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Untitled Article
appellation of " works of righteousness , ' many of that vilified sect , to whose moral respectability the Presbyter thus bears his unsuspected testimony : " With several Socinians I have the honour to be acquainted ; to their moral worth , the integrity of their conduct , and the respectability of their character ,
I am willing to bear testimony ; but , at the same time , I am obliged , with sorrow of heart , to confess , that I can only regard them in the light of virtuous Heathens . By a Heathen I mean one who , although he may be distinguished from the Atheist by worshiping a God , is equally distinguished from the Christian by denying the true God . " —Pp . 4 , 5 .
But our principal concern is with the argument of the Presbyter in favour of some relief to Unitarians ( as they " must be permitted" slilf to call themselves until some more correctly discriminating appellation shall be pointed out ) from the operation of the present Marriage Law , and with the plan suggested by him . As to the first , he unqualifiedly admits that they are aggrieved :
" It may be expedient for a Government—nay , it is sometimes incumbent upon it—to prohibit the promulgation of doctrines opposed to the religion established ; but it becomes intolerance and persecution to compel men to adore with their lips a Being whom in their hearts they deny . The object of such a proceeding I cannot understand , —of the unlawfulness of it I am fully convinced . "
He further contends , that the grievance is equally oppressive and equally afflictive to himself and his clerical brethren ; he discovers a clear repugnancy between his duty as a servant of the State , and his obedience to the laws of her ally the Church ; and hesitates not to declare , that if any such blasphemous Protest were presented to him as that which we have lately read of in the newspapers , no power on earth , or under the earth , would induce him to perform the service for the protesting parties ; or , as far as his influence might extend , to permit it to be performed by another . —P . 7 .
In discussing the mode of remedying the mutual grievance of the " Christian Priest" and the idolatrous Socinian , the Presbyter glances at the plans which have been already proposed whh this view , but betrays , we are sorry to say , no little want of information upon the points which it most concerned him to know . To describe the first Bill introduced by the Unitarians as proposing a ' « revision of the Marriage Service , and an alteration of it so as to accommodate it to the scruples of the Socinians ; " as calling upon a
Christian clergyman " not only to deny his Saviour , by mutilating or omittmg the form of adoration due to him ; not only to compromise his duty to Almighty God on the arbitrary bidding of those who exult in their denial of him , but to become a party to a religious ceremonial which , in his heart , he believes to be little better than a Pagan rite , "—as a profanation of the Christian temple , by the erection of the image of Baal , ( see p . 8 , )—is to use language equally harsh and inconsiderate , when it is recollected that this
simple measure , in every other respect unobjectionable , merely adopted a distinction , which our author clearly admits and contends for , between the civil and religious celebration of marriage , and proposed to omit altogether the directly devotional part of the Church Service , retaining the solemn and expressive forms of matrimonial contract . As to the imperative nature of the enactment , it seemed difficult to effectuate the relief without investing the Unitarians with a legal ri g ht to it ; but even this offence might perhaps have been removed , if the minister had been merely authorized to comply
Untitled Article
Review , — Unitarian Marriage Bill . S 6 &
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 365, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/53/
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