ABSTRACT
T he year 1787 again brings before us the question of religious liberty. It came prominently before the country the month after the consecration of White and Provoost as Bishops of Pennsylvania and New York. On 28th March 1787, Henry Beaufoy, the member for Great Yarmouth, proposed in the House of Commons the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. These Acts were greatly mitigated in their action by the Indemnity Acts which were passed almost every year as an indulgence to Dissenters. Nevertheless the grievances of Dissenters were still real and heavy. A Dissenter could hold no civil office and no commission in army or navy, could take no part in the management of the Bank of England, Indian, Russian, Turkish, or South Sea Companies, however many shares he might possess, unless he qualified by taking Communion according to the ritual of the English Prayer Book. If he took office without this qualification, he was liable to imprisonment or a heavy fine, and became almost an outlaw. For the rest of his life he could not become guardian to a ward, or bring an action at law, or receive a legacy. It was impossible to defend these outrageous penalties on the plea that they were necessary for the protection of the Established Church, In Scotland and in Ireland the 191Established Church existed without any such protection. The Test Act had been repealed in Ireland in 1779. Beaufoy was the son of a Quaker who had been educated in Dissenting academies, and was well versed in the cause which the Dissenters placed in his hands to plead in Parliament, where he was a supporter of the ministry. He pointed out the absurdity of allowing a Dissenter to be a member of Parliament, and yet preventing him from being a member of a Corporation or a director of a Turkish Company. By its extravagant exaction of oaths at entering on petty offices, the legislature had made perjury so frequent that no one thought anything of it. The Sacramental Test was even worse; it caused horrible profanity. There was no other example in history of the legislators of a country deliberately prostituting the most sacred ordinance of their own creed, by making it the passport to petty offices in the Customs or Excise, and pleading that this impious profanation was required in the interests of the Church. The men who had been appointed to these offices might be notorious evil-livers. How could a clergyman do his duty in repelling such persons from the Holy Communion, when the law of the land compelled the evil-livers to receive the Holy Communion? Fox heartily supported Beaufoy. These Acts imposed a serious penalty on a minority for their conscientious adherence to their religion; and this minority was in morals most respectable, and in political antecedents most meritorious. It was very improbable that this minority would ever become a large majority. But, if it did, and if the large majority of the nation decided that the Established Church ought to be abolished, then the abolition ought immediately to follow.
