years, been solicitous to avoid in their public discourses every thing as to doctrine and motive which, upon any system, could be called purely Christian? Why have their favourite subjects been industry, friendship, pleasure, the care of one's health, the panegyric of their country, homage to the laws, and other topics furnished rather by Seneca, Rochefoucault, and Montesquieu, than by the prophets and apostles of inspiration? Why is it their habit to cover their faith or want of faith under general terms, designedly capable of a variety of interpretations? Why do they use language calculated to mislead and deceive: as when M. C. says, "Each one of the Pastors confessed that Jesus was a Divine Being"? (P. 5.) They know well that, had they the integrity and the honour to speak out, one would say, "I am an Arian of the old school;" another, "I incline most to the sentiments of the Polish Socinians;" another, "I rather attach myself to those of the modern English Unitarians;" a fourth, "I adopt the system of the German Antisupernaturalists;" and, last of all, not a few would have to confess, "I have never taken the pains to make up my mind upon any religious doctrines or opinions whatsoever."

II. I solicit the particular notice of yourself, Sir, and all your readers to the domineering and intolerant spirit of M. C. and those who think and act with him.

When subscription to all human confessions, articles, and tests, was abolished in the Church of Geneva, it was with the intention that the most free exercise of mind should take place on all religious subjects, that the interpretation of scripture might be altogether unshackled, and that the clergy might be under no manner of impediment in promulgating, or the people in receiving, whatever each one among them might conceive to be true. And were not these good effects produced? Was not such a state of things the most favourable for " proving all things, and holding fast that which is good"? If, from such a cause, the interests of Calvinism went rapidly to ruin, and the adoption of latitudinarian systems became all but universal; is it not a strong presumption that the scheme

of doctrine called orthodox, evangelical, Calvinistic, Moravian, Methodistic, Mômier, (or however designated for honour or reproach,) is false, that it cannot stand its ground against free inquiry, and that, therefore, the opposite classes of religious opinion must be true, or, at least, approximations to the truth?

To these just questions I will return what appears to me to be the answer of right reason and sober truth.

1. No outward circumstances, nor combination of outward circumstances, can extinguish the liableness to err; or can guarantee to any individual, still less to a multitude of persons, the certainty of discovering truth. Were this the case, the discovery of truth, instead of being a moral and intellectual operation, would be a merely mechanical process.

2. However favourable in appearance this state of things was to the advancement of sound knowledge and scriptural faith; yet, if it were combined with a growing spirit of levity and irreligion, the absence of fervent prayer, the neglect of the devotional and practical study of the Bible, the employment of no zealous and judicious means for multiplying and diffusing the Scriptures among all ranks of the community, its good tendency would be paralyzed, and it would only nourish a feeling, first of, indifference, and then of scepticism.

3. The immediate effect of this state of outward circumstances is properly this, and no more than this; to withdraw one cause of bias for or against any religious system: but it leaves all other causes in possession of their power of influence.

4. There are such other causes, numerous and powerful. I need only mention, among the external ones, the sway of fashion and the solicitations of interest; and of those which are internal, that strong and subtle prejudice against truth and holiness which (as I must profess my conviction that the word of God most plainly and fully teaches) is deeply seated in the heart of every human being, till he is brought under the governing influence of genuine piety, or right affections towards the holy and blessed God.

5. Besides these general causes, the present case obliges us to refer to

those which, in my humble opinion, spring out of, and are nourished by, the frame and texture of all secular establishments of religion. This class of circumstances embraces a fundamentally wrong view of the proper ground of authority in religion, an attachment to the established system from civil and political motives, the idea of religion as consisting of a certain routine of outward actions, and the regarding of the Christian ministry as a genteel and agreeable profession for youths of a studious turn and a love for letters, apart from a supreme deference to its peculiar nature and proper qualifications. On this last I may be permitted to lay the greatest stress, convinced that, where it is suffered to prevail, it has been, and ever will be, the bane of real religion. But, in civil establishments of religion, this is the natural tendency and the usual course of things: the rank of the clergy is, in a great and regular measure, filled by the sons of the clergy, so devoted even from their infancy, or selected from a regard, not to religions qualifications, but to predilection, literary taste, connexion, or family interest.

6. That all these causes have had their unrestrained scope of operation in the Presbyterian Church of Geneva, must be evident to all who will reflect upon the obvious facts of the case. Besides these, peculiar causes have had their effect. Among these I reckon the compactness of the little State-Church, the facility of its management, the promptitude of its movements, its having its eyes and its hands almost literally in every family, and its being, till the present time, nearly if not entirely a stranger to the existence of Dissenters from its communion.

come regularly to the holy communion, whenever the routine requires it, without remonstrance or the smallest impediment; and that profligacy and blasphemy among the lower orders have increased at a fearful rate, without (till just now and by the influence of the persons whom M. C. reviles) any counterbalancing increase of pions, humble, sober, and virtuous Christians?

