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« nd Mary , it so remained ^ ft&r the re peat . As lonj ^ as ke sat there he should oppose making the Church subservient to the support of the greatest heresy to her doctrines . The most essential of those doctrines he had always understood to be the Trinity ; and how could it be contended that she should be made to assist
the plans of those who openly denied and impugned it ? He should , therefore , vote against the Bill altogether . Lord Liverpool did not rise to enter into a discussion of the particular provisions of the Bill . He should vote for the second reading , and for going into ^ Committee , where several alterations would doubtless be necessary , for he had no difficulty in saying , that if the Bill were to come out of the Cotramittee in
its present shape , he should oppose it hereafter . He was , for instance , prepared to give relief to the case where i > oth parties were Unitarians , but not where only one was so . The Church , he thought , had a right to require the
marriage of all its members . In the case of Jews and Quakers , both must be of that persuasion . He thought too , that the fact of the parties being Unitarians , must not stand alone on their declaration , but that some certificate should be required from their minister of the fact . What he
meant was , to be sure that the parties were bond fide entitled to the provision in their favour . He thought the Bill might be so amended as to reach all his objections , and should vote for the second reading-. The Bishop of Chester , before he entered on the reasons for which he opposed the Bill , begged leave to observe , that no man could be more favourable
to every sound principle of civil and religious toleration than himself . Human laws ought never to be used for the purpose of imposing any unjust restriction on conscientious feelings . In these principles of toleration he had been educated , and the same , he trusted , he should always support , " Dum spiritus hos regit artus . " 'The intercourse between the creature and the Creator ought to be free as air , for this plain reason , that we were bound to obey God rather than man . But the present question was not one of religious toleration , but of civil jurisdiction ;
it was a question , not of Church doctrine , but of Church discipline . It Would be only to waste their Lordships * time , were he to endeavour to shew the advantages of a national and established religion . Those advantages had been proved by many excellent writers : and among ^ others by the excellent author of ** Moral
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« nd Political Philosophy , ** in author * vii © required no praise of his , and to tvhom , he was sure , the Noble Lord opposite would be ready to pay the just tribute of his admiration . But if it was clear thai ;
the establishment of a national religion was advantageous , it was equally clear that that establishment should be upheld and protected by peculiar rights and privileges . That marriages should be celebrated in the Churches of the
Establishment was one of the privileges which had been conceded to it ; and having been so conceded , as a peculiar right and privilege , it ought not to be taken away without the assignment of a valid and sufficient reason . In his opinion , the Unitarians had not made out that sufficient
reason * This was a point , he admitted , which he was bound to prove , and should proceed to do so . The fair way of considering the subject was to consider what it was , according to the marriage ceremony of the Church of England , that the Unitarian was called upon to subscribe or to declare . In the first
place , the Unitarian was called upon to subscribe his name as one of the parties to the contract there made . He could ^ ind no difficulty in doing that . But besides this , he was bound , in the progress of the ceremony , to say , ( e With this ring I thee wed , with my body I thee worship ,
and with all ray worldly goods I thee endow ; in the name of the Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost /* But were not these the words of Scripture ? If the Unitarian believed In Scripture , and that these very words were there , ( as no doubt he did , ) what reasonable objection could he have to repeat those words ?
He might affix to them what meaning he thought most scriptural . Every one was at perfect liberty to do that . It was the spirit of the services , as of the Articles of our excellent Church , to use general scriptural language , to which all might be left to affix their own interpretations . But how could those words be
considered as objectionable by the Unitarians , when the following words were used by the Unitarians themselves in the baptismal part of their Form of Prayer , of which he ( the Bishop of Chester ) had
obtained the last edition : — " I baptize thee into the name of the Father , of the Sow , and of the Holy Spirit . " To be sure the word < c in" was changed into " into" but he did not see what
difference that could make . It seemed to him , therefore , to be impossible that they could object to words in the marriage ceremony of the Church of England „ which they themselves pronounced in their own forms . So far , therefore , their Lordships would agree , that the Unita .-
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244 I& $ elli gence ^ Parliamen iary : Unitmtam ? Marriage BilL
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 244, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/52/
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