The Sun.
London, England, 1812-07-04 00:00:00

DISSENTERS RELIEF BILL.

Earl STANHOPE, pursuant to his notice, rose to
move the second reading. of this Bill. He pre.
.faced the motion by, a speech of very considerable
length, in which lie touched upon or adverted to,
more or less,
,every possible topic, connected with
a subject of ,such variows importance.—ln the first
instance', the Noble Earl presented a petition from
the three general descriptions Gl' Dissenters re-
esiding in the Cities of London and Westminster,
praying that. every remaining penal ,statute
tending to the province of religion, may be re-
pealed ; this being read, was ordered to lie on
the table. He observied, that the number of Dis-
senters from the regular Church Establishment,
in England, were as three to two ; in.. Scotland it
was still more so, being two to one. He'came
forward, on this occasion, through the impulses
of humanity and justice, as he had done in the
case of the Slave Trade. A N:bble Earl opposite
had, recently contended, the whole of any mea-
sure should be before the House before it could
justly decide • the whole of his measure was then
before their Lordships. . It was a leading princi.;
ple of the Protestant religion, that it granted the
greatest degree of liberty to all other sects—he
trusted it would now be shewn. The principle
that, the majority. should :bind the aiinority in
matters of religion, was what he must contro-
vert—but here it was the minority who were en-
deavouring to controulthe majority. The objeet
of this Bill was, to obtain liberty of coriscience.—
The first clause was of so comprehensive a nna,
tare, as nearly to occupy tlie' whole Bill, The

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Noble Earl then 'topiougnreferred to various pe-
nahand rptrictive statutes' still remainiag, lie as-
serted, on the anitute books, and chiefly enacted
in be tsintes of Elizabeth -anti James By the
first of E! zabeth, the subjects were hound to -at-
tend cliv:tie service- on Soo nays and holidays un.•
• der a peaalty of 'l2/. By the 16th, severer penal-
ties were; enacted Against 'individuals. absenting.
theniaelves from Church. By AStatute of James
L parties so offendinn were even.-liable to for-
, leiteses in land, 'and
_other effects, and'to a fine
also of 101. for every servant abseittiona him or
herself from Church.' Not only that, but-for the
awry visitors and their servants residing in his.
house, the , master was likewise amenable with
. respect to their Church-going. Now this,
he contended, was against, the very vital.
principles of the _Christian Religion ; - for in
• the. fine 'Sermon of Christ. Open the Mount,
his followers .were enjoined to pray in secret.
Against such a mode all these Statutes
The severity of some of these penal Statutes went
even so far as banishment from the realm, and all
the dominions belonging to his Majesty. Such
in fact,. as appears from those- Statutesa was thd
boasted tolerance of the Church of England. In
some cases, even a son was made punishable for
his father not going to Charch ! The existence
• of these laws were at present still more unjust
and oppressive—for, according to an Official Re-
tort, there were 72,000 persons who could not
be accommodated in the Churches, for want of
room. In Canterbury diocese, there were more
'than 100,000—in the Metropolis, the prOportion
was still greaten—This undoubtedly would be
quite sufficient to spew the folly as well as. the
injustice of holding,punishrnents over the people's
heads, for not doing that which it was impossible
for them to do. He largely adverted to the powers
oF the Ecclesastical Courts, particularly with re-
ference to the process of remuneration,, which,
,under these lams, may be most unjustly and' op-
pressively exercised; and he quoted the authority
of Lord Mansfield's doctrine in that House, in
support of his argument. He dwelt much on the
nature and possible tendencyOf those laws ; per-
haps few of their Lordships had perused them; he,
however, had waded through the *hole Statutes,
from illognd Charta to the 27th, of the. King, and
he, declared he would' as soon again go over a
-park paling of tenter hooks. There were be-
tween two and three hundred Statutes on religion.
He related an anecdote of the late Sir Joshua
Reyuolds, who, being at a loss how to paint a
fool, was told to paint a.clumsy fellow endeavonr-
ing to climb over a pailing of tenter-hooks, while
a gate was open close, by. Now, •helwould im-
prove on this idea, and he would have placed be-
hind the park paling a wall fifty feet high, like
that round the King's Bench Prison ; and he thus
applied the parable.—The park paling was the
Statute Book; the fifty feet high wall was these
tatittes, relating to religion--the open gate was
his Bill—and the strait road which he would have
.placed before the gate, Was the first clause of his
Till—by its adoption all thoie masses of ineurn-
-brance would vanish. He glanced at some inac-
curacies and differences in the printing and lan-
guage of some of the prayer-books, particularly
those printed at the Universities, and by the K ing's
Printer, which was a deviation from the strictly
prescribed uniformity. And by an Act of Eliza-
beth, the form of prayer may be altered by the
Queen, assisted by the Metropolitan. This re-'
:minded him of what he saw by the different clocks,
or dials of a chapel, not fa.- from Cavendish-square,
some time since :—Wishing to know the hour
'exactly, be looked at one side, and found it was
five o'clock—by glancing-his eye at another side,
the hand pointed to a quarter after.; he then wish-
ed to see what the third would say, as an umpire
between these two arbitrators—when, behold ! it
said exactly half-past five o'clock. He could not
help thinking to himself, that this chapel clock
formed a striking symbol of the. uniformity of
. Mother Church. The Noble Earl pursued his line
of argument and illustration, in this manner; at
-considerable length, and frequently observed, that
if many of the provisions of these penal statutes
formerly passed for the benefit and security of the
Church, excited the risibility of their -Lordships,
it was not his fault. One-of the most curious of
the whole wasithat by the provisions of the Act
of the Ist of James I. no women nor children un-
• der .21, *ere allowed, under very heavy penalties,
even on the officers and owners of vessels; to pass
over the seas ! and the reason legislatively assign-
ed; he believed few of their Lordships could guess ;
it was, that women, as women, were so possibly
ineiined! All their Lordships had seen the great
'book-which had been written by games 1. aid-
•ed by the Dean of the Chapel Royal. James
was as great a theologist as he was' a mathemati-
cian. He bad maintained that nil circles were
not round, but that sonic of than were square,
and others .triangular (a loud laugh) ; and he in
this book Very learnedly described the mode of
casting out evil spirits., All this spewed the ig-
norance of the times-in which the laws, that it was
his wish to abrogate,- originated. Among: those
laws were -statures against bigamy, which defined .
bigamy to be marrying two wives, or one widow.
Statutes against invoking goblins or hobgoblins,
and statutes against the practice of feeding evil
spirits upon either animal or vegetable food ! (A
tond , laugh) These statutes all -.came from: the,
same shop as those which imposed up-
on the Dissenters from the Established Church.-7-.
How different was,the spirit that 'breathed in the •
list Treaty of Commerce with France, in which it
it was provided, that the inhabitants of -each
country, when in the other, should enjoy the free
eaercise of their - religion-I How different were'
the sentiments which had been so wisely and libe-
rally uttered by thegresent Bishop of- Lincoln hi -
his sermon before stheir -Lordships ; by the late .
worthy Bishop of St. Asaph '(Shipley) ; by the.
learned anal excelleot Bishop of Llandatf ; by the
truly estimable Bishop of Nerwicli, and -by the
lite admirable Bishop Horsley. By.all these great
persons liberty Of private judgment had been
warmly advocated. It was for that he contended,
not for toleratiOn. He disliked the term- tolerati-
on.- It implied a rightin some parties to be into-
lerant. What he wished to persuade Parliament
to grant was, not toleration, but religious liber-
ty.; As a proof of the justice
.of his dislike to
mere toleration, be referred- to all the tolerative
Acts, from the first which had been passed, down

