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extended influence , being so much more liable to applications for-relief , " twelve months" may be reasonably expected to pass over the Deputation , with all its apparatus of chairman , deputy-chairman , treasurer , committee , and secretary , in complete working order , while there cannot be found for their occupation even " one case of real persecution , " such as " A Berean" ( p . 634 ) appears to have discovered .
It may , I think , sometimes have been suspected that even the eloquent secretary of the larger society , with all England and Wales , and " our town of Berwick upon Tweed" within his ken , has found it no easy task , on the
occasion of his annual display , to detect an adequate grievance , such as might horrify a noble chairman from the West-end , and draw forth from the gentle bosoms on the " reserved seats" compassionate sighs , unheard , indeed , amidst thunders of applause from the manly benches .
As to the late repeal , " the object , such as it is , has been ohtaiued ; " and Protestant Dissenters , who are satisfied to possess the honours or emoluments of civil office on the terms of the late act , have nothing more to require , being now placed on a footing with members of the establishment . Those , however ,
who , like " A Berean , " continue to regard civil qualifications" as " the alone test for civil offices , " and the exaction of any other qualification as a species of persecution , will no longer seek relief in the character of Dissenters , but will rather unite with fellow-citizens
likeminded , whatever be the extent or deficiency of their religious faith , iu the common pursuit of a common civil object . Thus auy adequate use of the Deputation appears to be at an end . Of their funds , a use most appropriate may easily be discovered . Let them be
assigned to the " Society for the Belief of the Necessitous Widows and Children of Protestant Dissenting Ministers of the Three Denominations . " Thus would the Deputation afford a most timely aid to an
institution not too largely endowed , and expire , securing to their memories the most valuable renown , * ' the blessing of them that were ready to perish , " while they had made ' the widow ' s heart to sing for joy . " NO DEPUTY .
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Constitutions of Carolina , " which he describes as * ' tolerant . " The Ninety-fifth Constitution , the first with any reference to religion , authorizes , or rather directs , the civil power , as if he , were *' a God sitting in the temple of God , " to exact of the whole community , on pain of expatriation , a profession of theism , and an approbation of public worship .
" No man shall be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina , or to have any estate or habitation within it , that doth not acknowledge a God ; and that God is publicly and solemnly to be worshiped . " The next Constitution ( distinguished
by the Editor ' s note , from the rest of the 120 , as " not drawn up by Mr . Locke , but inserted against his judgment" ) establishes " religion according to the Church of England" as " the only true and orthodox , " which " alone shall be allowed to receive public
mainten ^ nce . " To the end , however , " that Jews , Heathens , and other Dissenters from the purity of the Christian religion may not be scared and kept at a distance from it , " the ninety-seventh Constitutiou provides , that " any seven persons agreeing in any religion shall constitute a church or profession , to which they shall give some name to distinguish it from others . " In Constitution 100 this
tolerance is thus qualified : " In the terms of communion of every church or profession , these following shall be three ; without which no agreement or assembly of men , upon pretence of religion , shall be accounted a church or profession within these rules : " 1 . That there is a God . " 2 . That God is publicly to be worshiped .
" 3 . That it is lawful , and the duty of every man , being thereunto called by those that govern , to bear witness to truth ; and that every church and profession . shall , in their terms of communion , set down the external way whereby they witness a truth as in the presence of God , whether it be by laying hands on , or kissing the Bible , as in the Church of England , or by holding up the hand , or by any other sensible way . "
Then , as if a person might be expected to determine his choice among religious professions before he was deemed of age , sufficiently to have learned a trade , the 101 st Constitution thus directs : " No person above seventeen years of age shall have any benefit or protection of the law , or be capable of any place of
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Occasional Correspondence . 713
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On Locke ' s Constitution for Carolina . To the Editor . Sir , Clapton , Aug . 30 , 1828 . The able writer on ** Catholics and Dissenters" ( p . 590 ) has not , I suspect , very lately examined " the fundamental
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 713, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/57/
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