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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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66 # Mr . BufteweWs Defence of the G&nevese Pastors , 8 fC *>
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true and salutary ; he may have , % kl I dare say he has some recondite iiittrpretatioft , by which he tn 6 ulds it into accordance with his own views of
Christianity , but he ought to have a little candour and charity for those whose understandings are not so pliable I , must now notice some of the
charges which Dr . Smith brings against the pastors of Geneva in their collective capacity , as a Synod or Consistory . He tells us , * ' M . Malan was dragged before the Consistory ,
interrogated like a criminal at the bar , or rather like a vietita of the holy office of Madrid , and finally deprived and degraded , so far as it was in the poiver of M . Chenevfere and his futhless
associates to degrade such a man ; a , man whose appearance before them forcibly reminds us of that of Hus and Jerome before the Council of Constance . * ' It is , I think , scarcely possible for misrepresentation to go possible for misrepresentation to go
farther in describing a plain transaction , M . Malan , though still reg-arcling * himself as atnerater and pastor of the Established Genevese Church , erected a chapel in his own garden , where he preached against and reviled in no measured terms the doctrines
and the pastors of that Church . This was borne with -silence by the Consistory for three years , when M . Ma-Ian began to encroach more and more on the pastoral functions in the parishes t > f the Genevese Clergy , and 1 ¦ %
km . - * - * * m * S violated the rules and regulations relating to the examination and admission of young persons to the Lord ' s Supper , and also for the admission of Catholic converts , assuming , at the same time , the title of Pastor .
Now , three things only remained foT the Consistory to do 5 1 st , either to suffer the rules and regulations of their Church to be violated by a person who styled himself one of its pastors ; or , 2 ndly , To suspend or expel Him viithotit any hearing or examination ; or , 3 rdly , To cite him before them in order to hear his defence and
examine into his conduct , before he was expelled . The latter was fire only rational and just line of conduct which they could adopt , and they appear to have treated JVI , Malan witti <
exemplary gentleness and forbearance . Had they expelled ML M . without cHing tern before them , or what Dr . Smith
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calls dragging him before them , " we should Wave heard from his partizans a ttaost violent outcry of intolerance and persecution , M . Malan ,
however , after many long-protracted equivocations , did what a sensible and honest man ought to have done several years before , he sent in a written declaration of his entire separation from the Genevese Church . After this the
Consistory and magistrates could have no power over his conduct ; so long as he did not violate die laws of his country . Had M . Malan separated himself from the Genevese Cfeurch when he
first opposed its authority and doctrines , he would ; I think , have shewn more of a true Christian spirit than what he has evlneed by his opposition , but then he would fcot have acquired so maeh celebrity , or been so jyrach talked of as a martyr or confessor , I believe * however , that M . M . was
strongly acted upon by a party m this country , that wished him to remain a Pastor of the Genevese Chureh , in order to annoy it more effectively : to this influence his vacillating conduct ^ justly exposed by M . Chenevfere ) may , I believe , be ehiefly attributed . I trust we shall now hear no more of
the " dragging ef M * Malan ?* though we imfst admit that Dr . Smitli has a wonderful talent , like Caeus in the iEneid , of drugging facts by the wrong end , in order to conceal their true position and bearingy and to press them into his own service . There is
one part of M Chenevifere ' s statement , with which I cannot agree : it is that where he speaks of M . Malan , as if he considered Mm censurable for continuing to conduc t religious worship in his owft chapel , in defiance of what he styles the civil and religious
authority . Surelv 'When M . M . had entirely separated MmseH from the Genevese ^ Church , he was , or ought to be , at liberty to womM p according to the dictates of his con » eienoe ; and , in fact , "notwithstanding this censure , he was left ' at perfect Hterty so to do . It must be remettftfoered that the
Olmrch of Geneva has been a Statereligion ever since it was made so by Calvin and his contemporaries , and , perhaps , the world never flaw an instance of an EstaiblWlted Churdi snffeiing * one of its ministers to secede from it , and to preach against its doc-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1824, page 664, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2530/page/24/
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