to the' one now proposed by 'Mr. William Smith,
,which last was -a system of. Licenses to be ;most
severely reprobated, unless indeed some' Chancel-
lor of the ExChetiner, some Mr. Vansittart, chose
to increase the revenue by littbjecting these licenses
to men to exercise their natural tights to a stamp
duty. of five shilliiu or ten shillings and sixpence.
Xle fras for none of these partial measures:
ligious liberty would bresk the chains of the .peo-
ple; toleration would only rivet them: 'Jew., Ma-
honietan, and Christian, had, in his opinion, a
'perfect right to interpret the Scriptures in their
own war; 'and if any' man conscientiously disbe-
lieve them of any part of them, he ought to be
left in free possession of his own sentinients. Of
this he was sure, that many a Dissenter- was per-
fectly entitled to say to many a Churchman, as
Paul said to Agrippa, " Would to God that not
-only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were
both almost and altogether such-as I am, except
these bonds." He then concluded by moving,
that the Dissenters Relief Bill be read a second
time.

A division then took place on the Motion,
Contents i 0
Non-Contentc
Majority...

-21

Lord Hor.t.AND askedtheNoble Lords opposite,
as they had chosen to reject this Bill, Whether it
was their intention to propose any. Other ; 'or
whether, knowing, as they did, the general feel-
ing upon the subject, they nevertheless meant to
leave it in its present state ? If so, 'and if no one
better undertook the task, he pledged himself to
s{ibmit to their Lordships a propoion for their
consideration.

-The Earl of LIVERPOOL replied, that the sub-
ject bad undergone the serious consideration of
all the Members of his Majesty's GoVernment,
and more particularly of his own ; and he hoped
that in a few days he should be enabled to bring
in a Bill which would meet with their Lordships
acquiescence.

Lord HOLLAND expressed himself perfectly sa-
tisfied with this intimation : hut added, that un-
less the Bill which it was the Noble' Earl's inten-
tion to propose, proceeded on the general prin-
ciple of that which had just been rejected, it
would not Meet with his concurrence. . •

which was Only SOS. a year` tut Which had been
considered as unnecessary.
Lord HOLLAND warmly supported the Bill The
odium with which these sinecures were loaded,
was in itself a sufficient argument for their: aboli-
tibn. He agreed with the Noble_ Lord on- the
'Woolsack, there-were many errors and imperfec-
tions in the details of the measure ; but he in-
treated their Lordships to postpone the considera-
tion olthese errors until the proper stage of the
proceeding, and not, by acquiescing in the Noble
Lord's Amendment, 'to reject the principle of a
measure of such importance to the public.
The Earl of DARIstLEY supported
.the Bill..
Earl GROSNOR merely observed, that not a
single word had been said which
,rendered it .ne-
cessary to trespass upon their Lordships time, in
the way of reply.
The House then divided. on the AmetiAment—
..Contents. • ' '35
Not Contents 8
Majority —27

The Bill is consequently lost for the present
Session,

The various Bills on the table were then fin--
warded in their respective stoges, and the House
adjourned, ,

[For the Debate in the House of COllll/10114 see last page.]

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