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96*] ANNUAL REGISTER
of the most public concern.  That as the royal family are not in the marriage-act, this, or some other bill to the same purpose, is become absolutely necessary; that it is impossible to draw the line exactly at first, and that it must be hereafter guided by future experience and exigency.

C H A P VIII.
Bill for the relief of the Dissenters with respect to subscription; debates thereupon; passed by the Commons, but rejected by the Lords.  East-India company bill, for regulating their servants in India.  Select committee on East-India affairs.  Committee of enquiry into the behaviour of the Lords to the Commons.  Corn bill.  King's speech.  Parliament rises.

In the course of the debates upon the late petition from some of the clergy, for relief in the matter of subscription, several favourable sentiments were thrown out with regard to the dissenting ministers, and some concern was expressed for the hardships they suffered, in being obliged, under heavy penalties, to subscribe the articles of a church to which they did not belong, and from which they fought neither promotion nor emolument; and some gentlemen declared their readiness to consent to a bill for their relief.

This favourable disposition in one of the legislature, naturally occasioned a meeting of some of the ministers in London, to consider of a petition to parliament for that purpose; but they found that the session was so far advanced, that the time limited for the receiving of petitions would be elapsed, before they could receive that assistance from their brethren in the country which they deemed necessary to give it due weight, and to shew it to be a matter of general concern: upon this account it was concluded to defer the application until the ensuing session.  Some promises of support which afterwards met with, and an offer to introduce a bill in their favour by way of motion, which might be done in any part of the session, made them depart from this resolution, and a committee of the body was accordingly appointed at a general meeting, to conduct the business, and to prepare a bill for the purpose.

It may be necessary to premise, that, by the act of toleration of the first of William and Mary, the dissenters gained a legal right to the exercise of the divine worship in their own manner; but this right was conditional, with respect to their ministers, their school-masters, and private tutors, who were obliged to subscribe to the doctrinal parts of the 39 articles, which are by much the greater part of the whole, and were only excused from something more than two, which related mostly to discipline. Without such subscription, those we have mentioned were subject to the heavy penalties, which have been so often and so much complained of, in some of our laws relative to religion, and which still continue unrepealed. As the dissenters of that time were as strongly attached to the doctrinal parts of those articles as even the members of the established church, and that discipline constituted the great line of distinction between them, this subscription was not then considered as a matter of hardship, or, if it had, would probably have been remitted, upon the general principles of religious liberty and toleration, which operated in the bringing in and passing of the law. 

It appears that a great change has since taken place in the religious opinions of many of the Dissenters. and that the Calvinism which then prevailed has in a great degree declined ; and if we might presume to form any judgment from the small number of their divines who for many years have subscribed to the articles, it might be concluded that this change has been very general. By this means they became liable to the heavy penalties of those laws we have mentioned; and it is perhaps as much owning to the general indifference of the times, in regard to religious matters, as to the lenity of government, that they have not been more frequently enforced against them.

The bringing in of April 3d. this bill gave a great alarm to the high-church gentlemen, who, feeing the former petition, and the attempt upon the church nullum tempus claim, immediately succeeded by another attack upon the 39 articles, began to imagine that some settled design was formed, subversive of the established religion. They accordingly opposed it with great warmth; but found the general sense of the house strongly against them, and were surprized to fee a considerable part of administration and almost the whole of opposition for once join in opinion, and both appear equally sanguine in the cause of religious liberty, and for extending the benefits of toleration. The motion was accordingly carried without a division, and the numbers that appeared against it, upon the second and third reading, were so small, as scarcely to merit observation. It was however productive of very considerable debates, as well in this part of its progress, as when it was afterwards carried up to the house of lords.


Many of the arguments, made use of in these debates, were of course upon the same principles, with those which had been already repeated upon the former affair of the petition. Many others, however, were distinct, and upon new ground. It was said to opposition to the bill, that a total exemption from subscription would open the way for such as inundation of enthusiasm, absurdity, and extravagance into the Christian church, as would equally deface and deform it; that Arians, Socinians, Deists, and profane scoffers of all denominations, would take that opportunity to mount the pulpit, and therefrom to undermine, ridicule, or directly attack the principle of the Christian religion, and perhaps to deny the divinity of its Author. 

That though the Diffenters were a respectable body, and that a proper regard should be paid to the tenderness of their consciences, and even to their prejudices, some regard was also due to the members of the established church, who were much more numerous, and should not be held less respectable; that they.