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    class of persons congenial to his new views , and , separating from his old connexion , he joins himself to them : and , if his congregation participate in the change , they have the right and the power to retain him as their pastor and teacher . The separation may

    be painful , but it is easily effected , and neither party can give laws to the other . But the Church of Geneva cannot be justly represented as Unitarian . It has taken the ground of NEUTRALITY Or lNDlFFEKENOE , with regard to the great points at issue between the chief denominations of

    Protestants . Its two Catechisms and its Liturgy are , I conceive , the only documents that can be considered as declaratory of its faith : and they are of that kind that persons of very different sentiments may build their own doctrines upon them . Its clergy also are very far from being united in sentiment . While some are Arminians

    of the school of Episcopius and Limborcb , others are Arians , and some go near to the verge of the German disguised Deism ; there is a number not inconsiderable , who still hold the doctrines of the Reformation , and who adorn their Christian profession by the fidelity of their preaching and the

    purity of their conduct . From this class I apprehend that M . Malan does not differ in any material respect : and had he been advanced to the pastorate previously to the change in his religious convictions , it is probable that he would have ipet with no more than the petty harassments which thev have to endure . At the same

    time it must be confessed that their situation is full of snares and difficulfties , from their ecclesiastical connexion with persons so opposed to their most important views and feelings . From these infelicities M . Malan ' s ejection has happily freed him .

    II . Mr . B . appears to me entirely to misunderstand the nature of tolerance and intolerance . He affirms that M . Malan "has evinced more of a persecuting spirit than his opponents ; " and he endeavours to prove this position by the following argument : " I hold that man tot be a persecutor in the worst sense of the word

    who depreciates the character of his neighbour , because he does hot adopt the Scime creed as his own , who , oa this account , represents him in his public

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    67 K ) Dr . J . Pye Smith's Rejoinder to Mr . BnkeiOeli ' s Remarks

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    mere supposition make you shudder I Do you not feel it necessary to banish ife frdm your thoughts ? And is that necessity any thiilg else than the cry of conscience ,, reproaching you , — yes , you—with having courted again the

    the same impurities ; you ^ same guilty passions ; you , the same avarice ; you , the same acts of injustice , the same arts of deceit , the same intemperance , the same pride , the sanre sifts of the ttmgue , which you had taken the oath to renounce

    ?"—I do not wonder that this kind of speaking was unpleasant to- some whose ears were accustomed to the smooth and soft words of flattering unction ; but I do maintain that such addresses fall by no means within the range of Mr . B . ' s representation .

    2 . The terms of the iniquitous Regulation itself left M . Malan all the liberty that he took * The prohibition to " discuss" in the only proper sense of the word , could extend to nothing but the polemical examination of arguments and objections . Practical

    applications of the doctrines which ( however differently understood by the individual pastors , each putting his own meaning upon terms left designedly short , or ambiguous ) were already professed to be believed in a general sense , are most certainly not discussions of those doctrines . For

    example : the Regulation commands * ' to abstain from discussin g — the manner in Which the Divine Nature is united to the person of Jesus Christ . " Now , surely , a prohibition to discuss

    the manner of a given fact or position implies , the admission of the reality of that fact or position . When , therefore , M . Malan founded upon that admission his earnest exhortations to

    submit to the authority and grace of Christ , and his solemn warnings against treating the Divine Redeemer with disobedience or indifference , he was acting within the fair meaning of

    the restriction . In like manner , if the other articles under prohibition were interpreted by the rules of reason and equity , I believe it would be found that M . M . was not chargeable with transgressing them .

    3 . The case which Mr . B . has imagined does not possess a sufficient analogy to justify his conclusions . If an English Dissenting minister alters his religious sentiments , . he fittds a

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1824, page 670, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2530/page/30/