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    Untitled Article

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    Untitled Article

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    INTELLIGENCE.

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    Untitled Article

    ( 74 )•

    Untitled Article

    Register at Dr . Williams ' * Library . A joint Committee of Ministers and Deputies of the Three Denominations was appointed some time ago , to consider the state and validity of the system used in this Registry , and cases have been submitted to eminent counsel on the subject for their opinions .

    The result we understand to be , that , at a meeting held on the 1 st of December , this Committee agreed to certain resolutions , which were in substance , That the existing forms of Certificate and Registration at Dr . Williams ' s Library are of a highly valuable character , answering in the completest manner almost all the purposes required , and

    giving as good legal proof as can be attained by a voluntary institution , and a much better clue , in many cases , to actual proof than the parochial Registers ;—that the system ought to be recommended to general use;—that the wnole plan of Registration of Births , Marriages and

    Deaths in England is radically defective , not only as identified with the Establishment , which includes only part of the community , but as being in its details imperfect;—and , that such a change as ought to be looked to as an effectual cure , can only be expected to spring out of a successful result to exertions in

    favour of those greater questions affecting Dissenters of all classes , which the meeting trusted would soon be discussed in the new Parliament . ¦ The efficiency of the system of Registration established under the superintcndance of the Deputies of the Three Denominations at Dr . Williams ' s Library has been lately a good deal discussed .

    If a better plan can be devised , especially if a thorough reform of the whole system can by any exertions be brought about , no efforts should be spared ; but if vague ideas of defects or of the probability of change or improvement should lead to any neglect of the present mode until a better can be established , ( which we fear is remote and improbable , ) we cannot but think that great mischief will

    ensue . The truth is , that the whole system of this country , in identifying the administration of these matters of civil policy with the ecclesiastical jurisdictions , renders every attempt at improvement which shall not go to the root of the evil , difficult , and likely to be productive of * as much inconvenience as the evil itself .

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    The Churchman wants a new system , if he rightly considers his own interests , as much as the Dissenter , the Catholic , and the Jew , does . It might be very well when every body was ( if there ever waa such a time ) a member of the Establishment , to make the record of the fact of passing through its ordinances ( as individuals would necessarily at or soon after birth , marriage and death ) a sufficiently accurate register of the events

    connected with them ; but when a large proportion of the country do not pass through those ordinances , or do so only by compulsion on conscience , it is obvious , that to trust to such a record , which misses half the proper subjects of it , must be a most bungling contrivance . It would be as if a shepherd numbered his flock at their passage through one entrance or exit to the fold , when there were half a dozen others , of which he took no heed at all .

    We should like to know what reliance for instance , ( looking at it as a mere statistic question , ) can be placed on the returns of births within the - bills of mortality , drawn from the only official sources of information , the parochial baptismal Registers ?

    One great mischief arising from connecting these records with Church ordinances , on the absurd assumption , in the face of undoubted and notorious fact , that all the population belong to the Establishment , is , that the Church is very jealous in monopolizing these offices to itself ; will talk of offices entrusted to it for civil ends , only within as it

    were the memory of man , as parts of its ancient privileges $ will claim to itself , as a necessary appendage , the right of transacting some of the most important civil business of the country ; and yet will not allow the least adaptation of this business to the altered situation and religion *

    feelings of the parties concerned , under the plea that by such an adaptation you would infringe upon its rites and ordinances as a-religious body . It will suffer itself to be made ( by the Marriage Act for instance ) the civil officer of the State , and then immediately turn round upon you and say ,. " I am administering my religious ordinances ; you are compelled to come to them , it is true , only for a civil purpose ; but when you are there I will make yon swallow all I please to administer . " It is in vain to remind the Churchman that it is no favour that is asked of him ;

    Intelligence.

    INTELLIGENCE .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1827, page 74, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1792/page/74/