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Untitled Article
mony . 'which they consider it their duty to bear in the face of obloquy and reproach against the errors and corruptions of the endowed Church , by declining to join in its communion , and habitually absenting themselves from its ordinary services .
67 T 3 ecause the presentTinfate of the English marriage law casts an unjust reflection , and fixes an unmerited stigma , on the Protestant Dissenting ministers of England , who are thereby treated as unfit to be
trusted with the celebration of marriage ; while their brethren in Scotland , Ireland , and the British Colonies , and Christian ministers of all varieties of sect and denomination in the United States of North
America , universally possessi that privilege . 7 . Because it imposes an unjust and oppressive tax on Protestant Dissenters , by compelling them to remunerate the - clergy- ol-the-eh- ^
dowed Church , for services which might be more advantageously performed by ministers or magistrates of their own selection , who would cheerfully give them , on so interesting- an occasion , their unbought blessing , or gratuitous services .
s . Because the marriage service prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer , was notoriously borrowed from the ritual of the Romish Church , and is founded on the assumption of a tenet peculiar to that Church , viz .
that matrimony , having been consecrated by Divine authority , to be a sacred sign , or mystical emblem , is an affair of ecclesiastical cognizance , belon ging exclusively to the province of a priesthood connected with an episcopal hierarchy .
9 . Because many persons feel conscientious objections to a form of words which one of the parties is invariably required to repeat ' . —With this ring I thce . wed , with my body I f luw worship , and with all my worldly R ° ods j thQQ endow ; in the name qf the Patheii , and op the Son , and
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of the Holy Ghost : the former , or declaratory part of these words , containing expressions , the meaning of which , in the judgment of persons learned in the law , is highly equi-i vocal ; while their combination with the solemn formula introduced at
the conclusion , renders the lawfulness of " the wEole extremely doubtful . 10 . Because the repeal of this intolerant law will wipe off one reproach , which has long attached to the great body of Dissenters , who are justly chargeable with having made a pusillanimous compromise of the rights of conscience , as well as a lamentable defection from that
zealous regard to the purity of Divine worship , and the honour of the Divine name , for which their puritan forefathers were emineiitly distinguished . .. , -- "' 11 , Be&ailse the society of Friends , so long since as the year 1752 , in
consequence of their previous uniformly-consistent refusal of compliance , procured a recognition of the validity of their marriages , in the very act which compelled all other Dissenters to conform to the ceremony of the endowed Church .
12 . Because' the spirit and character of the present times imperatively demand that the more numerous and influential denominations of Protestant Dissenters should no longer exhibit to their fellow-countrymen that egregious lack of proper feeling and becoming energy , which their past conduct has betrayed .
13 . Because the limited class of Dissenters called Unitarians , upon whom this law certainly presses with aggravated weight , having , during several succes ^ iy e Parliameukv brought the subject 'before the legislature , it has already undergone full discussion in both Houses , where the
principle has been universally conceded , on which an efficient measure of general relief may be founded . 14 . Because the way having been thus prepared by others , and the only obstacle which impeded the suo » .
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UNtTAtllAN CHitONTCLE . / 63
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1833, page 63, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2607/page/31/
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