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plored the bard fate of the clergymen , who by this Bill would be deprived of their fees , all he ( Lord Holland ) had to say in reply , was , that the Bill provided they should have their fees . But , said the Noble Prelate , those for which the
Bill provided , are only the actual dues , and , beyond these dues , it is usual for parties to give a small gratuity on the solemnization of marriages , which form a considerable source of emolument to the officiating clergyman . Well , it might be so ; but was it not at least likely
that an Unitarian would be willing to bestow as large a gratuity when he had his marriage solemnized and registered in such a manner as should satisfy the scruple of his conscience , as when it
was performed in a manner irksome and painful to his feelings ? It was said too by a Noble Lord , Why should we grant * his favour to Unitarians alonewhy is it not to be granted to every other sect ? After the answer which had been
given to this by the Noble President of the Council , he ( Lord Holland ) would not take up ' " ' the time of the House any more than by saying , because it was not favour they were to grant but justice , and because the others did not ask for it , and they , the Unitarians , did . He could not help thinking the Unitarians very hardly dealt
with . If general relief was sought for them , up jumps-the Noble and Learned Lord from the woolsack , and complains that it was too generah He cries out , 4 € Who and what are you ? Are you Jumpers , Shakers , Southcotians , or what , for God ' s sake , are you ? " and fears , i f the relief were given in this shape , they would not be able to make head or tail
of it . Then he was in a great hurry that it should be postponed until the next session , in order that the points should be discussed one by one : but , when the next session came , the Noble and Learned Lord
says , " Why do you come alone ? Why do not all come ? " There was no pleasing him in this way . Surely it was the plainest and best way to give relief to those who came ; to ask for it . If no
danger should appear in domcr so , he would grant it to ail ; but it did appear to him to be the most strange , unparliamentary and illogical reasoning that could be imagined , to say , " We won ' t give you the relief you ask for , because there are others who want it as much as you , and they do not ask for it . " It might be a very good reason for granting the relief to alJ , but it could be no reason for withholding it from any . He concurred entirely in the principles and statements of the Noble and Reverend Metropolitan , and he thought it but justice to him , ami to the Church of which he was an orna-
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ment , to say , that he thought his objection to altering the form of the Liturgy was well founded . He ( Lord Holland ) would not shrink from saying that he thought certain parts of the Liturgy - might be omitted ; there were parts of
it which ., if it were in his power to make an alteration , he would willingly alter . But high as he held the principles of religious liberty , he did not think the members of one church had a right to call upon those of another to make any
such omissions : that would , indeed , be making the functions of the Churcij ancillary to the Dissenters . But the measure proposed to the House was one purely ministerial and of a civil character . The law had made the solemnization and
registration of marriages a part of the clergyman ' s duty , but it was no part of his ecclesiastical functions , and the Church could , therefore , be in no sense called ancillary to the objects of Dissenters .
He , for one , should be for leaving out the licence , as that was the only thing which the Church was called on to grant ; but there , he was afraid , the little doctrine of fees would come across them . One
good-natured Prelate , too , had felt the loss of the pleasure of uniting fond couples more than of the fees , and it would perhaps therefore be well to retain the licences , that he might feel the pleasure in signing them , which he was grieving at
losing in another form . The Noble Lord concluded by saying , that the Unitarians , believing as they did in the Holy Scriptures , were as much Christians as any other persons could be . If the law did
hold deniers of revelation , in general , to hold deniers of revelation , in general , to be blasphemers ( and even on that point he should be inclined to go further than many of their Lordships ) and punishable , it would not affect persons who admitted that revelation as the rule of their faith .
The Church admitted , and , indeed , the only distinction between Popery and Protestantism was , the right of all to judge and interpret for themselves . If Divine Revelation could , with decency or propriety , be said to be part and parcel of a code of laws , it could only be in the sense in which the Unitarians held it as well as
the Church ; and if their Christianity was , as the Noble and Learned Lord said , ( the phrase he thought was something irreverent , ) part and parcel of the law of the land , there could be wo reason why this class of Christian Dissenters should be
called upon to do violence to their consciences upon one of the most interesting and solemn occasions of their lives . The Lord Chancellor had no objection to repeat and explain the grounds of his doubts as to the situation of these parties at common law . The Toleration
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Intelligence . ~—Paritameniary »• Unitarians * Marriage BUL 25 ]
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 251, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/59/
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