On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
666 I M $ . BuheweWs Defence of the Gentivetfe Pastors , fyc ^
Untitled Article
solemnly assured will not be , " What have you believed ?^ ' but "' What have you done ?? i We ate also told , * that those who were so forward in boasting *
of their orthodoxy and missions , saying , - ¦ " Lord , Loird , have we not prophesied in thy name , and in thy name done many wonderful works ?"—received for answer , ' * Depart from me , I know ye not /*
The Pastors of Geneva , during the three last generations , are said by Dr . Smith to huve been given up to spiritual indolence and deadly indifference . ** They are dumb ( dogs *) sleeping , lying down , and loving to slumber / 5 How little does he know of the people he thus undertakes to describe !
During the period to which Dr . Smith alludes , that is , from the year 1700 to the beginning of the French Revolution , when ( I repeat it ) the English Calvinist ministers were principally engaged " in dosing over their pipes , " the < c dumb dogs , " the Pastors of
Geneva , were performing the most arduous and painful duties that could be imposed on the ministers of the gospel of peace . The Republic of Geneva was a , democracy , in which the different powers of the Government and the citizens were ill-defined and little
understood , and the attempt of certain families to establish an aristocratic dominion , led to the fiercest political dissensions , which sometimes broke out into open civil war . These dissensions were heightened and
embittered by the unavoidable mixture ot personal feeling with political animosity , in a densely crowded city , where every man was well known to his neighbour . This state of affairs lasted
about eighty years , with short periods of apparent tranquillity ,-and the Pastors had often to witness the painful spectacle of members of one common family , educated at the same schools , and brethren of the same church .
ranged in arms against each other , or breathing rage and resentment in their political assemblies . The zealous labours of the Pastors r ^_ ; * la the quotation Dr . Smith turns the
" dogs" out of the text , but he well knew that the memory of the reader would recall them ; this is a refinement on the Komau casuistry that could divide an improper word into syllables and uttei U in purls by two speakers .
Untitled Article
to calm the inlrids of . ^ ^ hteft « Jiogr parties ; and tlieff ek \ iaH $ ii ) B $ &tm Endeavours to repress < pieifsonki vii > L lence were ; I believe , very inflfcit ^ ifeit in" preventing the citizens from destroying each other .
Anjidst the fierceness of political con . terition the sense of religion # as not obliterated , as was particularly shetVn on one occasion , when some feguli . tions made by the magistrates respecting corn , had greatly irritated the lower orders , and they had broken
into a baker ' s shop to plunder the contents , one of their pastors appeared among them , and walking through the crowd , he kneeled down upon the threshold of the house , and prayed aloud that the people might be pteserved from the great wickedness of
plundering their neighbours . The mob , in the height of its fury , instantly became calm and retired home quietly , and brought back the loaves which had been taken aivay from the shop . This occurred fifty years after the faith of Calvin had been abandoned . * The Pastors of
Geneva , whom Dr . Smith so eontetHptuously calls " dumb [ d 6 gs ] sleeping , lying down , loVitig to slumber , " were assuredly better employed in preaching peace at home , tli&n they would have been if engaged in missions among their Catholic neighbours , had this been possible , which it was ncH .
The Genevese Pastors are reproached by Dr . Smith for preaching moral sermons , but he omits to iafonii us that they almost always enforce their exhortations to a life of virtue and holiness , by an appeal to the great doctrine of Christianity—a resurree lion from the dead to a future state
of rewards and punishment . It was thus the good old-fashioned Christians of the apostolic age taught mankind " to live soberly , righteously and piously in the present world , looking for the happy end of-their hope ; " and this was considered sound- doctrhu
long before the pure stream-of gospel truth became soured and embittered by an admixture with the # all and vinegar of Calvinism . Your readers , who have not visited Geneva , " woiiW * It was to this instance I referred in my second-letter . I believe it is sUUtd ' Picot ' s < 4 HUtoircdc tientve" horn vAM * it irf taken by :-M \ SSimond .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1824, page 666, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2530/page/26/
-