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    I thee endow " whereas , this is so eontrary to the fact , and indeed to the law of the land , that unless the woman has made a previous settlement , not only has she no title in th

    possessed before , becomes absolutely and bond , fide bis . To the libertine and the thoughtless 1 am aware that the objections already urged will appear of small importance 5 but the religious and moral character will see no good reason ,

    why a ceremony , performed in a place supposed to be sacred , should continue to exist in a form , which at once violates truth , and offends the ear of delicacy . But , Sir , another arid still more important objection

    i-emains to be noticed . It has happeii&d with the party now about to enter the marriage state , that in the exercise of an honest , though what may be esteemed by some , a mistaken judgment , he has become not only a Dissenter from the Established

    Church , but a Dissenter from the doctrine of the Trinity 3 in the name of which the marriage ceremony is performed . Must then a man , in order to obtain a legal marriage , subscribe to doctrines as true , which he believes to be false ? Must he be guilty of solemn and

    deliberate perjury , and this in a place dedicated to religion ? In vain , Sir , has the Legislature removed the penal privations , to which persons denying the doctrine of the Trinity were formerly subject , if they cannot obtain even the civil right of marriage , without subscribing to the truth of that doctrine . Under these

    circumstances , I am desirous of obtaining satisfactory and categorical answers from some of your intelligent correspondents to the following questions : 1 . As it regards kneeling at the cefebratiorKof the marriage ceremony .

    beeing that some of the directions of this ceremony are in common practice dispensed with ; as for example , laying the accustomary fee on the book , might not the practice of kneeling be

    dispensed with , from those who have conscientious scruples ; and in the case of a man atid woman refusing to kneel , would the priest be justified in refusing to celebrate the marriage ?

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    £ . Seeing the Marriage Act was intended , as the preamble states , " to prevent clandestine marriages , " would i $ not be altogether a legal rtnarriage , if , after the banns were regularly published , the parties desirous of being

    married , were to declare in open church before the minister , in any form of words they might glease , thafc they took each other to be man and wife , and refused to join in any part

    of the ceremony : could the priest ia such a case , refuse to register the marriage , and give the parties a certificate of the same ; and should he so refuse , would the legality of the marriage be invalidated ?

    S . As a great portion of the marliage ceremony is , at the option of the minister , frequently oipitted , wouJd the marriage of a party who should go through the ceremony till the priest had pronounced the

    words" whom God hath joined let no man put asunder / ' and refuse to attend , or subscribe to any thing further , be hereby vitiated ; and as in the second quere , ' « could the priest , ia such a case , refuse to register the marriage , " Sec . &c . ?

    A CONSTANT READER . P . S . I have just learned by the public prints , that a meeting has been held for the establishment of an Association for the Protection of the Civil

    Rights of Unitarians * It is impossible the committee appointed to carry into effect the objects of the Association , can be in any way employed in a manner more consistent with

    the principles of their appointment ^ than in a serious effort to obtain legislative relief to the Unitarian Dissenter in the instance of the marriage cerer mony .

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    160 Questions on the Marriage Ceremony .

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    Hanwood , Sir , January 28 , 1819 . Wffl LE reading the beautiful letter of the *• Reformed Jew , " inserted in your December Repository , [ XIII , 762 , ] how ardently did I wish that the person to whom it was addressed , had entertained more

    scriptural and rational views of Christianity * as such only could have enabled | iim to remove the grand difficulty coftftplained of , and c-ojavince him that the gemtme doctrines of the gospel must necessarily produce , and whfl ^ they continued to be delivered , actually

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1819, page 160, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1770/page/24/