The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1835

LADY II EWLEY'S TRUSTEES.

presumed to write or preach anything against the doctrine o'
the Trinity could be legally considered as a godly preacher of
Christ's Gospel, so long as that law, and the before-mentioned
exception in the Toleration Act, remained on the Statute-
book unrepealed.
We come now to the last Act relating to this subject, viz.,
the 53d Geo. 111. c. 160, which is as follows: ".Whereas' in
the 19th year of his present Majesty an Act was passed, en-
titled An Act for the further relief of Protestant Dissenting
Ministers and Schoolmasters ;' and it is expedient to enact as
hereinafter provided :.Be it therefore enacted, &c., that so
much of an Act passed in the first year of King William and
Queen Mary, entitled An Act for exempting his Majesty's
Protestant subjects dissenting. from the Church of England
from the penalties of certain Laws,' as provides that that Act.
or anything therein contained, should not extend, or he con-
strued to extend, to give any ease, benefit, or advantage to
persons denying the Trinity as therein mentioned, be, and the
same is hereby repealed. And be it further enacted, that the
provisions of another Act, passed in the 9th and 10th years'of
the reign of King William, entitled An Act for the more
effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness,' so far
as the same relate to persons denying as therein mentioned re-
specting the Holy Trinity, be, and the same are hereby re-
pealed."
It was the avowed intention of the framers of this Act,
passed in the year 1813, to place Unitarian Dissenters on the
same footing as other Dissenters, and such I conceive must, in
reason and common sense, be its effect. Of course it follows,
that professed Unitarian Ministers, taking the oaths, and
making the declarations required 'from other Dissenting Mi-
nisters, must, from that time, be considered in law as godly
preachers of Christ's Gospel, seeing that they stand, in the
contemplation of the law, upon the same ground as their more
orthodox brethren.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CASE OF LADY
HEWLEY'S TRUSTEES,
_ _

I know indeed that it has been laid down by grave authori-
ties, at the head of which is Lord Eldon, that to deny the
doctrine of the Trinity is blasphemy, and that blasphemy is an
offence at Common Law, independently of the statute. But,
without being overawed by great names, let us examine a little
how this matter stands. The Act of the 9th and 10th of King
William 111. is entitled, as we have seen, an Act for the more
effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness ; then it
goes on to state the particulars of such blasphemy and profane-
ness, viz., denying any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity
to be God, or asserting that there are more Gods than one, or
denying the Christian Religion to be true, or the Holy Scrip-
tures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority.
B-ut by the 53d Geo. 111. c. 160, it is enacted, that the before-
mentioned Act of 9th and 10th William, for the more effectual
suppressing of blasphemy and profaneness, so far as relates to
persons denying as therein mentioned respecting the Holy
Trinity, be, and is thereby repealed, leaving its provisions in
other respects as they were ; the obvious and inevitab'e infer-
ence from which is, that the Legislature did not consiuer the
denying of the doctrine of the Trinity to be blasphemy or pro-
faneness. It appears to me impossible to put any other con-
struction upon it. How, then, can that be blasphemy at
Common Law, which .a late Act of Parliament has deter-
mined not to be blasphemy ? Ido think even Lord Eldon's
ingenuity and legal subtlety would be somewhat puzzled to
make this out. In fact, the case is strengthened by what the
b3d Geo. 111. omits to do, as well as by what it does. If the
Act of 9th and 10th William had been entirely repealed, it
might have been said that the only effect of the new Act was
to leave the offences of blasphemy and profaneness to the
operation of the Common Law ; but here we have a distinc-
tion made, and an exception as to the doctrine of the Trinity,
which plainly indicates that the denying of it is not to be put
on a footing with denying the Christian Religion to be true,
or the Holy Scriptures to be of divine authority. So that
what was deemed by some persons an imperfection in the Act
as a measure of Toleration, really makes it more effectual for
the relief of those persons for whose benefit it was intended.
And now, in conclusion, it may be material to observe, that
the question is not what would have been the legal application
of the Hewley Funds fifty or a hundred years ago, but what is
so now, under the express provisions of the trust-deeds, and
the actual state of the law. And I think, if we look at the
intentions of the founder, the fair presumption is, that what
she did not tie up, she meant to leave open. At any rate, to
apply to this case a general sentiment already advanced, it can
neither be just nor politic to confine her foundations within
stricter limits than she herself prescribed, or to hunt about in
the regions of conjecture to discover intentions which she has
not expressed.
Dec. 15, 1834.

J. F.