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ficial , and he should vote for the Committee . The Bishop of St . David ' s then spoke , but in so low a tone as to be nearly inaudible below the bar- We only caught
a sentence or two . His Lordship said , the Unitarians objected to doctrines which were held by the great mass of Christians to be essential to Christianity . The objections of the Unitarians , therefore , were to what the House must consider as the essential doctrines of
Christianity , and it ought to be prepared , if it relieved them , to relieve every one , however opposed to Christianity . The words used , he contended , required no declaration of faith from the parties , they were merely the conclusion of a contract pronounced by a third person .
The Archbishop of Canterbury admitted that the Unitarians denied the Trinity , which the Church considered as an important and essential doctrine of Christianity * and it was on tJfaat account that they sought relief ; but it could be no satisfaction to the Church , nor could the Church desire it , to force the
Unitarians to acquiesce in some parts of its service wfoich tfoey denied , or , at any rate , to maintain a seeming acquiescence . He had heard it said , with great surprise , that the words might be used by the minister in one sense , and received by the parties in another . What was this but to encourage prevarication , and a simulated assent to doctrines which
the parties did not believe ? He was persuaded that it would give as much relief to the minister to tee exonerated from the duty now imposed on him , as it would do to the Unitarian , and he should therefore vote for the Bill going into a Committee , where it might receive such amendments as were proper .
The Bishop of St . David ' s explained , disavowing any opinion that the C&ureto could recognize the affixing of a different meaning to the wolds used . The Archbishop of Canterbury . That was the very point . Tfoe words were notoriously used by the Church in one sense , and , it was said , might be received by the parties in another *
The Marquis of Lansd *© wn < £ could not allow this opportunity to pass without adverting to same topics which had been urged out of that House , and partly adopted , perhaps by some of their Lordships , and which could only be maintained in complete misapprehension of the Bill , and of the law of England , when it was stated that these Dissenters should be
placed in the same situation as they were iu the reign of Kiiag William ; those who stated this , foigot that if the law were now as it was then * the IMsseufors would
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now have had no occasion to ask for relief . It was in consequence of ao after innovation , effected by the « Act introduced by Lord Hardwicke , in the 26 th of George II ., intended for a very different purpose , that the Dissenters were indirectly
subjected to those hardships from which they now sought relief . This Act , so far from being intended to produce what had been described by the Archbishop of Canterbury as a simulated assent to doctrines which were not believed , was intended , as the title of the law imports , solely to
prevent clandestine marriages , and give the community all the security which the law couJd bestow against the consequences of such marriages . Inci den tally it had the effect complained of , by subjecting the Dissenters , like all other persons , to the regulations for preventing
these marriages , atid it was this incidental effect from Which they now wished to be liberated , and which constituted a distinct and fairground of claim for relief ; not by altering the Liturgy of the Church of England , liowever , as the Right Reverend Prelate who spoke first , seemed
to suppose . The Dissenters asked no such thing ; they sought no concession from the Church , but an alteration in the law , which would relieve them from the evil of which they complained . They knew that it had been thought necessary to adhere rigidly to the Liturgy ; and that it had been declared that no alteration
could be made—and they , therefore , only asked relief in a mode which would subject them to additional trouble and expense , but would , at that cost , liberate them from the practice of admitting the
doctrines of a Church which they are prepared to deny , and which , in the free exercise of their opinion , they were entitled to deny . The Noble Marquis said he had , on a former occasion , taken some trouble to elicit from the Noble and
Learned L * ord his -opinion as to the legal situation of these parties , and he could not discover that that Noble Lord had any ground for considering the opinions of tfie Unitarians illegal . In the courts of justice in this kingdom it had been long and cheerfully acknowledged , that there was a wide distinction between
those blasphemous opinions which were entertained by persons who had no other object than to subvert religion , and those which grew out of free discussion , which were conscientiously formed , and which might legally exist . But the present Bill
had been represented as a blow aimed against the Church , not intentionally by those who had brought iu the Bill , but by the Bill itself , in its necessary operation . It was easy to makts assertions of this nature , and he could not help recol-
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306 Intelligence *—P ^ rHnmentnrp t Unitarians ' Marriage Bill .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1824, page 306, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2524/page/50/
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