Silence Dogood essay 14: "Sir, It often happens, that the most zealous Advocates for any Cause find themselves disappointed the first Appearance of Success ..."
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The final Silence Dogood essay appeared in the 1-8 October 1722 issue of the The New-England Courant and continued Dogood's earlier attacks on organized religion (see Silence Dogood essay 9), although here the object of Dogood's satire was not the Boston clergy, but rather Yale faculty members and New Haven clergymen who recently had abandoned their Puritan Congregationalism to receive Anglican ordination. Dogood writes: "All I would endeavour to shew is, That an indiscreet Zeal for spreading an Opinion, hurts the Cause of the Zealot."
The letter concludes with excerpts from "two Ingenious Authors of the Church of England" that first appeared in The Spectator and in The Guardian. The latter excerpt is a discourse on the meaning of the word "Church":
There is not a Term in our Language which wants Explanation so much as the Word Church. One would think when People utter it, they should have in their Minds Ideas of Virtue and Religion; but that important Monosyllable drags all the other Words in the Language after it, and it is made use of to express Praise and Blame, according to the Character of Him who speaks it.
To examine the entire newspaper, please see the online display of The New-England Courant, Number 62, 1-8 October 1722.
See previous: Silence Dogood essay 13