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INTELLIGENCE.
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DOMESTIC . Religious . Unitarian Association . Proceedings in Parliament on the subject of the Marriage Laws . In the House of Commons , on the 1 st July IS 19 , Mr . W . Smith moved the commitment of the Bill for
extending relief from the operation of the Marriage Law , it having a few days previous been brought in and lead a first and second time . Lord Castlereagh urged the propriety of not pressing the Bill farther in the present Session . He wished
not to express any decided opinion as to the measure * , but it was to be remarked , that it only gave relief to one class of persons , who objected to the present Marriage Ceremony—the Protestant Dissenters , and not to the Catholics , who also objected to it . He was sure there could be but one
feeling as to the propriety of giving every attention to the scruples of conscientious persons . Mr . W . Smith repeated the statement which he had made when he first proposed the measure , to shew that an object , which was allowed
to be desirable , was obtained in an unobjectionable manner ; the relief granted to one class of Dissenters being afforded without prejudice to any other class , or even to the most rigid friend of the Church of England . A part of the ceremony was to be
left out when certain persons requested it . —In the part that remained of the ceremony , not one word was altered ; neither the parson officiating , nor the place , nor the mode of publication by banns , nor the civil sanction , nor the civil effects of marriage ,
were in any respect changed . The Romish Dissenters , it was said , objected to the ceremony in toto 9 but they were not placed in a worse situation by the Bill ; on the contrary , a door was opened for that relief which they were entitled to . As , however , it would be yaih for him to
hope to pass it at present , after the declaration of the Noble Lord , he should withdraw it , with the inten-
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( 446 ;
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tion of submitting it iu the ucxt Session . Dr . Phillimore , without objecting to the end to be attained , suggested that the Bill was open to two objections—first , that by stripping the ceremony of all its religious part , it might be regarded with less
reverence by the members of the Church ; and second , that the clergy might feel conscientious scruples in' performing a ceremony which they were accustomed to consider as a religious one , thus degraded into a mere civil ordinance .
Sir J . Mackintosh * after recapitulating the objections of Dr . Phillimore , observed , that the first of those objections appeared to him rather singular , since nothing could more
tend to lessen and degrade a ceremony than the knowledge that persons conformed to what they did not believe * arid uttered under the form of devotion words in which their hearts
did not join , and to which in their consciences they felt invincible repugnance . The idea which gave weight and seriousness to the ceremony , was the belief that it was a
vo ) untary and conscientious declaration of the feelings , and a compulsory insincerity could only weaken the aid that religion and the law gave to this solemn engagement . { Hear . ) He was rather alarmed at the principle contained in the second objection . The Marriage Ceremony , and the other rites of the Cliurch of England we re established by the Act ofUniformity , and the power which ordained could require ( though it would not do it without deliberation ) that those ceremonies should not be performed in certain cases . Religion was the relation of 1 nun to his Creator , but an
established church was the creature of civil policy . Dr . fihillimore explained , and Mr . W . Smith said a few words in explanation , after which , by consent of all parties , the Bill was ordered to be committed that day three weeks , and therefore drops for this Session * Considering the late period of the Session , ( which afforded little or no
Intelligence.
INTELLIGENCE .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1819, page 446, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1774/page/46/
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