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Hwnerton , Sra , October Q , 1824 . f O object of tf * vy is lie Vlio once Nsets bis foot in i&e thorny brake of controversy . But we must not , to consult our ease , desert the cause which wfe believe to be that of trttth
find righteousness . Mr . Robert Batoe * well lias honoured my observations tm Professor Cheaevi&re ' s Summary with some l * emarks , which oblige me to re * cfuesX your allowance of a rejoinder . I shall aim at brevity . I . In all that Mr . B . has advanced
I can find nothing which touches the chief object of my argument , that , by all the rules of reason , equity and religion , M . Malan , as a minister of tfhe Church of Geneva , and other persons as Dissenters from it , have the
same right to preach the doctrines which they believe , ( artd A fortiori as being the original doctrines of that church , ) Wlrich ministers of the opposite class have to preach their religious sentiments .
It is to no purpose to dilate , as Mr . © . has done , upon "the intolerant and persecuting spirit ^ of the old CaU vhiists of Geneva . My papers have admitted and ^ deplored and cotidemned it . In this respect they fell imder the same condemnation as , I mourn to
say , all ike Reformed Churches of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries , except the Congregationalists of England , the Antipsetiobaptitfts , and the Quakers . But flte more modern Church of Geneva has no excuse if , in this greatest of all respects , it has
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" 668 Dr . > J . Pye Smith's fbejoind ^ r to Mr . BoJteweW * Remark *
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from the main object of my letter , which was to convince your readers that thfe Pastors of Geneva are not tlife
dumb and slothful [ dogs ] , nor me the people the irreligious infidels , which © r * J . Pye Smith and his friends Would willingly persuade them to believe * ROBERT BAKEWELL .
P . S . My last letter ended abruptly in consequence of the slip of paper on Which the conclusion was written having beenjomitted . The sentence . when completed was as follows : u Almost
every nation has defects from peculiar circumstances" in its situation or government ; but the traveller v ^ ho marks i % ese Sqfects should remember , that Tits own countrymen are not faultless .
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titft k ^ j ? t lip with the ma * eh of the age , the progress of liberal aiid just opinions . The chief authors bf its altered state , when they imported Mr . lioivke ' s notions as a theologian , ought ulso to have paid him practical honour as the noMe and unanswerable
advocate of Religious Freedom . Consistent Ohdstiaws of all denominations , iit the present day , lament the slowness of their predecessors , at the period of the Reformation , to perceive the Universal rf ^ bt ctf full religious liberty . % w % tbis mfechievous defect was not peculiar to Calvinists : the Lutherans , the ^ glish Arminians under Laud and tlie Steuarts . and other classes of
Protestafrts , were deeply infected by it . fiowev ^ r ^ it should m > t be forgotten 4 tot the body of men who first stood forwards as the advocates of totera-€ on , were the English Independents t > r Gongregationalists , and tliat they "were Gal vinists .
For what purpose , but that of ere * Jiting an unfair odium , does Mr . B . introduce the sanguinary executions lit Geneva for the crime of witchcraft , in the times of the Calvinfetic ascenda ; ncy ? He cannot but know that , d&ring that period , most , if not nil , citilized nations laboured under the
same delusion ; and that , in England , a considerable number of persons was executed for that imaginary crime . Mr . B&kewell defends the Genevese Pastors for removing M . Malan from their community , upon the ground of the right of every religious society to
form its own regulations : and he torin its own regulations ; and he pursues his argument thus : " M . Ma-Ian , 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 , as unworthy the name of Christians . What would
Dr . Smith say , were u preadher among the Independents or Methodists to declare in bis discourses that all his brethren hi the ministry were in a stale 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 mikHy again and again , the minister still persisted in preaching against the Trinity , and in calling his brethren idolaters and enemies of the gospel , they would be
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1824, page 668, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2530/page/28/
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