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Act exempted from its benefit the deuiers of the dgctnue af the Trinity * The 9 and 10 : William and Mary against blasphemy and profaneness , provided certain punishment against tvhat it called " crimes , " and one of these was stated to be the denial of any of the persons of the Trinity to be God . He could not conceive that because that Act
was repealed , it was not still to be evidence of what was in the acknowledge ment and understanding of the Legislature , a crime antecedently punishable * though not to that extent , at common law . Mr . Justice Blackstone so treated
it and spoke of it as an offence which the Legislature found it necessary to repress fey severer punishments . The question had been treated in the Courts as one of importance . It had come before himself incidentally in charity cases , and lately it had come before the Court of Kiag ' s Bench , where one judge was of opinion that it was still am offence , and the other three would not say it was not . Therefore he contended they ought now to be explicit , and to require something more determinate than the phrase used by this Bill , as to €€ persons entertaining scruples as to the doctrine of the Trinity . " What did such a phrase mean ? Every body aright be said to have scruples on such a subject some time or other . But if the phrase meant any thing speci / ic , it was what the Bill seemed cau > tiously to avoid acknowledging , ( as if the parties were aware of their situation , ) namely , that they came denying the essential doctrines of the Church . He was only contending that they ought not to leave it so . As to the quotation of Locke , he could only hope that when they came to discuss the Catholic question , he should be allowed the same privilege . It had been said , that he objected first to general measures , and then to
particular ones . It was enough to say he objected to this , because he was quite sure that they could never pass this Bill , and refuse any other sect who chose to apply . He considered the Bill as the greatest blow that had ever been aimed against the Church . If this Bill did not lead to
many others of the same sort from every species of objectors , he would claim little credit for his power of prophecy ; and then , if all sorts of Dissenters were to be let in , he defied them to retain their fees . The Marquis of Lansdowne said , he must contend tbat the Statute which
repealed the exception of Unitarians from the benefit of the Toleration Act , placed them in as good situation as if that exception had never been made . What then was the state of Dissenters generally—
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were they not established in fact , and protected by the State ? If he found oq the highest authority , that the Toleration Act took the Dissenters under the protection of the State , would it not be clear that these persons were in the same
predicament ? That this was the ease , he found expressly decided by Mr . Justice Foster , who , as if foreseeing the very objection , used the strongest expressions * holding that this toleratioo was not to be treated a $ a connivance or exception from penalty , but that the removal of
the penalty took off the idea of offence , and took the worship under the protection of tlie law . Could it have been the intention of the Legislature toleave the Unitarians exposed to the penalties of common law ? If they were , why did
not the Learned Lord state so at the time ? If these persons were to remain subject to prosecution , why did he not iu common candour let them know theitr situation , and not suffer them to be deluded by a fancied protection , when the Learned Lord knew all the time that it
was a delusion ? It had been said , why make the Church ancillary to these marriages ? For this plain reason , that they legislated for the common advantage of the public , He had yet to learn that this was more than a civil institution , in which every member of the community had as
much interest as any party before them . All that the Church was called upon to do , was , to render the duty which it performed on a . 11 other occasions , ta attend to civil regulations devised for the pre-i vention of clandestine marriages and for due registration . It was no indignity
which they were offering to the Churchy but a benefit they were providing for the whole community , and for the Church itself , hi saving it from being made the instrument for violating conscience , with no chance of good to itself or any one , with no prospect of bringing dissidents within its pale , with no probable end
hat , that of defeating all the kind feelings which it ought to conciliate , and substituting recollections of resentment and violated conscience , as well as dislike towards that Church which most strangely tolerated the dissident in separation from its worship at one time , and at another dragged him into a compulsive conformity on an occasion when the interests of the
community call loudest for sincerity . The House divided , when there appeared to be , For the second reading , 21 , —proxies 14 Against it , 20 , —proxies i 3 Majority for the Bill , 2 .
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262 Intelligences—Parliamentary : Unitarians * Marriage Bill .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 252, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/60/
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