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this , because she cannot . But what she can , she does ; for she is possessed with her own branch of the family of Legion . She allegorizes , and prevaricates , and mystifies , and coaxes , and frowns , and does everything but speak out and make her servants tell the whole truth . There may be some who fathom her
meaning , and swear faithfully to it , and do good service accordingly . It is well ; let them be rewarded . But there are others who swear to her in one sense , and serve in another . They serve , however , and are therefore rewarded . There are yet others , who shake their heads about her meaning , but do her bidding : they are to be rewarded of course . But what is to be done with the class
who neither understand nor serve ? Why if they say they understand , let them come in for their share . And this is not encouraging deceit for the credit of the church I What then is pious fraud ? This third head , also , we close with a passage from our author , warning those who would attain a good end , —especially the confirmation of the faith , to abstain from using , or permitting to be
used , any but unexceptionable means . * Let it not be lost sight of that the fraud by which they sought to support the system—the " wall daubed with untempered mortar , " with which they thought to buttress up their edifice—has always tended to its decay . Not only did it give rise to a hostile separation among Christian churches , but in countries which have continued under the Papal sway , the abhorrence and contempt excited by the detection of
a fraudulent system , has led the far greater part of the educated . classes into secret , but total , apostacy from Christ . With the indiscriminate rashness , which is universally so common , they have confusedly blended together in their minds Christianity and its corruptions ; and having in so many instances detected fraud . with absolute certainty , they think it not worth while to inquire further ; but take for granted , that all the church teaches is one
tissue of imposture and superstition throughout . ' ( p . 168 . ) Bearing in mind that disguise , or even silence , on opinions where they differ from the public act of profession , is fraud , we shall see nothing in the above extract that does not apply to the church of England . The fourth chapter , —on undue reliance on human authority , —proceeds throughout on the assumption that a church , in the popular sense of the word , is necessary ; and this in the face of
an explanation , elsewhere given , of the real meaning of the term , viz ., an assemblage of worshippers . We go along with our author in all that he says of the probable origin of the Romish assumption of infallibility , and of the importance of the fact that no creeds were left us by the primitive Christians , and no traces of any catechetical form used by them ; but our inferences from all this would be widely different from his . Whence does he learn ' the necessity which exists of making uae of ( framed ) human expositions of the
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Romanism and Episcopacy . 397
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 387, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/27/
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