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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
th ^ mere s # tH 0 tfl worda are inta ih # fciasl ^ mmeoua opinions through inattention to their true signification . This I conceive to be very much the ca « e also an religious subjects ; and the various sects of Christians , who so
often lose sight of justice and chanty in endeavouring to affix names of reproach or degradation on each other , well know their power in exciting feelings of dislike and disgust , not to say abhorrence ; as on the other hand , an assumption of some honourable
epithet as a distinguishing title , has been found very effective in producing corresponding ideas in the mass of mankind , though frequently the name has been inconsistent with , and even opposite to , the doctrines or system so designated . This is unquestionably the
case , in the view of a Unitarian , in the following ( among many other ) instances : Evangeliccti doctrine , applied to the system of Calvinism , and Evangelical preacher , applied to those vvho preach doctrines which consign a
great majority of the human race to intolerable and endless misery . Orthodox ? Christians , as though they only held the right faith , and were the only true believers , notwithstanding that mystery and incomprehensibility are the two pillars of their system .
Catholic : this is a name which appears to have been zealously assumed by , and too generally conceded to , the Romanists , and has no doubt been very operative on the minds of the
great body of people in that communion , to satisfy them that theirs is the only true and universal church , thereby producing a veneration that will more readily receive and submit to her various inconsistencies ,
absurdities , and pretensions to absolute authority over faith and conscience . Should we not , on these and similar misapplications of important terms , endeavour most strenuously to restore the right use and appropriation of them , that instead of being" the causes ot obscurity and false confidence and
error , they may become the efficient medium of communicating clear ideas and establishing true principles ? Another class of terms has been * lso introduced among * Christians , from also introduced among Christiansfrom
, the Jewish Scriptures , in a literal or n *^ ty a literal sense , which , used in that way , seem fraught with very injurious consequeuces ^ and which , except
Untitled Article
hi remote and % urativeaignifieatitons ^ do not seem proper ta describe aay part of the Christian system $ an exanrfpie or two will perhaps to aketliia evident . Theword Sacrifice * as up- * plied by the Rojaanists in the cele * bration of the mass , wherein - as is
declared by the council of Trent , & true and proper sacrifice is offered for the living and the dead , in the ordL * nance of the Eucharist ; here of course are literally the priest , the altar , and the victim—all equally unknown to Christianity . And , by the way , what a victim!—their God ~ -and to be
continually offered afresh as long as man shall exist on the earth . We , as Protestants , have rejected this most monstrous doctrine ,, although we have not discarded all the teraasj for in our Established Church , the priest
and the altar remain , but the victim is no longer there . This incongruity must surely have a pernicious effect : terms are retained which will directly tend to mislead and confuse the minds
of the people , producing a supersti * tioua regard to one place more than another as being * the most holy ; thus converting a table of social religious communion , a commemoration of the
great event on which Christianity rests , into an altar for sacrifice , and endeavouring to assimilate our pure and spiritual religion to the forms and ceremonies and external observances
of other systems , which two thousand years ago were old & » d ready to perish , and which have long , as respects Christianity , passed away : yet still by the word being retained , multitudes may be led to believe that a sacrifice , in its literal signification , is consistent with our religion .
Another also of the Mosaic ordinances has of late been much insisted on , and endeavoured to be enforced on the public , I mean the sabbatical observance of the Lord ' s , day . The term Sabbath being with some classes of Christians almost universally applied
to the first day of the week , the name seems to have induced among them the opinion , that it is obligatory on Christians to observe this day as the seventh was , and still is , observed by the Jews , though not with the same degree ot strictness as it was enjoined to the children of Israel . Here we have a striking example of the influence which a word , a name , may and i& m-
Untitled Article
at On the Influence of Wfimcs ^ 284
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1826, page 281, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2548/page/29/
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