a body of men following some particular master, or united in some settled tenet;" which certainly implies nothing vituperative. It is true he adds, "often in a bad sense;" and I make no question that he had frequently heard it so employed; but in the examples he produces of the use of the word, this sense is made cut only by adjuncts,-the common cause of splitting senses in his dictionary. Thus, the "jealous sects," in the lines from Dryden, and the "sect of freethinkers" in the quotation from Bentley, owe their bad name to the company in which they are placed. The passage from Dryden ought, however, to have sug. gested to the lexicographer another meaning of the word, which, though not strictly correct, is now familiarised by the practice of good writers; this is, that of contradistinction to establishment; in which sense, every mode of religion in a country deviating from that established by the state, may be denominated a sect. And this was doubtless the "bad sense" which ran in Johnson's mind when he made that addition to his definition; for with his principles, he must have considered a word implying such a fact, to be a moral imputation. This way of thinking he has clearly manifested by his definition of the kindred word sectary, who, says he, is "one who divides from public establishments, and joins with those distinguished by some particular whims." He is here too, however, unfortunate in his first example, taken from Gar diner's reproach of Cranmer in Shakespeare's Henry the Eighth My Lord, my Lord, you are a sectary; for the whim with which this distinguished prelate is charged by his bigotted adversary was, that of rejecting the tenets of the church of Rome for those which were the ground-work of the church of England. But the definition is such as might be expected from one who could treat with gross insult an amiable and ingenuous female for yielding to the dictates of her conscience, in adopting a religion different from that in which she had been educated.* It was natural for a Roman, who conceived of the Christians as an obscure sect of Jews, to regard as an idle whim their refusing to sacrifice at a public altar; and Pliny, in his famous letter to the Emperor Trajan concerning them, considers their obstinacy as deserving of punishment, whatever else their guilt might be: this, I say, was natural in a polytheist; but it seems strange that any believer in Christianity should regard in the same light every dissent from the faith and worship that cir cumstances may have established in his country. To * See the Dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Knowles, in Miss Seward's Letters, To revert to the genuine use of the word sect.-As it simply denotes the followers of some particular system, without indicating anything respecting that system, it is equally applicable to all bodies formed upon difference of opinion. It was a denomination annexed alike to all the schools of ancient philosophy, which stood upon the same level of free discussion. It is used equally to designate the three divisions of Judaism,—the Pharisees, Saducees, and Essenes, without an exception of the first, who were the proudest and most considerable. And as soon as variety of doctrine took place among the Christians (which was very early), the adherents to each leader or system were equally entitled to the appellation of sects; for whatever superiority one body of believers might arrogate over the rest, it was disallowed by their rivals, and there was no umpire. They indeed, who, like the Roman Catholics, hold that there was always subsisting one visible and undivided church, in which resided the authority of deciding in all controverted points, will not admit this principle of equality, and will apply the term sect opprobriously to all separatists from this sole church, of which they are members; but what Protestant community, who are themselves separatists, and disclaim any authority but that of the Scriptures, can consistently make an exemption in their own favour, and apply to other Christian communities an appellation which does not reciprocally belong to themselves? If the follower of Luther call the follower of Calvin a sectary, it would be absurd for him to suppose that the term will not be returned upon himself. Episcopa. lian and Presbyterian, Athanasian and Arian, Arminian and Gomarist, stand in exactly the same relation, as sects, to the general church of Christ; and if it is opprobrious in one to have assumed a name of distinction from that general body, it is equally so in another. It must therefore be upon the secondary and less proper meaning of the word sect, as opposed to establishment, that the only derogatory application of the word by Protestants can be founded; and this must be supported by a principle inconsistent not only with Protestanism, but with Christianity itself,-namely, that it is morally criminal to dissent from the religion adopted by the government under which we live. Such a principle makes religion a mere matter of state, excluding all consideration of its truth; for however the sectary may be charged by his antagonist for making mere whim the motive of separation, he may vindicate himself by saying, "what appear whims to you, are serious points with me." In fact, the grounds of separation alleged by the majority of sects, whether they be solid or not, are not even by their opponents regarded as of a trifling and chimerical nature, but involve some of the most important subjects of controversy. If they have been decided against the sectary by the civil power in one country, they have been determined in his favour in another; and it is not the intervention of a river or a channel that can mark the bounds between truth and error, reputation and discredit. The Episcopalian is termed a sectary in Scotland, and the Presbyterian in England; but they are as much right or wrong in their opinions in one country as in the other. The member of an establishment, monopolizing honours and emoluments, and backed by penal laws, may put on airs of superiority, and disdain to be classed with separatists; but when he speaks as a member of the great Christian commonwealth, and appeals to the authority of reason or antiquity in support of his particular system, he must quit his high ground, and descend to the arena of equal contest. If he there uses the word sect or sectary in scorn, it will be as scornfully retorted upon him; for a geographical distinction is no distinction in logic. On the whole matter my conclusion is, that the term sect and its derivatives have strictly and properly the meaning of followers of any system or leader forming one of the divisions in a subject of opinion, and that in this sense they are perfectly neutral or indifferent terms, equally applicable to all such divisions; that when their meaning is extended to discrimination from the followers of opinions established by the state, they are still morally neutral terms, since such difference is only local, and implies neither error, nor crime; and that to employ them as terms of reproach betrays equal ignorance and illiberality. MR. REFLECTOR, I SEND you two copies of Latin Verse for insertion among your Miscellaneous Articles, if you think them not unsuited to the nature of your Publication. The first are on a subject which, I believe, is as yet new to the Roman muse. The operation which forms the subject of them, is known on the Sussex coast, I am told, by the name of " spearing eels:" in Hampshire it is termed "wreckling," from the name of the fish or eel, which is the object of the sport. The very elegant lines which follow them, are understood to have been written by Dr. Phillimore, the present eminent civilian, when a resident student of Christ Church, Oxford; and they evince a taste for the scientific productions of his country, which it would be desirable to see more generally fol lowed. lowed. While our dilletanti languish with rapture over the muti. lated fragments of Greece and Rome, the noble monuments of Art in their own country are left either unknown or unremem. bered. It might be safely asserted, perhaps, that for one hundred persons who are critically acquainted with the Pharos of Ptolemy, scarcely one will be found who can give a scientific account of that chef-d'œuvre of Smeaton, the Light-house erected on the Eddystone Rocks. I have attempted a translation of these lines for the English reader. Those who wish to be further informed on the subject of this structure, will find ample amuse ment in Mr. Smeaton's interesting narrative, which contains a detailed account of the whole progress of the building; and in a recent publication of R. H. Weston, Esq. son of the late Proprietor, entitled, "Letters and important Documents relative to Eddystone Light-house." TEMPORE quo longè fluctus sorbentur in altum, Ad summum totus moduli palmaris ab imo est; Nam semel elapsum servabit pervius usus Hic labor, hoc opus est; pariterque necesse páratos G G4 Hoc » The Sting-fish. Hoc quoque curandum est, ne cui dant spicula* nomen, ON THE EDDYSTONE LIGHT-HOUSE. Qui cursu magnum jam præter vectus Ocrinum Haud aliter validis penitùs radicibus hærens, Quamvis et tenebræ ingruerint, et non tibi luna, Hic tibi, ne dubites ventis dare vela secundis, TRANSLATION. BOLD mariner, whose fragile bark explores Yon tow'ring Column cleaves the middle sea. A noble scion of it's parent rock, Self-pois'd it stands and braves old Ocean's shock. So lifts it's head above, so spreads it's roots below.- Tho' |