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    they came to your bar with a petition ; and it is fair to infer , that they would never have petitioned at all , if they had succeeded in their attempt to set the legislature at defiance . It should be observed , however , that

    the Unitarians are not responsible for the conduct of Fearon . I am not certain that he ever professed himself a member of their sect . He now calls himself a Free-Thinking Christian , which is a roundabout name for an unbeliever . The present outcry against the Marriage-Act originated with this man .

    But it comes before the House of Commons in a less questionable shape , introduced to their notice by a respectable member , and preceded by petitions from every corner of the kingdom . To the former circumstance I am willing to

    attribute all the importance that it can claim . It is the only favourable feature which I can discover in the case , and any encouragement which the Bill may unhappily receive , will be owing to its author rather than to its merits . The

    latter , I certainly consider as of very little consequence ; for since the day on which the secret of simultaneous petitioning was first discovered by the Dissenters , there is no question , however trivial , on which parchment is not put into requisition , and Parliament duly acquainted with the grievances of his Majesty's subjects . A

    bustling London secretary sends a circular to his friends in the country , and back comes the humble petition and prayer by return of post . Whether the measure in contemplation be great or small , a tithe-bill or a turnpike-bill , a school-bill or a marriage-bill , the popular voice is invariably declared with the same sincerity and dispatch .

    But to come a little closer to the grievance and the remedy . The first is , that the words " in the name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost /' occur twice in the course of the Marriage Service , and Unitarians , disbelieving the doctrine of the Trinity , scruple to hear or to repeat the sentence . Now the

    words , even by the confession of Unitarians , are the words of Scripture . Their improved version of the New Testament admits the authenticity of the passage , and contents itself with saying Spirit instead of Ghost , that is , with substituting a modern term in the place of an old one .

    And what is still more to the purpose , these words , which were spoken by our Saviour when he commissioned his Apostles to baptize , are retained as a part of the Baptismal Service in Belsham ' s Unitarian Prayer Book , and are used frequently ¦ , { f not universallyy by the members of his congregation . I must think , there-

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    fore , that the consciences for which we are tiow required to legislate , are not only tender but sore . Unitarians have their own method of explaining the words in question . They do not hesitate to use them in the solemn rite of Baptism ; and

    it is difficult to understand why so much stress should be laid upon their recurrence in the Marriage Service . If in the latter they teach , imply and assume the sublime and mysterious doctrine of a Trinity in Unity , as I conceive they certainly do , they must teach , imply and assume

    the same in the Baptismal Service and in the Scripture—in neither of which have your Petitioners ever been able to disco - ver them . 1 know that Messrs . Fearon and Dillon , and oth ^ s of a similar disposition , call our ceremony blasphemy , and our altars idolatrous . And I also know

    that such declarations are punishable , and should be punished . For though the Trinity Bill be repealed , yet are the Scriptures still protected ; and these scurrilities are directed against the Bible as pointedly as against the Church . Fearon ' s case may possibly be considered peculiar ; inasmuch as he calls himself a

    Free-thinker—and may say that he entertains no more respect for the Scripture than the bona fide Unitarian entertains for the Trinity . How then will you deal with petitioners of this description ? WH 1 you abrogate that maxim of the Common Law , which declares

    Christianity to be part and parcel of the law of England ; and allow a man to plead infidelity as an exemption from your statutes ? If not , where will you draw the line ? The Unitarian rejects the express words of Revelation ; or rather he uses them at the font , and is shocked to hear them at the altar . Is this a religious or

    a reasonable scruple ? I submit very confidently that it is not . A Christian ought not to quarrel with the words of the Bible . They may be injudiciously selected or unnecessarily employed ; but

    blasphemous they cannot be ; and it is no grievance or hardship to be commanded to listen to them and repeat them * unless it bo a grievance and a hardship to be considered and treated as a

    ChriBtian . Our Marriage Service is strictly a Scrip * tural service , and if , under such circumstances , the tenderness of the Unitarian conscience is to be received as a sufficient excuse for the rejection of the ceremony and

    it is evident that every other sect subdivision of relifeiohista has a right to avail itself of the same ple » . ^ Churchmen may be found , who object to parts of this and many other solemftitw ?* And if they were to tell you that their coascieiices revolted at t / his or tfea * parti-

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    356 " The Christian Remembrancer" on the Unitarian Marrtoge-Bilt

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1822, page 356, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2513/page/36/