I have been led into this digression, because it seemed incumbent upon me to shew the reasons why a measure, in itself just and laudable, has utterly failed to produce the good effects which would have comported with its own proper tendency. I return to my course of argument, and I lay down this position: That, by the letter and spirit of the act for abolishing subscription, any and every Genevese minister had, and ever has, THE SAME RIGHT to retain or revive, and to defend and propagate, the old faith of their own Church, which any other Genevese minister had or has to deny and oppose it.

I will not affront your readers by attempting to prove this position. I even think that M. Chenevière himself will not controvert it. If it be admitted, I ask, with what face of consistency or of common sense do M. C. and his majority in the Venerable Company outrage, calumniate, and, as far as in them lies, persecute (I use these words advisedly) members of their Church, or separatists from it, for no other offence than their holding and teaching the very doctrines which were held and taught by the fathers and founders of that Church? Were the ministers of Geneva freed from the authority of a known, clear, and intelligible Confession of Faith, in order to receive the far heavier yoke of the indefinable and mutable opinions of those who, from time to time, might form the majority in the Company? Yet this gross absurdity is the soul of M. C.'s reasoning.

their special pleading and reduced to the plain detail of facts, tell us that M. Malan, a minister of spotless character, rare talents, distinguished attainments, and most kind and amiable manners, was, by the intrigues of some among the clergy, first deprived of his situation as a tutor in the college, the chief support of his family; then ejected from the pulpits of the Establishment; then reproached as if he were committing the greatest crime, because he preached in a chapel erected in his own garden, at his own expense with the aid of some friends; afterwards dragged before the Venerable Company (their more usual style) or Consistory, interrogated like a criminal at the bar, or rather like a victim of the Holy Office at Madrid; and finally, deprived and degraded, so far as it was in the power of M. C. and his ruthless associates to degrade SUCH a man, a man whose appearance before them forcibly reminds us of that of Hus and Jerome before the Council of Constance.

Your intelligent readers would not fail to remark it as the climax of M. Malan's offending, that, notwithstanding his being deposed and all the terrible prohibitions of the Consistory, he still continues to conduct religious worship in his chapel, in defiance of the civil and religious authority." (Mon. Repos. p. 75 of this Volume.) I cheerfully leave to your readers the estimation of this offence; but I must submit a little correction in the terms of the statement. That he is acting in opposition to the ecclesiastical authority, I readily enough admit and may God enable him to stand firm and unmoved against their 'unrighteous decrees! But I believe that the "civil authority" is here unfairly introduced. The Company has not been wanting in its urgencies with the government to gratify their wishes by putting forth its vigorous arm : but hitherto the Council of State has refused to become the tool of the vengeful Consistory. I am happy to cite a passage from a letter of M. Malan to a friend in England written in February last: and, in a letter to myself some weeks later, he makes no mention of any change or the apprehension of a change. "Honourable and impartial justice is the character of our inagistrates, who are the most

enlightened and upright men. Our [religious] assemblies enjoy, by the favour of God, a prolongation of peace."

I shall have to request indulgence for another communication upon various other parts of M. C.'s allegations.

SIR,

A

J. PYE SMITH.

Bristol, May 29, 1824. CONVERSATION which I had with a friend the other day on the subject of Peace Societies, impressed itself so strongly on my mind, that I am induced to request room in the Repository, more fully to express my sentiments on a matter so important to the virtue and consequent happiness of the world. My friend earnestly protested against what he called the absurd and impracticable lengths to which the system was carried― lengths which, if acted upon in the present day, would be most injurious to mankind! To argue that self-defence was criminal and unchristian, not only in nations but in individuals, was, he said, foolish and unnatural; and proceeding to such extremes, drew upon the Societies the contempt of the generality of men, and prevented many of those who were sincere well-wishers to the cause, from giving it their countenance and support.

I reminded my friend that no test was proposed on the admission of a new member-no question asked or pledge required respecting how far he was disposed to go; and considering this, it would be an unprecedented degree of intolerance in any single person to prescribe to the rest, the boundaries beyond which their convictions must not be allowed to carry them; and say, "Thus far may ye go, but no farther"!

The matter to be settled appears to me to be simply this. "Do you approve of the Parent Society's publications? Our grand object is their dissemination. If they contain solemn truths, deeply interesting to the temporal, and still more to the great, eternal concerns of our fellow-mencan you hesitate to countenance and assist in spreading them as widely as possible among all ranks, that all may learn to think and reason more justly on a subject of such vital moment ?""

