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    -of the State ia tlie circumstances neces - safy to prevent clandestinity and secure ^ videuce ; thei r religious offices they have no ambition to obtrude upon the Legislature for its approbation , either express or implied ; nor had they conceived that in leaving the business of registration in the hands of the clergy , who have been long habituated to it , and in securing their accustomed fees , they were gratifying a bitter enmity to the order , or degrading it to " baser duties" than are voluntarily undertaken by the leading clergy in the character of magistrates . The Reviewer asks , with Mr . Le Geyt , " Why should not these unions be published at the matketcross ? Why should they not be registered at the Court of Quarter Sessions ? " We reply , Because it would not answer the real object—publicity ; it would involve the necessity of a process before magistrates ; it would increase those wouuds

    to the moral and religious feelings of the community which the writers so much deprecate ; it would be offensive to the religious taste of the Unitarian Dissenter , and it would gratify the uuchristian spleen of a few wrongheaded and inconsistent ministers of the church .

    With regard to the publication of banns in the parish church , we would humbly ask , Where can be the possible offence , since the officiating minister is not privy to the intention to contract an uncanonical marriage ? And if the grant of a certificate ( which , be it remembered , is in daily practice where the parties live

    in separate parishes ) should be offensive to the minister , let the vestry clerk or parish clerk , be empowered to give a cenificate of this simple matter of fact . We are glad to find from these publications that there is a growing disposition on the part of the clergy to spurn the receipt of fees where the law forbids the exercise of their functions . This is

    honouiabteHMi their part , and it simplifies the mode of iclhrf ^ but considering the tenacity jivith which the imy-e ty secular interests of the church are occaslowttUy defended , the Unitarians ought to have escaped the charge of attempting to degrade the clergy by preserving inviolable their right to the established fees which

    several of their own prelates have regarded as an object of great importance to the poorer clergy . But the humours of churchmen like Mr . Le Geyt are unfathomable ; he quarrels with the Legislature for being in an evil hour induced to repeal the acts against Antitrinitarians , ( p . 12 , ) although he had just before asserted their right to an extended

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    toleration ( p . 6 ) ; he vindicates the church against the existing compulsive conformity in ca * e of marriage , laying the blame at the door of the statute law , { p . 20 , ) yet presently assumes-on behalf of the same church the merit of grantiug the fullest toleration in religious opinions , ( p . 22 , ) and subsequently claims ,

    in no equivocal terms , the sanction of divine authority for the office of matrimony , Lord Hardwicke ' s Act , and those " sacred records , " the parish registers ( p . 38 ); and , finally , he establishes the divine origin of the marriage ceremony , and its exclusive appropriation to the priesthood , by quoting the journey of "Abraham ' s servant to take a wife unto

    Isaac , " Gen . xxiv . 12 , 27 , 48 . Well may his orthodox Reviewer remark , that the pamphlet " betrays throughout considerable comm 6 tion of spirit ; more , perhaps , than is altogether compatible with a steady exercise of judgment . "

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    Art . VII . —A Summary of the Laws peculiarly affecting Protestant Dissenters , Sfc . By Joseph Beldam , Esq . 2 d Edition . 1828 .

    Although the speedy appearance of a second edition of this useful little book is a pledge of increasing interest in the subject which we are glad to hail , we should not have thought it necessary to advert to the subject again if Mr . Beldam had not deemed it right to bestow upon ow former strictures the following

    censure : " In these productions , ( the criticisms on his work , ) with but one exception , as far as the author knows , he has had the good fortune to be treated with great candour and courtesy . An article in the Monthly Repository , a periodical , it is believed , of respectability , appears to him to have waived all pretensions to these qualities , and with them its claims to consideration .

    Disclaiming all intention to treat Mr . Beldam x > r his book with any sort of disrespect , ( though « few of its conclusions , or rather the conclusions which it adopted from others , were , we thought , erroneous , ) we are rather surprised at this sensitiveness . On reviewing our strictures we see that we referred to another

    and more experienced source from which a larger work has been long expected . We are afraid our commendatory allusion to the one has been applied as if meant to disparage the other ; we disavow any such intention , though our

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    264 Critical Notices

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1828, page 264, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2559/page/48/