The History of Persecution, from the Patriarchal Age, to the Reign of George II

by Samuel Chandler

II. That the said Act will, in future, curtail the privileges and exemptions of our regular preachers, who are wholly devoted to the functions of their office, and to which they are legally entitled under the letter and spirit of the Act of Toleration.

III. That the said Act will render it very difficult, if not impracticable, to obtain certificates for the great body of local preachers and exhorters, and who are not only an useful part of our society, but whose aid is essentially necessary in the very numerous chapels and meeting-houses, in which our congregations assemble.

IV. That with great grief of heart we have observed of late a growing disposition, in different parts of the country, to disturb our meetings, even those which are held only for prayer to Almighty God, and to enforce the penalties of the Conventicle Act upon those who officiate in them: the great inconvenience and heavy expences of which we have already felt. If this system of persecution should be persevered in, the subordinate teachers of our body, to the amount of many thousands of persons in the united kingdom, will be driven to apply for certificates to protect them from the penalties of the Conventicle Act, which indeed they can obtain under the existing laws without obstruction; but if the present Bill should be passed into a law, it will be utterly impossible to consider such persons as dissenting ministers, and to certify them under the said Act: therefore, either an end will be put to the functions of a most valuable and useful part of our community, or they will be exposed to all the penalties of the Conventicle Act; the consequence of which will be, that as the people cannot, and ought not, to refrain from Acts of social worship, and meetings for religious instruction, the penalties cannot be paid, and the prisons will be peopled with some of the most peaceable and pious characters in the country.

V. That a great number of the persons mentioned in the last resolution (as well as a large proportion of our societies) considering themselves as members of the established Church, to which they are conscientiously attached, will feel it quite incompatible with their sentiments to apply for certificates under the terms of the said Act, which requires them to be certified and to declare themselves as dissenting ministers.

VI. That the offices alluded to in the fourth resolution, are an essential part of the economy of our societies, which has for its object the instruction of the ignorant, and the relief of the miserable, rather than the creation or extention of a distinct sect of religion; and without whose aid, the various chapels of our societies in the united kingdom, which have cost an immense sum of money in their erection, cannot be supported.

VII. That our chapels have been built, and large sums of money, due upon the same, for which the respective trustees are now responsible, have been lent and advanced under the most perfect confidence that our system so necessary for their support, would remain undisturbed; and that those rights of conscience, which our most gracious Sovereign on his accesion to the throne declared should be maintained inviolable, would, in this happy and enlightened country, ever be held sacred, and preserved uninfringed.

VIII. That it does not appear to us, that the present toleration laws are either so ineffectual, or the interpretation of them so uncertain, as to render any Bill necessary to explain them, much less to curtail the benefits intended to be conveyed by them; but on the other hand we are satisfied, that if the present Bill should pass, the whole law of religious toleration will become more obscure, and its meaning more uncertain; and thus a fruitful source of litigation and oppression will be opened.

IX. That the returns of the archbishops and bishops, of the number of places for divine worship, &c. in their respective dioceses, upon which the present measure appears to be founded, are far from furnishing evidence of the necessity of restricting the operations of religious societies; but on the contrary, they contain the most decisive proofs (from the inadequacy of the parish churches to contain the inhabitants of the kingdom) that the increasing population calls for all the means of religious instruction, which well-disposed persons of all denominations of christians, have in their power to afford.

X. That from the manifest effect which the diffusion of religion has had for the last fifty years, in raising the standard of public morals, and in promoting loyalty in the middle ranks, as well as subordination and industry in the lower orders of society, which so powerfully operate upon the national prosperity and public spirit, we dread the adoption of any measure which can in the least weaken these great sinews of the nation, or restrain the patriotic efforts of any of the religious communities of the country.

XI. That as we deprecate the consequences of the Bill as it now stands, so we cannot see that any modification of it can meet the views of its Right Honourable and noble proposer, (whose character we highly respect) without essentially deteriorating, the indefeasible rights and privileges of those who are the objects of the toleration laws.