The
Toleration Acts, as we may call the bills of 1828 and 1829, are scarcely
less deserving of that character.
The constitution, as it had existed for the last hundred and forty
years, had been not only a Protestant but a Church of England
constitution. Not only all Roman Catholics, but all members of
Protestant Non-conforming sects, all who refused to sign a declaration
against the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and also to take the
Sacrament according to the rites of the one Established Church, were
disqualified for any appointment of trust. That the object with which
the Test Act had been framed and supported was rather political than
religious is notorious; indeed, it was supported by the Protestant
Dissenters, though they themselves were to suffer by its operation, so
greatly at that time did the dread of Popery and the French King
overpower every other consideration.[192] On the Roman Catholics, after
the reign of James II. had increased that apprehension, the restrictions
were tightened. But those which inflicted disabilities on the Protestant
Non-conformists had been gradually relaxed. The repeal of two, the Five
Mile and the Conventicle Acts, had, as we have seen in the last chapter,
been recent measures of Lord Liverpool. But the Test Act still remained,
though it had long been practically a dead letter.
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