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c&tne f o Church to marryv he declared no general conformity . He was not supposed to do so . He came there to be married because he could be married no where else . With respect to the class in question , if there was any entire and essential difference between their tenets
and any doctrine recognized in our mar * riage service itself , he was willing to admit that that might constitute some ground for the sort of alteration he spoke of . Their Lordships would remember ,
that some time since there was brought into that House a Bill which proposed to give relief to Dissenters of all denominations , who entertained opinions that differed from those of the Church of
England upou particular doctrines . No sect or class was named in it . To that Bill he ventured to offer objections as to the principle ; but he supported the proposi tioo for its going into a committee . In the present instance , the case was very different . In this Bill a particular class
of persons was named , and their particular scruples were denned ; and their Lordships were told tbat while the parties felt all this difficulty as to the solemnization of marriage , they were agreed
as to the necessity of offering every sort of civil security . He ( the Bishop of London ) could not agree with the Bishop of Chester that the parties Lave a right to put what interpretation they please upon the terms of the Church service . But it
still did not appear to him that the Unitarian by it made any concession of his faith * If any one were to say to an Unitarian , that because he had married according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England , he had therefore given up his own peculiar doctrines , and had recognized that of the Holy Trinity , the Unitarian would smile at the infe r *
ence as a calumny upon him . No Uni * tarian , he apprehended , had ever scrupled to be married in the Church upon any such grounds . The measure before their Lordships was not one , therefore ^ which ought to * override every consideration of civil policy ; bnt the House ought
to take sufficient security that it should not in any event be abused by individuals for the purpose of clandestine marriage , or other improper purposes ; that marriages to be solemnized under it ., should be solemnized with , decency ; and that , as far as possible , every fraud that it
might be attempted to practise under colour of such an act , should be obviated . As the Bill was at present worded , it was to be observed , that banns might be falsely and unduly published , and raapriage licences might be forged ; and yet no parties weiie named aa responsible , and u ©
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puiuBh *» e&t assigned as the penalty for such oflfences . The exceptions in favour of Jews and Quakers had been adverted to in the course of this discussion . He would be very willing to grant all that had been granted by the Legislature , m these
respects ; but their cases atoo&very differ * ently in a eivil point of view . As to the Jews , it allowed them an exemption from the operation of the marriage law , where both the parties were Jews . But what was it that these Dissenters asked ? A similar exemption , where even one only
of the parties was an Unitarian . The Jews again , married according to a very ancient and established form of their religion , which was well understood : but the Dissenters prayed that parties might be married according to their religious principles . What was meant by so vague
and so extensive a phrase as this ? Among the Jews and Quakers , the parties were liable to be called upon for the proof of their connexion with those persuasions , in order to give validity to their marriages . Let their Loidships observe , too , what securities there
existed against clandestine marriages , both among Quakers and Jews * In the case of the Jew , they were derived from his prejudices , his habits , his religion , the usages of the people , and even the authority of the Synagogue . There had once beet ) a case decided against the
validity of a Jewish mamiage , by the Learned and Noble Judge ( Lord Stoweli ) who now sat in that House , and had formerly presided with so much honour to himself and to the country in the Consistory Court of London , upon the fact only , that one of the parties was proved
to have entertained opinions that were not consonant with the general religious prejudices of the Jews . The Quakers again were another class ,, among whom the same securities would always exist to a great degree . The members of any branch of this society coming from one
part of the kingdom were obliged to produce testimonials and certificates , before they could be received or admitted into another body of the same connexion in a different portion of the enipire . Without troubling their Lordships with any further detail , he believed he might say that courts of justice had never been called
on to try a single case , in which the indulgence of the Legislature to the marliage of Jews or Quakers had been to be regretted . With regard to these Disseittera , ( the Unitarians , ) if they could give the same securities , possibly no great harm might result from extending the same indulgence to them ; but no such &ec \ ii ^ ities could they offe r * and there *
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248 intdligenee . ^ Parliamenlbry z UnUarlmtf * Marriage Bilk
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 248, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/56/
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