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ners , and , full of confidence , but ashamed of his first fall , he presses on , " &c . Now , as Dr . Smith has asserted , €€ that though some wicked or ignorant Antinomian may have held
the doctrine that the elect cannot fall from salvation , whatever crimes they may commit * the Calvinists never did hold it , " I should be glad to be informed whether S € that good man , * ' that excellent man , " who wrote the
Conventicule de Rolle , is to be numbered among * wicked Antinomians ; or are we to understand , that what is pure Calvinism on the other side of the Jura , becomes wicked Antinomianisrn in England ?
When Dr . S . defied me to prove from the writings of M . Mai an , that he ever held the above doctrine , he must have felt assured that I should not read the Conventicule de Rolle , with the contents of which he was
himself well acquainted . M . Malan has certainly the merit of plainly and openly avowing the undisguised doctrine of final perseverance , and doea not adopt the cautious conduct of his Calvin is tic friends in England , who , like night-walking Nicodemus , seem
ashamed of acknowledging before the world what they secretly believe . That the doctrine , as explained by M . Malan , has a tendency to engender presumption and spiritual pride , can scarcely be denied by any one who is acquainted with human
nature . Suppose one of the young men who heard him at Ro . Ue , should soon after be assailed , like Joseph , by a strong temptation—might he not remember the words of the preacher , and say ( not with Joseph , " How shall I do this evil and sin against God V
but ) with M . Malan , " My fall will take place within the house of safety ; It cannot endanger my salvation ; I am already chosen ; my salvation is for ever sure ; to doubt it is to doubt the promise of God himself ; the Friend of Sinners is at hand to console me :
then why should I abstain ? " I am willing to admit , that both Calvinista and Antinomians would be grieved that such an application should be made of the doctrine 3 the empiric who distributes a dangerous medicine would much rather it should cure than kill the patient who swallows it ; but the good wishes of the vender
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will not take away the noxious qmu lity of the dose . M . Malan has himself given most extraordinary evidence that the doctrine he maintains is too apt to engender spiritual pride . What Christian preacher , from the time when St .
Peter pronounced the doom of Ananias to the present day , ever laid claim to the power of crushing his enemies to dust with the breath of his nostrils ? Yet this dangerous power M . Malan appears , from his own testimony , to possess , though he good-naturedly
declines calling it forth . Towards the conclusion of the meeting at Rolle , one of the three ministers of the Canton de Vaud bitterly laments the ridicule and misrepresentation to which the new converts are exposed from
their irreligious neighbours , and concludes with , " It is truly vexatious . " To which M . Malan replies , " Do not let us be vexed at them ; God , who reigns in heaven , and whose name
is the Lord of Hosts , sees and hears them ; and since he supports the vaulted roof of heaven , which hangs over the heads of these poor benighted wretches , do not let us utterly crush them with our censure and
indignation . " * Now if M . Malan had not supposed that he and his friends could thus annihilate their opponents , the caution he gives not to do it , were worse than unnecessary . This language cannot be regarded as the incautious expressions of an extemporaneous discourse , which had escaped
in the fervour of delivery ; the pas * sage was written , as he informs us , long after the discourse was delivered , and afterwards published . Who can wonder , after this , that the Genevese should regard M . Malan as a man who is so lifted up in his own conceit by religious vanity , and the adulation and rich presents of his English
* En v 6 rit £ cela nous donne da d £ - pit . Min . Gen . N ' en ayons point : Le Seigneur qui regne au del , et dont le nom est F eternal des armies , les voit et les entend ; et puisqu'il soutieut aurdessus
de cea pauvres aveugles le plafond qui couvre leurs t £ tes , ne les £ crasons pas de notre censure et de notre indignation . P . 65 . The rerb ^ eraser is the most powerful term in the language , implying to utterly ruin- and extinguish .
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644 Mr . Bahewell on the Doctrine of" the Final Perseverance of the Elect"
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1825, page 644, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2542/page/4/
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