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Untitled Article
highly respectable persons' whose signatures they bore . He should shortly state the object in view . The prayer , it would be observed * of the petitions was ; that the petitioners might be relieved from the grievance which the use of the marriage service now required by law , imposed , more especially as it affected a particular class of individuals . The grievance complained of was described in as brief terms as possible by the petitioners themselves , when they stated that the service was inconsistent with their religious belief ; some of them also objecting more strongly to it , on the general ground of dissent from the Establishment , and praying to be relieved from joining in any way in its services . It would be necessarv that
he should notice briefly the historical state of the question , and as to that , it appeared quite clear that prior to the Act of 26 Geo . II . marriage ivas considered bv the law of this country as
uderely a civil contract , and the Dissenters were , therefore , prior to that Act , entitled to celebrate their own marriages as ' they pleased . To the ceremonial which the Act had the
effect of requiring Dissenters to submit to , the general body had great objections , looking at it merely as a service , and without going into the general objections to the conformity which it required to the Establishment ; but on the part of the persons for whom he was now more
immediately appearing , ( the Unitarians , ) the prominent objection was the expressions it contained relative to the doctrine of the Trinity . By a recent statute they had been relieved from the penalties and disabilities imposed by laws which had become , in fact , almost
obsolete , and it was very unpleasant to their consciences that : this doctrine should be introduced in a manner that implied a recognition of it on their part . As this introduction was perfectly unnecessary to the object in view in the celebration of marriages , the petitioners were at any rate
justified in their hope , that the liberality of the Legislature would dispense with every thing of that sort . He had before observed , that prior to the 26 th of Geo . IL marriage was always considered in law as essentially a civil contract , and for this proposition he had the authority of Mr . Justice Black-
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stone . It could not , then , be nece s * sary to its validity that ; it should be connected with any religious cere * mony , especially one repugnant , to the feelings and opinions of the parties . From the operation of that Act * Jews and Clunkers were exempted , and he
believed that the petitions which they presented at the time of its parsing , stating ( as the present petitions did ) its interference with their religious opinions , led mainly to their exemption : although he was aware that there were , and continue to be , peculiar circumstances which had pro *
bably considerable influence in the case of those bodies who were more defined than the class of persons whom he wow represented ; but the circumstance that marriages were how so * lemnized by those . bodies among themselves without atiy legislative interference in their favour , and without
any doubt of their validity , was ample proof of the proposition that , before the Act of 526 Geo . II ., all Dissenters were possessed of the same privilege . That the old law had always
contemplated marriage as a civil contract , seemed also evident from the preamble and provisions of 1 £ Chas ; II . C . 33 , which confirmed marriages celebrated by the Justices of the Peace during the Commonwealth . In that Act was
no appearance of an idea that it was necessarily connected with any religious ceremony . The Dissenters of Ireland and Scotland had full liberty given then ? , bein g allowed to : perform their own marriage * ,, and it was hard on those of England to be alone restrained ; The 26 th- of Geo . II . had ,
however , for the accomplishment of a civil purpose of great importance , namely , proper regularity : of celebration and record , made it r necessary that marriage be performed in the Church ; but conceding this to be a desirable object , attended * vith great
civil , advantages , it would not be necessary that the whole . service * intended originally solely for professed members of the Church , should be gone through in order to render the Act , binding . It was , in f $ ct , as was
well known , very usual to omit several parts which were not at all consonant to the delicacy and < Jec ; orum , of the present cjtay- It wqs obvious , that ti * present , marriage ; service , cjoptained two part * which might be readily ** -
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$ 84 Intelligence . — Unitarian Association .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1819, page 384, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1773/page/40/
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