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Untitled Article
feelings of just and enlightened toleration . Without saying that no measure might be proposed calculated to relieve the parties complaining on unobjectionable principles , Tbut having no difficulty in saying that none yet offered ,
answered to that description , ) he could not help observing , that in what was asked in the way of toleration for them , he could see no toleration shewn towards the members of the Church . If a Protestant and : Catholic were to
be married , no attention was to be given to the scruples of the Protestant ; but he was to be taken from the rites and ceremonies of his own church to accommodate the scruples of the Catholic . This could not be , » - ¦ < ¦ ' ¦ ' ¦¦ ¦ . The Bill did not bring forward the specific pretensions—( he was willing to
admit ) the Just claims—of those bodies who differed from the Church , but whom still they would and must consider as comprising most respectable characters . It sought to open the door to every kind of mischief . It pretended to be founded generally on a concession to religious objections ; but was it intended that , in cases where these might lead to the denial of the very
truths of Christianity , there was to be no liue drawn > Were their Lordships to lend themselves to relieve any . thing that assumed the form of any sort of objection to the Church ? This Bill led to such consequences . It defined or described nothing . In their wish to meet the conscientious difficulties of persons dissenting from the Church , let them see where this Bill would lead .
In every town and village these places of worship , these conventicles ( meaning to use the word in no invidious sense ) were opened . Their licenses weite easily got , and ought ( he would admit ) to be easily got ; but would their
Lordships allow , as this Bill allowed , that every place which could be so registered for worship should be a place for solemnizing marriage ?—that not only every town and village , but every street should be full of theto ; and that not merely for respectable and conscientious bodies of Dissenters , but fe *
every species of absurdity that might be devised ?—for the followers iof Johanna Southcott , for Ranters , Jumpers , and all sorts of sects , nay , farther , for all persons who in any way might or should hereafter decline conformity to the Church ? True It might be said the Bill may be amended in a Committee , but he did press on their consideration , whether a measure working suck mighty
changes should be brought in at such a period of the session , whether they should set about the task of seeing whether it could be amended , or whether it would not be wiser at an earlier period of an ensuing session , to introduce a Bill when there should be more time to give it proper consideration . There was another feature of the Bill which he could in no way reconcile to himself .
Under the notion of giving this toleration , and' feeling the nettetltty of attending to the revenues of the Church , there were provisions for tttftking its ministers parties to these irregular marriages . He could never consent that
the Church of England and its ministers should be made instruments to such purposes ^ lie had rather she should lose the whole income proposed to be aeeuretMo her , ttoaasubmitito ^ such a proposition , as t 6 make her a party to sanctum rise . acts of the , worst sets of congregatiotusts * He was ^ h ^ would
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1823, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1714/page/53/
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