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with the wishes of the parties , and the Episcopal Bench had undertaken to add the weight of their recommendation to the clergy under their respective jurisdictions ; and it might have been time enough to ask for the compulsory provision , or for some other mode of relief , if experience had demonstrated that the grievance was not practically removed by the tolerance of the great bulk of the national clergy . It is true that the Bill reduced the functions of the minister quoad hoc to those of a civil magistrate or registrar : but it is not denied that , for many purposes , he is the only civil functionary provided
by the law ; nor is it esteemed as derogatory from his spiritural character , voluntarily to undertake the duties of a j ustice of the Peace , Commissioner of Taxes , or Deputy Lieutenant : and let it be recollected , that the principal inducements for introducing the Bill in question , were , 1 st , the great desirableness , in a civil point of view , that the circumstances attendant upon the Marriage Ceremony should be altered as little as might be ; and , 2 dly , the impossibility of so accommodating the devotional parts of the established ritual to the religious notions of Unitarians , as to avoid the charge , now most unjustly preferred , of mulitating the forms of adoration to the God of
Trinita-. We must allow the Presbyter to state the nature and design and consequences of the other measure proposed for the relief of Unitarian Dissenters in his own words : " Another measure has been suggested , in which it is proposed to permit Dissenters to marry in their own conventicles , and to recognize in law the
validity of such marriages . But such a measure as this , my Lord , is directly opposed to the second of those two principles , by which 1 assumed , in limine , that both your Lordship and myself were to bje guided , namely , the support of the dignity and privileges of the Establishmeii * . It stands tQ reason that , if we have an Establishment , ( whatever may be the religion established , ) it ought to have not Only the protection of Government , ( tor this should be equally extended to all the tolerated sects , ) but its exclusive countenance and favour . Privileges are for the Establishment , connivance merely for the
sectarians . " The Church is the general rule of the constitution—the Dissenting sects are exceptions to it . The clergy of the Establishment have , in consequence , an ostensible public character allotted to them ; the teachers in the conventicles , being regarded b y church and by law as nothing more than laymei ^ have none . To obtain mis , and to do away the distinction drawn by the Constitution , appears to be among the most influential of the motives which have really awakened the Socinians to a sense of a grievance to which they had
long silently submitted . But , if the Establishment is to be supported , it is certainl y incumbent upon our Legislators to resist the innovation j for here the civil Government possesses the full power of defining the line of separation between the established and a tolerated religion . If schism be a sin , ( as by the doctrine of the Church it undoubtedly is , ) it most assuredly becomes the duty of that State to which the Church is allied , while it tolerates
schismatics , to make the line of distinction between them and the Establishment as clear and precise as possible , in order to prevent the uneducated and ignorant from being led astray , and becoming the victims of heresy . Not only your Lordship , but all the better-educated members of our communion , who , like your Lordship , have attended to the duties and doctrines of the Christian religion , are aware that by schism we mean the desertion of an episcopal church , or the acting in opposition to its laws , when they do not inculcate doctrines which are contrary to Scripture . But this the unlettered cannot , and the self-willed will not , understand . Their reason for being members of the Church is , too often , merely because it is established by law j but , although
Untitled Article
366 Review . — Unitarian Marriage Bill .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 366, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/54/
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