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Untitled Article
ticular sect , to employ for that purpose a word which expresses , not the peculiarities of such sect , but its * ' agreement" with others ? One might suppose that Mr . A . is himself convinced of its impropriety , seeing
he declares that he uses it as he does certain other terms which are never appropriated to any particular party , but applied alike to all parties who agree in the general principles they import .
It remains then to be seen whether Mr . A . is quite correct in this declaration , or whether the language he now uses is consistent with his general practice . If it be not , his language is to be imputed merely to inadvertence or mistake . But he will allow
that mistakes ought to be corrected . Is it then at all common with that gentleman or any other persons , to use the terms Christian and Protestant in the same manner as he and his party use the term Unitarian ? As specimens of that manner , 1 before cited
the expressions " Unitarian Fund ' and " Unitarian Chapel . * These are cases in point . Mr . A . has conveniently passed the former in silence : and although the latter was brought forward in a < c story , ' and met by him with the declaration that " story telling is not argument , yet I beg
leave to say that the story related did , in my judgment , contain a complete argument , and one that bore directly on the point under discussion . Nor would twenty stories , such as Mr . A . says he could tell , in any degree invalidate it , because they do not strictly apply to that point .
But what is there objectionable in the use of the before cited expressions and other similar modes of appropriating the term Unitarian ? Why , Sir , it reminds one of Joanna Southcott ' s inscription on her chapel " The House of God . " In this there is an
insinuation , not expressed but implied . And so there would if she had raised a public fund for the purposes of her party , and called it The Christian Fund—or The Protestant Fund .
Would it have been correct , or seemly , thus to appropriate a general name to an object intended for particular purposes ?—Now is it not precisely in this manner that the term Unitarian is commonly appropriated by a particular class ? Do they not , for exam-
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ple , apply it byway of distinction to their Fund ? And does not that fund actively aid the propagation of opinions which are peculiarly and exclusively their own ? Opinions in which other Unitarians , such for instance as
Chandler and Price and Towgood and Worthing ton never could concur ? And are not their chapels also , intended and used for the purpose of supporting an interpretation of the Christian scheme decidedly opposed to the faith of these celebrated Unitarians ? It
is true , Unitarianisni Jies at the foundation of their system . But so it might have been said of Joanna , before mentioned , ( supposing her to have adopted the term Christian as the distinguishing appellation of her party ) that Christianity lay at the foundation of her system . To this she added
many fancies peculiarly her own , not included in Christianity ; and in like manner they add many opinions peculiarly their own , not included in Unitarianisni . She might be called a Christian , and they may be called Unitarians , but not by way of < ££ * - tinction . These are not the
distinctive appellations of the respective parties , because , as Mr . Asplatid will admit , they express nothing but what the parties hold in agreement with others .
Here then are two things which I am unable to reconcile ; first , Mr . Aspland ' s professing to use the term in question as he does the term Christian and Protestant , which are never
selected by any particular party of Christians or Protestants as their distinctive appellation . Secondly , his habitually and publicly concurring in the prevailing custom of his party of selecting this term whereby to
distinguish themselves , their institutions , their chapels , their writings , &c . although it confessedly " expresses a principle on which they are in a state of agreement with a respectable portion of their fellow-creatures !"
If , Sir , this manner of using the term be justifiable , a similar use of the opposite term Trinitarian must be equally so . Let us therefore try the question on this ground . Suppose
any one party of Trinitarians , the Wesleyan Methodists for instance , were to select it in the same way : we should then hear perpetually of the Trinitarian conference , the Tri-
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Pastor in Reply to Mr . Aspland , on the Term Unitarian . 71 f
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1815, page 711, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1766/page/47/
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