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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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182 UNITARIAN CHRONICLE .
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Company , and that , upon this , he was censured , and excluded from the deliberative council of his brethren for the space of one year . It was not to be expected that the matter would rest here ; and , accordingly , we find that M . Gaussen ,
^ ani _ sje 3 iexai _ i ) th ^^ same cast of sentiment with . himself , very soon opened a room for public worship in the Rue des Chanoines , and instituted a Societe Evangelique , and an Ecole de Theologie . From the high tone assumed by this party , it is no wonder that the venerable
Company took deep offence at its proceedings , and especially at the " institution of the new academy ; for , in the circulars which were issued , the Faculty of Theology is openly denounced ; as * composed of men who overthrow the very basis of Christianity , and who employ the four years , during which the students remain under their charge , in destroying in their hearts the
foundations of Christian faith ; ' while the new institution is set forth as the only genuine school of theology at Geneva , and the only means of placing- this church in the relations of brotherhood with the other faithful churches of Europe and America . After deliberating on the affair , the Company determined to call upon the Consistory to dismiss M . Gaussen from his office of pastor , and to
forbid his colleagues Messieursnjalland and Merle toperform any ministerial duty in the national church . After some discussion with the refractory members , the Consistory adopted the proposition of the Company , and then referred their decision , for confirmation , tq the Council of State , This body took time to deliberate on the affair , and came to no decision , till it had allowed M . Gaussen fifteen
clays to answer the questions put to him . His answers were not satisfactory ; and the result was two decrees of the Council , —by the first of which M . Gaussen was dismissed from his situation of Pastor of the church at
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Satigny ; and the second , by recognizing the right of the Company to settle everything relative to the supply of the national pulpits , confirmed their decision excluding Messieurs Galland and Merle . In all this we see no infringement
^ $ f ^ j ] l §_^ i ! £ § iL _ H ^ ^ P ^ J ^ ^ rel igious liberty . It may , inHeeH 7 ~^ e a ques- ~™ tion how far establishments in religion are justifiable and useful ; but there can be no question that , when a man has . voluntarily assumed the office of pastor in a national church , and solemnly engaged ' to avoid everything which might create schism
or break the union' of the body to which he belongs , he is bound to adhere to his professions ; and there can be as little question that if , while he remains ostensibly" a rnembef of a certain church , he founds a distinct society for public worship and theological instruction , in manifest and
avowed hostility to that to which he had before attached . himself , he has . no good ground to complain , if he be expelled . Such is clearly the case of M . Gaussen and the venerable Company at Geneva ; and the only thing Avhich excites our astonishment is , that a body of pastors , so catholic in their spirit , and with the right so
clearly on tfieir side , should have taken this affair so much to heart , and been so much alarmed at this show of sectarianism . For ourselves , had we been in the place of this venerable body , we should have regarded the dismissal of M . Gaussen and his colleagues as a blessed deliverance : we should have felt that
we breathed more freely the moment that we were relieved from the presence of men so deepl y tinctured with the spirit of Calvinism ; and for the sake of a consummation so devoutly to be wished , we should have gladly submitted to the minor misery of
seeing a rival institution spring up in the very precincts of our own . If the established church of Geneva be , as we really believe it to be , more closely conformed to the doctrines
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 1, 1832, page 182, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1821/page/6/
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