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Sir , Feb . 15 , 1822 . IN the last Volume of the Repository , p . 354 , your ingenious and learned correspondent , Dr . Jones , animadverts upon my having" said that " the New Testament disciples of Jesus were pot ashamed or afraid to
own ' that worthy name by which they were called . '" He conceives me chargeable with " a total inattention to the fact . " He has not made it evident what " fact" he adverts to ; but we cannot be mistaken if we
understand him as referring to one , or more probably to both , of the statements which immediately follow : " that all the Jewish converts considered Christianity and Judaism as tlie self-same
religion $ " and " th / it the name Christians was given the disciples by their enemies as a term of reproach : and that , for this reason , the apostles and the converts made by them declined the use of it . "
Neither of these assertions can I regard as " beyond controversy ; " and I do seriously think that strong objections lie against them both . Nor do I perceive that Dr . Jones has replied to the remarks which I proposed upon his sentiment , ( I comply with his wish
in" not calling it hypothesis , ) that Philo and Josephus were Christians . ( Script . Test . ^ I . 449 , 450 . ) Till those remarks are distinctly met , I do not feel myself called upon to embark anew in the dispute . My only object at present is to say , that Dr . Jones has
misapprehended the point of my reference . Perhaps I did not express myself with due explicitness : but the citation of James ii . 7 , I had supposed would have prevented any misconception . By the " worthy name" I did not mean exclusively the appellation Christian , as my respected friend takes it ;
but the name Jesus , or the official designation Christ , as well as the term Christian : and to that name or designation the allusion was principally intended . My argument was , that bad Philo and Josephus , and the persons whom they speak of as having embraced Judaism , been really 'Christians , there would not have been the
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deejp silence which reigns through the writing ' s of the former , upon the nan and history of Jesus the Christ , ^ Or would the alleged Heathen convey have avoided the being distinguished as disciples of Jesus , or Christ ian *
It is , indeed , not improbable that the appellative Christinn was first applied to the followers of Jesus by their op . ponents ; and that , according to a pre ^ valent association of idea with Latin adjectives in anus denoting party , the new term might have a discreditable
appearance . But it is worthy of otu servation , that this term was in vented and brought into us $ \ vith reference to the first Gentile church , and at the time when the right of Gentiles to the blessings and privileges of the gospel , without being subjected to
circumcision or any other Judaical observance , was established by apo . stoftcaj authority . Thus there yras ^ prim a fade , $ ome reason why converts from Heathenism to the religion of Jesus should have been the more eminently called Christians . If the name had an un .
friendly origin , it would soon , according to the common principles of human nature , cease to convey an unwelcome association , and would be
accepted and gloried in as a badge of honour . About eighteen years after , we find the fapo&tle Peter writing thus : "If any one of you suffer as a Christian , let him not be ashamed ,
but let him glorify God on tjiis behalf . " 1 Peter iv . 16 . It can scarcely be necessary for me to add , that the argument is not nullified by the passage which has been sometimes called the testimony of Josephus to Christ for it appears to me very satisfactorily shewn by Lardner and others , that the passage is
spurious . Match 9 . Unavoidable hindrances prevented my finishing this letter in time for the last month . I proceed to Dr . Jones ' s critical and doctrinal remarks on Phil . ii . 6—8 , in pp . 535 , &c . of your last volume .
( J . ) He asserts " thatkto . Sty is a parallelism wiJti ev f * op ( pri &eov , and is but a varied expression of the same idea . " This appeals to me to be imputing to the apostle an absolute tautology . If the two ter / ns are synonymous , each of them may be put — ' then the apostle will be made to say ,
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152 i >>\ •/ . P . Smith ' s reply to Dr . J . Jones ' s Remarks ..
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attending- the Trinitarian , A rian , and Socinian Systems / ' to which it forms no less striking a contrast in force , than in fairness of reasoning . PROSELYTUS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/24/
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