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    PETITION FOR COMPLETE RELIGIOUS LIBERTY . The following Petition was adopted by the Congregational Meeting' * of the Unitarians in Hull , on Sunday , February 17 th . To the Honourable the Commons oJLiiieJJnited Kingdom of Great

    Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled . The Petition of the undersigned , being members of the congregation of Unitarian Christians assembling in Bowl Alley Lane , Hull , and other friends of religious liberty . Showeth ,

    That your petitioners , being Dissenters from the Established Church , avow by the very fact of their dissent the principle , * That no human authority has a right to interfere with any man ' s religious opinions and modes of worship , —that all religious sects ought to be on a footing of perfect equality as regards civil rights and privileges , none favoured , none proscribed ; and that

    any distribution of political powers , literary and scientific honours , or worldly advantages , which is founded on the profession of peculiar religious opinions , is hostile to the spirit of true religion , and fatal to the sincerity of many , while it forms no part of the duty of the civil magistrate , whose cognizance properly extends to actions only , and not to opinions .

    That your petitioners entreat the Reformed House of Commons to provide for the perfect freedom of conscience , and the absolute equality of all denominations of religious professors in the British dominions . More particularly , they heg your Honourable House to enact that no

    British subject shall be compelled to contribute in any way , directly or indirectly , to the support of any form of worship which he does not approve . To place beyond the possibility of legal doubt the exemption of Dis-

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    senting places of worship from parish assessments , the levying of which , your petitioners understand , is not unfrequently attempted in a vexatious , and , as they believe , illegal manner .

    To provide a legal system of registering births , which shall not inv ^ lTe ^ tlre ~ absuTdity- "of—supposing that every child born in the kingdom is baptized according to the forms of the establishment .

    To enact a law of marriage , by which the civil magistrate may be satisfied of the validity of the contract , without interfering with the religious opinions of the parties , they being left at liberty to celebrate a religious service of their own , or not , on the occasion , as they may judge proper or expedients

    To open the national seats of learning to all religious sects without exception or preference , by the abolition of subscription to articles , whether on entrance or in competition ' for honours . To remove the cruel- disabilities

    under which the Jewish subjects of this kingdom labour , as regards the law of property , as well as their exclusion from places of trust and profit ; and thus to put them in possession of the same civil rights as are enjoyed by his Majesty ' s subjects in general *

    To erase all laws sanctioning legal prosecutions for the avowal of opinion , and enacting a profession of religious faith as a necessary qualification for office . On the subject of internal reform in the Church by law established , your petitioners forbear to express any opinion whatever , except so far

    as ! the principres of religious equality above avowed may be applicable to any of jUs details . Their only wish is , to be placed themselves , and to see all other citizens of the kingdom placed , on a footing of perfect reli * gious equality . They disclaim all hostility against the Established Church as a religiqus society ; but

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    126 INTELLIGENCE AND

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1833, page 126, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2611/page/30/