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    this in a manner and under circumstances in which it is most likely to prove effective : first , in satisfying his own conscience ; and , second , in upholding to the world the wickedness , to the Legislature the injustice , and to the Church the inconvenience , of obtaining a forced conforniitv to established doctrines .

    u Other and concurrent efforts have been used by the Freethinkiug Christians to assert , in this particular , the rights of conscience . They have been the first religious body who , by means of the

    press , have called the attention of Disseuters to this important subject ; and for many years past , and on several occasions , they have , in common with the Unitarian body , petitioned both Houses of Parliament for relief .

    " Thus petitioning the Legislature as the fiamers of an obnoxious law , and protesting to the clergy as the executors of such law , have the Freethinking Christians proceeded . They are , indeed , aware

    that when the law is opposed to conscience , no course can be wholly free from objection ; but they submit that it is not for those who inflict a wrong to complain of the manner in which it is either received or resisted .

    u It is not denied that the presenting of protests , according to the practice of the Freethinking Christians , must be paiuful to the clergy ; but the inconvenience is one occasioned by the law , and the

    clergyman is a willing instrument of the law . He takes upon himself priest ' s orders—he enjoys the honours and emoluments of his calling—and shall he refuse to take the burden with the benefit , when he offers himself as the instrument of

    power to violate the rights of conscience ? It results also from this statement of the case , that it is by a sophism only that the situation of him who performs the ceremony can be held to be the same as that of the party to whom it is administered ; for it is really distinguished therefrom by all the difference between voluntary acceptance and compulsory submission .

    ' It is asked , « What have the clergy of the Established Church to do with protests of this nature ? Or where is the acceptance of them enjoined as part of their duty ? ' The question is invidious to the clergy , and can only be raised upou fhe presumption of their being the passive instruments of arbitrary power , or hirelings caring not for the flock . For if the cergy of the Church of England be , as ™ y profess to be , the servants of Christ ; it they hold , as they profess to hold , engion to he a sacred affair between nau and his Maker ;—if they honour , as uV iw to h ° nour , the principles of uc Keformation , which overthrew the

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    dominion of law over conscience ;—then by the meekness and gentleness of Christ —by all that 5 s sacred in religion— -bywhatever was great and glorious in the example of our Reformers—are they bound to receive every declaration by which conscience shall assert its rights , aud religion maintain its consistency .

    " ft is said , that * it would be quite as rational in the clergyman to give the couple a protest on account of their faith , as for them to give him one on account of a rite contained in the Book of Common Prayer . " Perhaps it would : only it should seem the clergyman is more willing

    to commit his conscience to the keeping of the state , than the Freethinking Christian is disposed to do ; otherwise , indeed , there seems no reason why the clergyman should not protest to the Dissenter

    against being considered a willing party to so indecent a mockery of religion , as the performance of a solemn ceremony to those who have openly and beforehand repudiated its sanctions , denounced its minister , and denied its doctrines !

    ' * Such protests , on the part of the clergy , if accompanied by petitions to the Legislature , would tend speedily to relieve themselves from a painful duty , and Dissenters from a degrading submission . At present , however , the clergy have

    neither protested nor petitioned ; but they have , by an overwhelming opposition , during the last session of parliament , defeated that measure of relief by which it was proposed to make the Church respectable and the Dissenters free .

    " It is part of the case of the Dissenters that the evil originated with , and is now upheld by the Church . A corrupt pontifF , misnamed Innocent , ( the third , ) first rendered marriage in the Church compulsory , and raised it to the rank of a sacrament . The Reformed Church ,

    through the terrors of the ecclesiastical courts , continues to assert the exclusive claim of solemnizing marriage . This claim was , for the first time , sanctioned by an act of parliament , in 1753 . By the progress of opinion the law has become oppressive to Dissenters ; they have

    petitioned the Legislature for relief , and the clergy have opposed their prayer . When , therefore , the Dissenter protests to the clergy of a wrong , it is not without , a sense that they have a corrupt interest in that wrong—that they are the cause of its continuance by being the obstacle to its removal .

    " The Church , it is true , has become tolerant ; but when the Dissenter calls to mind the enlightened declaration made by the prime minister of the crown , during the debate on the bill for giving relief to Dissenters in this particular , that

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    Controversy on a Marriage Protest of " Freethinking Christians ? ' 471

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1825, page 471, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2539/page/19/