Actuated by these principles, I have objected to a false and deceptive designation in the case of one System. Persuaded that the doctrines, enumerated in pp. 130-132, are not only _essential_ to the Christian Religion, but those which contra-distinguish the religion as _Christian_, I merely _repeat_ this persuasion in another form, when I assert, that (in _my_ sense of the word, Christian) Unitarianism is not Christianity. But do I say, that those, who call themselves Unitarians, are not Christians? God forbid! I would not think, much less promulgate, a judgment at once so presumptuous and so uncharitable.[91] Let a friendly antagonist retort on _my_ scheme of faith, in the like manner: I shall respect him all the more for his consistency as a reasoner, and not confide the less in his kindness towards me as his neighbour and fellow-Christian. This latter and most endearing name I scarcely know how to withhold even from my friend, HYMAN HURWITZ, as often as I read what every Reverer of Holy Writ and of the English Bible ought to read, his admirable VINDICIÆ HEBRAICÆ! It has trembled on the verge, as it were, of my lips, every time I have conversed with that pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jew, an Israelite indeed, and without guile,--
_Cujus cura, sequi naturam, legibus uti, Et mentem vitiis, ora negare dolis; Virtutes opibus, verum præponere falso Nil vacuum sensu dicere, nil facere._
Post obitum vivam[92] secum, secum requiescam, Nec fiat melior sors mea sorte suâ!
_From a poem of Hildebert on his Master, the persecuted Berengarius._
Under the same feelings I conclude this _Aid to Reflection_ by applying the principle to another misnomer not less inappropriate and far more influential. Of those whom I have found most reason to respect and value, many have been members of the Church of Rome: and certainly I did not honour those the least, who scrupled even in common parlance to call our Church a reformed Church. A similar scruple would not, methinks, disgrace a Protestant as to the use of the words, Catholic or Roman Catholic; and if (tacitly at least, and in thought) he remembered that the Romish Anti-catholic Church would more truly express the fact.--_Romish_, to mark that the corruptions in discipline, doctrine, and practice do, for the larger part, owe both their origin and perpetuation to the Romish _Court_, and the local Tribunals of the _City_ of Rome; and neither are or ever have been _Catholic_, that is, universal, throughout the Roman _Empire_, or even in the whole Latin or Western Church--and _Anti_-catholic, because no other Church acts on so narrow and excommunicative a principle, or is characterized by such a jealous spirit of monopoly. Instead of a Catholic (universal) spirit, it may be truly described as a spirit of Particularism counterfeiting Catholicity by a _negative_ totality and heretical self-circumscription--in the first instances cutting off, and since then cutting herself off from, all the other members of Christ's body. For the rest, I think as that man of true catholic spirit and apostolic zeal, Richard Baxter, thought; and my readers will thank me for conveying my reflections in his own words, in the following golden passage from his Life, "faithfully published from his own original MSS. by Matthew Silvester, 1696."