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profit or honour , who is not a member of some church or profession , having his name recorded in some one , and but one religious record at once . " Thus in Carolina , under a proprietary government so constituted , it would become the imperative duty of tbe executive ( for there is no hint of a discretionary power ) not only to declare incapable
" of any place of profit or honour , " but to banish from the colony , as " unfit to have any estate or habitation within it , " or " any benefit or protection of the law , " certain delinquents . These were , every Quaker or other religionist who scrupled "to bear witness , " on oath , in auy " sensible way : " every one who neglected publicly to profess theism ,
whether a sceptic , who might be decorously silent on bis want of faith , or a solitary worshiper , like Milton , in his latter years , or like Wakefield , who could justly describe " musing with the meu of Galilee" as his favourite occupation : and every youth , though among the fairest hopes of his country , who might hesitate , perhaps with anxious
solicitude , to resolve on the important decision which would give " all the colour of remaining life . " Such , in their proper operation , were some of " the fundamental Constitutions of Carolina , " promulgated in 1669 ; and at length abrogated , according to . Adams , ( on the American Constitutions , ) after twenty years of troublesome experiment .
During those years Locke had escaped from a connexion , scarcely worthy of the philosopher , with the corrupt and profligate Shaftesbury , and had , no doubt , greatly corrected his earlier apprehensions as to the true ends and the wise policy of government . Thus , when commencing his argument " concerning
Toleration , " he declares " it the duty of the civil magistrate , by the impartial execution of equal laws , to secure unto all the people in general , and to every one of his subjects in particular , the just possession of the things belonging to thin life , " and " that the whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only to these civil concernments . "
Yet I am sorry to recollect that Locke appears to the last to have exercised a judgment far inferior to that of Lord Bacon , according to his well known opinion , since worthily adopted , especially by Priestley , on the question whether a profession of atheism be justly liable to the cognizance and censure of the civil power . in the former Series ( II . 83 ) 1 had occasion to describe the Constitutions with reference to an important measure
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agitated in Parliament m 1807 . On that occasion a learned law Lord professed to have found in Locke a brother-advocate for negro-slavery , gratified , no doubt , as a rare occurrence , to adduce such an authority for any of those restraints and oppressions which , when consecrated by time and matured into " the wisdom of our ancestors , " have too often secured his Lordship ' s patronage , either on or off the woolsack .
J . T . RUTT . P . S . The Constitutions , Nos . 84 and 87 , contain the following very judicious regulations : " There shall be a registry in every signiory , barony , and colony , wherein shall be recorded all the births , marriages , and deaths .
" No marriage shall be lawful , whatever contract and ceremony they have used , till both the parties mutually own it before the register of the place where they were married , and he register it with the names of the father and mother of each party . "
Since I mentioned the marriage ordinance of 1653 , in my former letter , I have observed it thus uncourteou sly assailed by that zealous adherent of Church and King , James Ho well , in his Letters ( 1754 ) , p . 499 : * ' For home news , the freshest is that whereas , in former times , there were
complaints that churchmen were justices of peace ; now the clean contrary way , Justices of peace are become churchmen ; for by a new act of that thing in Westminster called a Parliament , the power of giving in marriage is passed over to them , which is an ecclesiastical rite every where else throughout the world .
" A Cavalier coming lately to a bookseller ' s shop , desired to buy this matrimonial act , with the rest of that Holy Parliament ; but he would have them all bound in calf s leather , bought out of Mr . Barbone ' s shop in Fleet Street . Nov . 9 , 1653 . "
Howell was incorrect as to marriage being universally " an ecclesiastical rite , " if , as most probable , it was then regulated in Holland according to Mr . Granger ' s description .
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On the Neglect of the Scripture * . To the Editor . 44 1 have but one book , " said Collins , " but that is the best . " —Johnson ' s Lives of the Poets . Sir , Among the peculiarities by which the present day is distinguished from all
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714 Occasional Correspondence .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 714, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/58/
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