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    and want to introduce it Into France . The Jaw whic& they call tytwmic , when established for the benefit of the English H ^ gy they tfeinlc excellent when established in favour of the Catholic priests : they have now , however , pronounced their own condemnation . Who will now praise the plan of a law which is to make the ciril attestation subordinate to the religious ceremony ? It can never be more victoriously combated than in quotiog the fact mentioned by the Btoile , and the remarks which accompany it . "

    From these judicious and liberal comments of the French Editor , we turn , net without a feeling-of concern , to the narrow-minded , flippant and specious criticisms on the conduct and protest of our friends , which appeared in the leading article of Thjb Tikes newspaper , on the day after its publication of those proceedings .

    * ' We inserted an article from a correspondent yesterday , on the subject of a protest tendered to a clergyman of the Church of England , by a couple about to be married , against the ceremony , according to which the clergyman was bound by his duty and solemn obligation to perform the rite . The manner in which we have here stated the case will

    shew our opinion upon it . If the clergy , man had previously promised to accept the protest , he had iu advertently entei ? ed into an improper engagement , from the infraction of which , however , the party with whom the engagement was made could receive no damage ; for what good

    could this protest do them , unless the degradation of the parish priest were a good to those who were married by him ? What have the clergy of the Established Church to do with protests of this nature ? Or where is the acceptance of them enjoined as a part of their duty ? It is not optional with them to use or to

    omit a part of any of the Church ceremonies . They pledge themselves , and are . solemnly bound at their ordination , to comply with the Liturgy of the Church 0 / England ; their hands , therefore , are lled

    ; and it seems excessively foolish to pester them with protests in an affair totally beyoud their controuL It would b quite as ratioual in the clergyman to K » ve the couple a protest on account of their faith « t ? £ « ... « -u « . ^^ *^ v „• m : , men faith for them to him

    , as give one ° » accoupt of a rite contained in the Book ° i Common Prayer . Indeed , it appears 0 ms , that if a Dissenting couple must wnucr a protest on account of their being warned in the Church , and according to " * ritual , the minister of their own Dis-^ "tmg congregation ia ( he proper person

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    to whom the protest should he tendered , and by whom it should be received ; for by such a process be learns , and . is assured , that though this portion of his

    flock may seem to quit him on the most important occasion of their lives , it is only because the existing law of the land forces them , and that he is not , therefore , to esteem them as renegades and deserters .

    " The particular protest , however , in question , ( that signed by W . Woods and S . Hodges , ) possesses a degree of absurdity peculiar to itself ; from which , perhaps , ingenuity might contrive to purify similar documents in future . The parties protesting first to go to the Church , and

    then and there they protest * against the use in their instance of the marriage ceremony , as contained in the Book of Common Prayer / Now , suppose for a moment , that the clergyman had been inclined to violate his duties , and having got the couple into the Chureh , had professed his readiness to save them the

    trouble of a protest , by marrying them according to any other form they tnight wish . Would they ficeve suffered him T Would they have been content to plaee the validity of their marriage upon so rotten a foundation ? Certainly not . They , therefore , protest to the officiating

    minister against his marrying them by the prescribed form , whilst , at the same time , they would not suffer him to marry them by any other . Does not this absurdity prove , that the clergyman is not the person to whom the protest should be presented ? He does not force them to

    be married according to the ritual of the Church of England ; they enter the sacred temple voluntarily , and would force him , if he should attempt to diverge , to use that ritual . The protest then goes on to say , or to complain , that the parties are compelled to submit to the

    Church ceremony , as the only means of obtaining a legal marriage / Aud is not the clergyman also compelled to submit to the use of that ceremony ? How preposterous , then , when all are subject to the same compulsion , for one to protest to another , of an obligation which is not of his imposing to whom the protest is

    offered ; but by which , whether with or against his will , he is equally bound with the author of the protest 1 Having said thus much on the rationale of the subject , we must add , that we cannot excuse the clergyman for any rudeness in Ins manner of rejecting the foolish protest , or for any needless menace of legal constraint /*

    There appeared , in answer to the above article , some very spirited and just observations from the Editor of

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    Controversy on a Marriage Protect of " Frctthinking Christians . " 469

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1825, page 469, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2539/page/17/