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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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utter aversion . If in statijggWs ( jfche Earl of Eldon ' s ) own opinjbns o % the subject , he had used strong language , he could assure their Lordships that nothing he had said or could say upon the subject would express in terms as strong as that Noble Lord would have used * had he been able to be present , his decided opposition to the measure . He said this , because that Noble Lord had been
compelled , by unavoidable circumstances , to be absent from this discussion , and it was only by accident that he had not left him his proxy . The Noble Earl then alluded to the hostility which the clergy entertained towards the Bill , and intimated that a meeting of the clergy of an Archdeaconry of Middlesex , was , as he was informed by a letter , about to take place , to express their disapprobation of the measure .
The Bishop of Chester said , that he felt himself bound to say a few words in support of the Bill , in conformity with the pledge he had previously given . He agreed with the Noble and Learned Earl opposite , that some alterations were necessary , but he thought with the Noble and Learned Lord on the Woolsack , that these alterations could be well and easily
made in the Committee . He would not now go at length into the details of the Bill , but he thought their Lordships would do wisely to acknowledge its principle , by which they would give satisfaction to a numerous body of Dissenters , in declaring to them that the Legislature was ready to give a pledge of its willingness to grant the relief which they
claimed , and justly claimed , and to afford them all the assistance compatible with the integrity of the Church , and with the safety of the civil institutions of the country on this subject . He should trouble their Lordships with but few remarks upon this Bill . He should not have trespassed upon their attention at all , but that he thought the question was
one of paramount importance , on which , alluded to as he had been directly , and especially after such remarks aa had been made , he felt that he was bound not to give his vote without stating the grounds on which his opinion was founded . The marriage ceremony was the only portion of the service of the
Church of England to which it was compulsory on every person to conform . He said compulsory because marriage was not only a natural right but a Christian duty . Now , by the law as it at present stood , no Dissenters from the Church , except the Quakers , coulcj enter into the married state withqut appearing to agree
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to doctrines from which they in fact strongly dissented . The main parto ~ the essence of marriage — consisted in the consent of the parlies ; but the State properly claimed some power in the regulation of that important ceremony . There were two points ou which alone the State could ground its right so
to interfere—first , as it regarded public good in the preservation of the means of promoting order and regularity , and of ascertaining the legitimacy of children , in order to determine the titles to property ; and , secondly , that such an interference was necessary or expedient in order to give all possible solemnity to the matter . With the first of these
considerations the Church , as a Church , in its spiritual capacity , had nothing to do ; and with respect to the second , he could not avoid expressing his serious doubts whether the solemnity of the ceremony was increased , by two persons being compelled to do that which seemed to amount to an acquiescence in doctrines from which they really dissented . Though himself convinced as a member of the
Church of England that marriage was a contract which ought to be considered as sacred , and should be attended with every circumstance that would render it a most solemn engagement in the eyes of those who entered into it ; he feared
that it did not gain much in solemnity , or in sacredness of character , by the laws now regulating the practice of the Church of England . Although he was convinced that matrimony was , to use the language of the Church , a holy state , not to be entered into without the
observance of religious forms and ceremonies , yet he could not forget , that in the 25 th Article of the Church itself , it was expressly stated , that there were " not any visible signs or ceremonies ordained of God . " Swinburn had laid it down that it is the consent of the parties
which is the essence of marriage . It did appear to him that a Christian state was not warranted in imposing upon its subjects an obnoxious form of religious worship , if the civil regulations to which alone it was called upon to attend could be carried into effect without it . He did not mean to admit that all sorts of
Kcruples were thus to be allowed to interfere with the general policy and interest of the community . There mus $ , he thought , be some discretion which the state should exercise with a view to the general good . But there were scruples , as in the present case , which it was impossible to disregard without interfering with the most sacred rights of con-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 624, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/72/
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