76] 
to religious and civil liberty, who 
did not vote for the repeal of the 
teft and corporation aéts. In _ his 
opinion, therefore, they came with 
an ill grace to, folicit the repeal of a 
teft, when at the fame moment they 
threatened the houfe with one. 
He need not, he faid, trouble the 
houfe to prove, that the diffenters 
would exercife power, if put in pof- 
feffion of it, fince the pofleflion of 
power always produced the inclina- 
tion to exercife it; and, without 
» meaning to throw any ftigma on the 
on 
diffenters, he could not hefitate a 
moment in fuppofing it probable, 
that they might feel inclined to ex- 
ercife their power to the fubverfion 
of the eftablifhed church ; it would 
be fo far from reprehenfible in them, 
that, pofleffing the principles they 
profefs, and acting confcientioufly 
upon thofe principles, it would be- 
come their duty, as honeft men, to 
make the endeavour; for thofe who 
confidered the eftablifhed church to 
be finful and bordering on idolatry, 
would not act conf{cientioufly nor 
confiftently, unlefs they exercifed 
all the legal means in their power to 
do away that idolatry. 
' The teft Jaws had been declared 
inefficacious and nugatory, as the 
legiflature. had been obliged every 
feffion to pafs an act of indemnity. 
If the fact was fo, the complaint of 
oppreffion muft ceafe; for, from 
the right honourable gentleman’s 
own argument it was obvious, that 
the laws were not inforced. Al- 
though the temperate forbearance 
of government from the execu- 
tion of the laws was truly laudable, 
when the danger was neither immi- 
nent nor alarming to the church, 
whofe permanent fafety was their 
object; yet, to repeal the laws in 
queftion, becaufe their execution 
was not always neceflary, would be 
ANNUAL REGISTER, top. 
impolitic in the extreme; as the 
legiflature, if it once fuffered the 
remedy againft fuch danger to be © 
taken out of the hands of the execu- 
tive government, might not be able 
to place it there again when the 
exigence of the times might render 
it abfolutely neceffary for the fafety 
of the church, 
Mr. Burke concurred with Mr, 
Fox upon the general ground of many 
of his arguments reipecting tolera- 
tion, and declared, that had the re- 
peal been moved for ten years ago, 
he fhould probably have joined him 
in fupporting it; but he had the 
itrongeft reaions to believe, that 
many of the perfons now calling 
themfelves difenters, and who ftood 
the moft forward in the prefent ap- 
plication for relief, were men of 
fa€tious and dangerous principles, 
afuated by no motives of religion 
or confcience, to which toleration 
could in any rational fenfe be ap- 
plied. 
upon the dapger and abfurdity, of 
recurring tg abftract original nights 
in determining | civil regulations, 
upon their incompatibility with 
each other, and upon the advantages 
which men derived in exchange for 
the rights of nature from the efta- 
blifhments of civil fociety, and of its 
neceflary concomitant, religion. 
Mr. Burke alfo agreed with Mr. 
Fox, that men were not to be judg~ 
ed merely by their {peculative opi- 
nions, but by their opinions and 
condué& taken together.» It was by 
thefe that he fhould judge how far 
the petitioners were entitled to the 
indulgence they requefted ;, by their 
acts, their declarations, and their 
avowed intentions. 
Mr. Burke then produced and) 
read to the houfe, feveral-authentic, 
documents to fubftantiate the alle- 
gations he had before. made :— 
Amongit 
This led him to remark — 
