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say that the ifragistntey ordeir ^ d these works td be seized , attd that , * the author , jconyict $ d as . a calumniator by one of the tfibttiials of the ; city , was sentenced to lose his civil rights , and
t 6 be incarcerated eighteen months in tfee commas gaol . Death saved him from this punishment ; his family , dotnpbsed of respectable persons , made ah appeal on occasi on of his decease ; here the affair ended . We see with
what kind of succours the enemies of the Genevan Clergy reinforced their ranks . Thirdly : about this time the pastors learned that they were to reckon
amongst their professed adversaries two men who were very different from the Counsellor Grenus *—two pastors , who were going to reprint the Helvetic Confession of 1566 , with a
Preface explanatory of their motives and tfkligious principles . In vain the clergy sfent a deputation to the eider and mere gentle of the two , to represent to him that the publication of such a work might excite fresh disturbances , and that if Christians saw their
teachers opposing each other , and exhibiting the Holy Scripture as self-contradictory , it would produce mistrust and be injurious to their faith and piety ; that the pastors , therefore ,
having warned these two brethren of the danger to which they exposed religion if they persisted in their undertaking , threw all the responsibility on themselves of the unhappy effects which might follow .
M . Cellerier , Sen . and M . Gaussen , Were not deterred from publishing their Confession of Faith and their Preface ; and what was the time chosen for the publication ? That at which the pastors were unjustly assailed , and at which silence was
enjoined by the civil authority . Neither the Confession nor the Freface produced the impression anticipated by these gentlemen ; they even brought upon them the wrath of the Romish
priests , by speaking incorrectly of the worship of images . But I refrain from saying more on this subject , from the respect always felt for M . Cellerier , and more especially from the consideration due to his son .
Fourthly , M . Ami Bost published , in 1819 , a work in titled Geneve Re-Ugieuse , in which he represented the
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Church in his countrym iia ^ l ^ ea stately one of the jpkoo ^ vs ^^ | p addubed was a discourse lafeiy 1 jpriir nounced in the Consistory , ^ to iii ^ y parts of which lie attnbuted a senie
directly opposed to tliatt of the author . He professed that the pastors ^ ad some object , some 6 ecret whict £ j ^ revealed at a certain epoch would have e&ciied indig'hatWn ; insinuatiiig that the pastors ^ hadcbcw ^ ived soffie mysterious and guilty project ; vvhereas this phrase , purposely detached froin its context , related merely to the suppressing of confessions of faith , resolved on in 1705 , arid kept secret
during twenty years at the request of the Government . M . A . Bost spared neither his masters nor professors $ he endeavoured to convince the people that they were led astray , and he extolled what he denominates the new
church—that is , a few dozens of persons who separated themselves from the national church in 1817 , and who are headed by Messrs . Guers and Empaytar . The passages on which he founded his appeal to the separatists shewed at least his incapacity as a
critic - he blamed every thing which proceeded from the pastors , and approved every thing , even to the writings of Grenus , which was inimical to them ; he contemned as broken cisterns , knowledge , improvement ,.
reason , science and virtue . Beware I This new Omar , in the height of his zeal , is for burning every thing . Fifthly . The heads of the New Church , as they are pleased to term it , put out several pieces all written with the same intention . However
indecorous and blameable the conduct of these persons has been , we must acknowledge , that in seceding , in the first instance , from the Church of Geneva , and boldly declaring themselves its opposers , they have given an example of integrity which ought
to have been followed by many of their disciples , who remained at first , and still remain , apparently attached to their National Church only for the purpose of wounding that Church
more deeply . Sixthly . We may number amongst the antagonists of the Genevan Clergy the Pastors of Lauzanne , who broke off all communication with them ; at their head was Dean Curtat- who took
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IFheotomcalControversiesrat iferteVa . 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1824, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2520/page/7/
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