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Father , the Son , and the Holy Ghost ;;" and yet that they were to be allowed to turn round upon the clergyman , and say , " You hav 6 published our banns in deference to our scruples , but you are also a justice of peace ; and your conscience shall be so dealt with that we
choose you , in despite of any thing you may urge on the score of your conscience , to perform our marriage ceremony in that capacity ? " He was perfectly satisfied that their Lordships would not suffer the clergy of the Church of England to be so degraded and dishonoured , and there must therefore be an
amendment there . Did the Act contain any clauses which sufficiently secured the observance of what was necessary to be observed with respect to licenses , &c . There must also be amendments , and how could such amendments be properly considered now ? Was there any sufficient precision ( considering that they were dealing with a felony without benefit of clergy ) in the
clauses which related to forging registers , making false entries , and similar offences ? It would be necessary to guard against clandestine marriages , and yet all which this Bill did for that purpose was to call upon the parish clergyman to publish the banns . Quakers and Jews were generally married in full assemblies of their connexions and friends ; the
publicity and regularity of these bodies gave a protection against fraud ; but by the proposed Bill , the greatest door was open to frauds . A person had nothing to do but to pretend to be a Unitarian , to have his banns published in a Church to which he never goes , and then proceed to the private room of any justice of the peace , who will give hitn his
certificate . He might put this certificate in his pocket , if he chose to run the risk of a penalty of 20 / ., which this very justice might reduce to five pounds , with the privilege also of putting the informer by an appeal to an expense , perhaps , of 100 / . ; and then he might turn round and say to the woman , " You cannot prove the marriage if you are a Unitarian ; and if you me not the whole is an imposition . " He not only , objected to the Bill because
it was intended to put the Unitarians on the same footing as Quakers , but he would go further , and say , that if the House did intend to adopt the principles of the Bill , its enactments were not calculated to carry those principles into effect . He would not object to give to these persons the same sort of exemption as Jews and Quakers ; but the House should recollect that these very Quakers were not so tolerated originally except on
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their making a declaration of their belief in all which these persons , for whom they were asked to do so much more , disbelieved . If the House thought that tne Bill ought to pass , he still objected to its passing in the present session . It would want so many amendments , so many serious alterations , to make it a bill such as it ought to be , that it woul& be impossible to get through with it in the present session , and he should feel himself bound to move that it be read
this day three months . Having no inclination to do more than his duty , if the House consented to the principle , he would give his best assistance in the details ; but he still objected to being placed in a situation where the House could * not do its duty by such a bill ; and if they could , the Commons certainly could not do theirs . There was another
point on which he anticipated that the Noble Lord on the Woolsack , and the other Learned Lord near him , would support him , namely , that this Bill sought to make that evidence , which the clergyman was to certify without actual knowledge that it was true . At present the register of a marriage was taken as evidence in a court of justice , because the
Marriage Act required the clergyman who celebrated the marriage to sign the registry . This was making the clergyman certify what he knew to be true . The same principle applied to baptism . The entry was received because the clergyman certified what he had actually done , but ( unless this was altered by a late act ) if the clergyman Went on to state the date of
the birth , this was not evidence of that fact , because he did not know it . It was not necessary for him to give any opinion upon the principle of the Bill ; the only thing to consider was , the necessity of having time to consider how to make the Bill , upon its own principles , « ffective . He trusted that their Lordships would feel in favour of the old law of the land ,
and let the present Bill stand over till next session . If it were said , that the parties aggrieved by the present law ought not to be allowed to continue so long under the injury they suffered , he would ask , whose fault was that ? Why did they not come earlier ? Year after year , this Bill had been proposed to the
House , and always at this inconvenient period . They ^ who so delayed were alone to blame if the relief they sought was deferred . All the great questions , the Test and Corporation Acts , Parliamen tary Reform , the Corn Bill , and vacrtbvs other important tnatters , by commmrcon * sent stood' over ; he must entireat' them
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Intelligence .- ~ Unitarian Marriage Bill 619
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 619, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/67/
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