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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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518 Mr . Bahewett an the Stute of Morals md Religion fa Geneva ,
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altogether the fact on whroh the inference is founded , and I challenge hint to the proot I deny , also , that the Genevese in ttiji | i golden age of their orthodoxy , were the righteous people Dr . S . would have us to believe ; but on the evidence of Bishop Burnet and contemporary writers , I
have no hesitation in expressing nay firm conviction , that they ^ were greatly inferior in moral virtue to the Gene * vese of the present day . The other parts of Dr . Smith ' s accusation respecting the conduct of the
Genevese Pastorf to M . Malan , I intend to form th £ subject of a second letter , in which I hope to shew that Dr . S . has written from very imper * feet data , and has hence greatly misrepresented their case . The principal cause of blame rests not in the
conduct of the Pastors , but in the ancient constitution and combination of Church and State . From the establishment of the Reformation in Geneva to the present day , the principles of religious
toleration have never been fully adopted in that city ; indeed , for ~ more than a century after the Dictatorship of Calvin , Geneva was the very sink of intolerance : no religious worship but that of the Genevese Church was
allowed to be performed even in private houses ! So deeply and permanently did the intolerant spirit of Calvinism pervade the civil as well as the reli- ^ gious institutions , that if the permis * sioa to worship publicly has afterwards been granted by the Republic to some
other sects , it has always been conceded not as a right , but as a special favour , revocable at the option of the government . I except the Catholic population recently united to Geneva by treaty , to which the liberty of worship would be of course guaranteed . We may pity the Genevese for not
having emancipated themselves entirely from the remaining chains of orthodox intolerance : it is but justice , however , to say , that few places on the Continent can boast of possessing more religious freedom than this little Republic- Excessive caution has always been the character of the Genevese
Government ; and surrounded as it nearly is , by powerful and not friendly states , we need not wonder that the dread of internal divisions has made the magistrates jealous of the introduction
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of religious opinions , at variance with those of their Established Church . 1 cannot blame the Genevese Pas * tors for removing M . Malan from their coin in unity ; it was scarcely pos *
sible for them to do otherwise ; but if they have in any way since ob * strueted him in the free exercise of public worship according to the dictates of his own conscience * I am
willing they should receive all the blame they may merit . That the Genevese Pastors were not blamable for removing M . Malan from their community * and that they exercised towards him great patience and forbearance , I I think great patience and forbearance , think
even JUr . Smith must admit , when he impartially reflects upon all the circumstances . Every religious society has the right to make by general con * sent such regulations as may be deemed necessary for its own government , to which all who continue in
the society are bound to adhere . The Church of Geneva thought proper to prohibit the introduction of certain disputed doctrines into discourses from the pulpit ; or , if the introduction were unavoidable , it required that the preacher should confine himself to
scripture language . M , Malan , disregarding these regulations , not only made those doctrines the principal subject of his discourses , but represented all who did not believe them in his own manner , aa unworthy the name of Christians . What would Dn
Smith say , were a preacher among the Independents or Methodists to declare in his discourses that all his brethren in the ministry wereln a state of deplorable and damnable error ; that the doctrine of the Trinity was false , and all who believed in it were
idolaters and had no hope of salvation ? Surely Dr . S . must admit , that if after being remonstrated with mildly again and again , the minister still persisted iu preaching against the Trinity , and in calling his brethren idolaters and
enemies of the gospel , they would be imperiously obliged to expel him" A house divided against itself cannot stand . " —Now , mutatv nomine , this is exactly the case of M . Malan and the Church of Geneva .
Dr . Smith says that " M . Cheneviere and his rtrtkless associates ^ ' the Pastors of Geneva , have done all in their power to plunge 1 VL Malan , that good
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1824, page 518, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2528/page/6/
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