A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 | Page 4

in an orderly manner.
In the case of second marriages, additional instructions are sometimes given; for if any of the parties thus intimating their intentions of marrying should have children alive, the same persons, who were deputed to inquire into their clearness from all other engagements, are to see that the rights of such children be legally secured.
When the parties are considered to be free, by the reports of the deputation, to proceed upon their union, they appoint a suitable day for the celebration of it, which is generally one of the week-day meetings for worship. On this day they repair to the Meeting-house with their friends. The congregation, when seated, sit in silence. Perhaps some minister is induced to speak. After a suitable time has elapsed, the man and the woman rise up together, and, taking each other by the hand, declare publicly, that they thus take each other as husband and wife. This constitutes their marriage. By way, however, of evidence of their union, a paper is signed by the man and woman, in the presence of three witnesses, who sign it also, in which it is stated that they have so taken each other in marriage. And, in addition to this, though, it be not a necessary practice, another paper is generally produced and read, stating concisely the proceedings of the parties in their respective Meetings for the purpose of their marriage, and the declaration made by them, as having taken each other as man and wife. This is signed by the parties, their relations, and frequently by many of their friends, and others present. All marriages of other Dissenters are celebrated in the established churches, according to the ceremonies of the same. But the marriages of the Quakers are valid by law in their own Meeting-houses, when solemnised in this simple manner.
SECT. II.
_Quakers, marrying out of the Society, to be disowned--That regulation charged with pride and cruelty--Reasons for this disownment are--That mixed Marriages cannot be celebrated without a violation of same of the great Principles of the Society--That they are generally productive of disputes and uneasiness to those concerned--and that the discipline cannot be carried on in such families._
Among the regulations suggested by George Fox, and adopted by his followers, it was determined that persons, belonging to the society, should not intermarry with those of other religious professions. Such an heterogeneous union was denominated a _mixed marriage_; and persons, engaging in such mixed marriages, were to be disowned.
People of other denominations have charged the Quakers with a more than usually censurable pride, on account of their adoption of this law. They consider them as looking down upon the rest of their fellow-creatures, as so inferior or unholy, as not to deign or to dare to mix in alliance with them, or as looking upon them in the same light as the Jews considered the Heathen, or the Greeks the Barbarian world. And they have charged them also with as much cruelty as pride, on the same account. "A Quaker, they say, feels himself strongly attached to an accomplished woman; but she does not belong to the society. He wishes to marry, but he cannot marry her on account of its laws. Having a respect for the society, he looks round it again, but he looks round it in vain. He finds no one equal to this woman; no one, whom he could love so well. To marry one in the society, while he loves another out of it better, would be evidently wrong. If he does not marry her, he makes the greatest of all sacrifices, for he loses that which he supposes would constitute a source of enjoyment to him for the remainder of his life. If he marries her, he is expelled the society; and this, without having been guilty of an immoral offence."
One of the reasons, which the Quakers give for the adoption of this law of disownment in the case of mixed marriages, is, that those who engage in them violate some of the most important principles of the society, and such indeed as are distinguishing characteristics of Quakerism from the religion of the world.
It is a religious tenet of the Quakers, as will be shown in its proper place, that no appointment of man can make a minister of the gospel, and that no service, consisting of an artificial form of words, to be pronounced on stated occasions, can constitute a religious act; for that the spirit of God is essentially necessary to create the one, and to produce the other. It is also another tenet with them, that no minister of a christian church, ought to be paid for his Gospel-labours. This latter tenet is held so sacred by the Quakers, that it affords one reason among others, why they refuse