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for the ^ ake of conscience ? Be it , however , understood that the following is a protest against the Marriage j 4 ctf and the Marriage Service as it stands in the . " ¦ Book of Common Prayer . " Protest , Presented in the Church to the Minister toho officiated .
Marriage "being an evident and incontrovertible natural right , it becomes a first duty of the Legislature of every civilized state to afford and provide for this all-important contract a simple and appropriate civil sanction . The undersigned , feeling for others as for themselves , deeply regret that the sauction provided by the Legislature of their country is not of that character , but , oq the contrary , is most incongruous and very seriously objectionable .
From arbitrary custom , if not by positive legislative enactment , Marriage in England , except in the case of Jews and Quakers , can be celebrated only under the auspices of the National Established Church . This , to the undersigned in their present circumstances , at once renders it an incumbent duty ( having learned religious and moral obligation
from the New Covenant which Jesus the Christ came to promulgate ) to aver and declare , that , however estimated by others , they sincerely and conscientiously consider the Church Establishment , as iudeed its appellation imports , a merely civil institution , and its ministers civil officers . And they are most desirous it should be clearly understood , that the ceremony to which they now conform is an inherent civil rite .
But , although they consider and regard the ceremony and form of marriage in the Church of England as inherently a civil rite sanctioned by an English Parliament , yet they cannot but sincerely lament its manifest want of simplicity , its palpable indelicacy , and , what in their matured opinion is of far greater
moment , its peremptorily requiring them to witness and to appear to unite in the prescribed adoration and worship of a plurality of Gods , each of whom is separately invoked ; whilst "to us there is but one Ood , even the Father , of whom are all things . "
Therefore , situated as they now are , and with their views of Christian duty , the undersigned feel themselves imperatively called upon to protest solemnly against the statute of the 26 th of George II ., commonly called Lord Hardwicke ' s Marriage Act : 1 st , Because ( in their opinion by an
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authority assumed and totally uuwar . rautable , no earthly power being com ! petent to confer such authority ) it pre . scribes and establishes a rite or ceremony which is not only unauthorized by , but utterly inconsistent with , that religious
and moral code of which Jesus Christ was the divinely-appointed promulgate ; 2 ndly . Because , although the ceremony it prescribes is an acknowled ged and recognized civil rite , its form is as repulsively indelicate as it is gratuitousl y oppressive : and ,
3 rdly . Because its repeal , and the enactment and substitution of another statute , equally efficient ( and at the same time perfectly unobjectionable , could not be attended with the smallest inconvenience . Signed , WILLIAM ALEXANDER ELIZABETH MOY . In the evening I sent a copy of the above inclosed in a letter to the Rev .
Richard Turner , the venerable and justly respected perpetual curate of the parish of Great Yarmouth . The same post also conveyed a letter inclosing another copy to their aged , most amiable , and truly venerable diocesan , the Bishop of Norwich .
I endeavpured to couch nay letters in respectful terms , yet so as plainly to intimate that , if my complaint should appear to be well-founded , it was the enviable privilege of those who possessed the power to propose a remedy for an acknowledged great evil . And I confess it is my ardeut wish , by all proper means , to endeavour to draw the attention of
influential men , not to ourselves , for that we would gladly have avoided , but to a serious public grievance . The post , the next day , brought the following letter from the good Bishop : " Sir , " Your remarks upon the * form of solemnizatiou of matrimony' in the
Liturgy of the Established Church , appear to me very satisfactory ; and I would gladly undertake to give my reasons for thinking so , in the House of Lords , did not the infirmities of age remind me , in a manner not to be mistaken , that I aim near the end of my journey to that country where * they neither marry nor are given in marriage . '
" I am , Sir , Yours , &c , &c , " Henry Norwich . "Norwich , June the Sth , 1829 . " Mr . William Alexander , Great-Yarmouth . **
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580 Miscellaneous Correspondence *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1829, page 580, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2575/page/60/
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