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    that which was before illegal , legal—that the Dissenters' way of worship is permitted aud allowed by thjat Act—that it is not only exempted from punishment but rendered innocent aud lawful—it is established —it is put under the

    protection . and not merely under the connivance of the law "—and ^ " that there cannot be a p lainer position than that the law pro * tects nothing in that very respect in which it is in the eye of the law at the

    same time a crime . " That this decision was come to after full argument and in opposition to the opinion then held by certain lawyers and judges , and even delivered on that

    occasion in your Honourable House , —that although the penalties of the acts against Nonconformists were repealed , the offence or crime against which those acts were directed must in law be considered as still subsisting .

    That your petitioners were until lately excepted from the benefits of the Toleration Act , but that by an act lately passed this exception was repealed . That your petitioners therefore conceited , and that it was till very lately the

    universal understanding of the nation , ( as they are sure it was the intention of the persons in communication with whom the measure was so liberally forwarded , ) that on such repeal your netdtioneTS became entitled to all the privileges of the Toleration Act , and to the full benefit of

    the above noble decision of your Honourable House . That your petitioners have , however , to their great surprise and concern , heard it lately asserted or insinuated , that this their expectation was altogether illusory , —that the boon conceded to them only left them exposed to a vague and

    undefined liability , —that notwithstanding the protection and sanction and ( to use the words of the above great judge ) the " establishment" of their worship , they are liable at common law to certain pains and penalties for teaching and preaching

    in that very mode of worship so sanctioned , licensed , and established by law . Your petitioners submit that the questioning of a particular doctrine forming part of that mode of Christianity which is established by law , never was and is not now an offence at common law .

    That the cases on which the common law prosecution of offences against religion rests proceed solely ( and are so stated by all . the text writers ) on the principle that it is an offence against society to attack religion and divine

    revelation in general , which is the basis of moral obligation and the sanction of judicial oaths . " For . that . ( to use the worcjs of Chief Justice Hale in Taylor ' s case ) to say religion is a cheat , is to dissolve

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    all moral obligation , whereby civil societies are preserved / 5 And ia t&e same manner Lord Raymond in Woolston ' s case ( which is themain foundation o £ aji the law on the subject ) expressly $ &-dared , that " -to-write against Christianity in general [ was an offence at Salmon law punishable in the temporal

    courts ; but desired , however , it might be taken notice of that they laid their stress on the word general , and did not intend to include disputes amoag ^ learned men upon particular controverted points * " In another report of the same case , his

    Lordship is stated to have said , " We do not meddle with any difference of opinion , and we interpose ' ' only where the very root of Christianity is struck at , as it plainly was there , the whole relation of the life and miracles of Christ being denied "

    That m the spirit aud acting on this principle of the comman law , the Act of 19 th Geo . 111 . ( recited in the Act of the 53 rd Geo . II ! . c . 160 ) has , as your petitioners submit , declared and enacted that tfie only profession of faith which it

    is necessary for the interests of society to enforce and require , is the declaration therein set forth , that the party is a Christian and a Protestant , and as such , believes the Scriptures to contain the revealed will of God , and that he receives the same as the rule of his doctrine and

    practice . This profession of faith your petitioners need not say they are at all times willing to avow and maintain , although they differ , and have by law a right to differ , from the Established Church in their interpretation of those Scriptures .

    That the controverting of particular doctrines of Christianity as received by the Establishment , never amounted in law , as your petitioners submit , to any thing more than heresy , which was not cognizable by the civil magistrate , although it was , doubtless , in former times considered a crime , and perhaps , in the words of 9 and 10 William JII . "a de ~

    testable crime" That the cognizance of heresy was the province of the ecclesiastical courts , whose jurisdiction is by the Toleration Act taken away ; that the civil magistrate has only interfered with heresy under particular and positive law , and that , according to this view of the subject , Mr . Justice Blackstone correctly

    states the statute of 9 and 10 William III . ( so far as regards your petitioners ) as only giving the magistrate a power of interposition for the more effectual suppression of a particular species of heresy which the ecclesiastical courts were found insufficient to repress . Although there appears to your petitioners , therefore , to be no ground for

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    Intelligence . — Unitarian Petition . 381

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1825, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2537/page/55/