Corporation Acts in its stipulations , which totally railed ; and the authority of Lord Kenyon and Lord Eldon , appearing in the lately published Letters ot the King , should surely set this point at rest with such politicians as the author .
He makes but a very faint defence of the Test itself ; he is " willing to admit that were it deemed necessary to bring the Act into operation , he should be glad , if it were possible , to introduce some other , but equally effectual , test . " He then proceeds to the enforcement of the old argument , that these laws are dormant , and practically in no operation . The man who can assert this must have much brass in his composition . One observation is sufficient to meet all his assurance of the confidence with which Dissenters may repose on
their never being put in force without weighty reasons and full consideration ; namely , that , as they now stand , they are enforceable , ( in all offices filled by election , ) by the mere caprice of an individual . It is impossible , moreover , for any one to consider the Indemnity Acts , and to maintain that they are either in pringiple or detail a competent protection , if the feeling of society did not find for the Dissenters a much more trustworthy defence . The u Parliamentary Review" has well arid summarily described these Indemnity Acts , by observing , that " the preambles are false , and the enactments a trickery . " The author ' s argument on this head concludes as follows :
" Let then the Dissenters take actual facts and circumstances into consideration , instead of those epigrammatic abstractions with which their Statement abounds , and which , if they contain any truth , it is wrapped up in much extravagance , and very unlike the plain common sense which walks nearer the ground . Let them ask themselves soberly whether there be any real , substantial benefit they do not now enjoy , and which they would enjoy if the Corporation and Test Acts were obliterated from the statute book . I
can see none , except so far as the repeal of these acts might aid in the general destruction of the Church Establishment , in which case they mi g ht expect to regain some of the livings of which the Act of Uniformity deprived them , and of this desire I willingly exonerate them . The question , then , shortly stated , comes to this . If the Dissenters want only an equality of political privileges , a repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts ( as circumstances stand ) is not necessary for that purpose : if they want to undermine our Church Establishment , those acts are necessary for our defence . "—Pp . 41 , 42 ,
A curious commentary on the anxiety to keep Catholic Nonconformists , if admitted to every thing else , at least out of Parliament , may be gathered from this writer's repl y to tne argument against the folly of excluding Dissentera from offices , ana yet admitting them into Parliament . According to him ,
Untitled Article
Review . —Defence of the Corporation and Test Act * , 181
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 181, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/37/
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