On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (5)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
JJ/r. Bahewell on the Doctrine of " the Final Perseverance of the Electy" as held by the Modern Swiss Calvinists.
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
Sir . Downshire Hill , Hampstead , Oct . 12 , 1825
HAVING been publicly challenged in the Monthly Repository ( XIX . 6 / 3 ) to prove by fair citations from the writing's of M . Malan , or Calvin , or ally Calvinistic author of credit , their assent to the doctrine ,, that 44 when a man is become one of the elect \ he cannot afterwards fall from salvation * whatever crimes he may
commit , '' I shall beg permission to introduce to the notice of your readers a small publication , entitled Conventicule de Rolle par un Temoin digne de Foi . This publication contains an undisguised avowal of the above doctrine , and is one of the
greatest curiosities of modern religious literature : it conies from the pen of no less a personage than M . Caesar Malan , of Geneva , at which place I purchased it soon after its appearance , Rolle is a small town in the Canton de Vaud , where , in the
year 1821 , a few persons , among whom were three pastors of the canton , assembled in a private house to receive religious instruction from M . Malan . Conversations intermixed with
prayers and discourses were continued two days . To this meeting the people of the canton gave the name of Conventicule , and the novelty of the thing excited much attention in a
country where there are but few objects of public interest to attract notice . No friend to religious freedom can deny that all men have the right Jo assemble peaceably for religious instruction in what manner they best aPProve > nor could any just ground of offence be taken against M . Malan and his friends for assembling in a
private house . A considerable time afterwards , M . Malan published a narrative of the proceedings , which he entitled The Conventicle of Rolle , by a witness worthy of Belief—vA the end jtf it his own signature is given at full length . Who would expect , from such a title , that the witness worthy of
Untitled Article
belief was himself , the hero of the story , in which is related in the third person how condescendingly he spoke to one , how graciously he smiled upon a second , how kindly he advised a third , and how fervently he prayed for
all ? It surely requires no small degree of religious vanity to write in this manner . Christ has said , " If I bear witness of myself , my witness is not true . 79 M . Malan would have
done well to have recollected these words . In an early part of the conversation at Rolle , M . Malan endeavours to instil into the minds of the new converts , clear ideas of Calvinistic charity , by describing an
allegorical picture which he drew when in England ; for his knowledge of the language being imperfect , he was compelled to employ his pencil . In this picture he represented the Church of Christ built upon a rock , and the dome which covered it was called
the communion of saints . To depict the state of those whose faith differed from his own , " he drew in the shade beyond the rock a high and shining pillar , without any base , on which he wrote salvation by works . This pillar he surrounded with broken
columns , of which the Devil wished to form a church , of dust and ashes : these columns were called Socinians , Arians , Pelagians , Rationalists , &c . ; their shafts were joined by a cement * of pride and ignorance , and their approaching ruin was preparing by a
river called Truth , which was washing away the sand from under them . When the good man for whom the drawing was made , sighed as he looked upon these broken columns of the DeviPs church , M . Malan comprehended his meaning , and wrote on one side , God is all powerful" ( mind , not to
* M . Malan does not inform us in what manner he represented the compasitiou of this cement .
Untitled Article
THE
Untitled Article
No . CCXXXIX . ] NOVEMBER , 1825 . [ Vol . XX .
Untitled Article
vo *« xx . 4 n
Jj/R. Bahewell On The Doctrine Of " The Final Perseverance Of The Electy" As Held By The Modern Swiss Calvinists.
JJ / r . Bahewell on the Doctrine of " the Final Perseverance of the Electy" as held by the Modern Swiss Calvinists .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1825, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2542/page/1/
-