My friend passed by what I last said, again to return to the impossibility of living in the world we see around us, on such merely theoretical principles, (for believing it our weak side, he chose to go back to our denial of the right of self-defence). But to reply was not difficult. How does it happen that the large and most respectable body of people called Quakers, who, for ages, have tried the experiment, live as securely as any other description of persons, though it is well known that they never so resist, as to endanger the lives of those who attack them, and never prosecute for felony? Yet, to say the least, it is a generally-admitted fact, that they are not more frequently the prey of highwaymen or house-breakers, than those who take the full benefit of our coercive civil code."

This stubborn fact my opponent could not deny, nor account for on any other ground than the natural generosity of man's nature, which thus manifests itself even in the most depraved characters, generally shewing an indisposition to attack those who they know are restrained by principle from defending themselves.

With respect to the necessity of defensive war between nations, I did not fail to bring forward the glorious and most successful experiment of William Penn, who, we all know, settled a colony amongst the savage tribes of America, and without a single implement of offence or defence in their possession from first to last, lived, during a long succession of years, in peace and perfect harmony in the midst of thein. He began, indeed, as he went on, acting on the true Christian maxim of " doing to others as he would desire them to do to him." He did not land on a strange shore, and take possession of what ground he pleased: had he done so, he must have built a fort, and filled it with armed men to defend his unjust agression. The sum which this in the first outset would have cost, this just and truly wise man employed in purchasing the land from its natural owners, -and continuing watchful that strict justice should be at all times practised in the dealings which he encouraged for their mutual benefit, between his own people and them-he remained

safe and uninjured in property amongst these untaught and lawless tribes, as a friend dwelling in the midst of friends. No one molested him or his, though they were in possession of much that must have been highly desirable to the Indians; and these were fully aware, that if a small number of their armed men had gone into the houses of Penn's people in Philadelphia or elsewhere, they might have taken whatever they pleased-no resistance would have been made at the time, and nothing more in future was to be apprehended, than a fair statement of the case, and an appeal to the justice of their chiefs.

While the entire management of Pennsylvania was permitted to remain in the hands of those who might most truly be denominated friends, the Christian principles upon which they uniformly acted, proved themselves its amply sufficient defence; and happily an experiment so deeply interesting to the whole human race, was suffered to last fully long enough to convince the least willing to believe the possibility that it could be so, of its entire success; proving that man is not born the natural enemy of his brother, but that it is from early false associations which cause deeply-rooted prejudices and evil habits, that he has gone on from age to age, pursuing an occupation, and even considering it as honourable, which necessarily includes in its practice, every species of vice and brutality which can be named!

I perceive, Mr. Editor, that I am proceeding to a length which I was far from intending-but I trust you will indulge me a little farther; the subject is of no common interest, and this is, perhaps, the only opportunity that I may have, of requesting the attention of your readers to it.

The great aim of the Peace Societies is to lead professing Christians to consider whether they are acting as the disciples of him whom they call their Master, when they refuse to lay open a subject of such vast importance before the eyes of their fellowmen. We need not fear that a change of long-established opinions should too rupidly take place. and ignorant are generally slow of apprehension respecting matters they have never been taught to think of,

The poor

and, therefore, difficult to impress; and with the rich, the spirit of the world is a still stronger barrier against the attacks of reason and conscience. Who is there, in the upper ranks of life, that has not some near or distant connexion with persons in the army or navy? And this, we may well be lieve, shuts up the hearts and understandings of thousands against all inquiry into the necessity or lawfulness of that profession which affords sup port, and gives gentlemanly employment to their friends or relatives. But the blindness thus occasioned by selflove, short sighted and cruel self-love, which would gladly prolong the exist ence of a mighty mass of evil, to avoid a risque of future loss or inconvenience to the few in whose well-being it takes an interest, does not make the cause of peace less the cause of truth and of genuine Christianity.

If this consideration has little weight with the children of the world, there is yet an argument which, by taking away all present alarm, may soften their indignant feelings, respecting the future dire effects of what, in contradiction to their fears, they term our theoretical and impracticable plans. We entirely agree with them, that kings and cabinet ministers are of all men the least likely to second our views. They have hitherto ruled by the sword, and will, of course, be among the last to relinquish its use. Till this kind of rule can be dispensed with, the war system will only slowly, and at first almost imperceptibly lose ground; therefore, none of those who are or have been enriched or ennobled by the craft, can have any thing to fear, except a gradual diminution of public esteem (which may already be perceived) for themselves or those who have already entered on the bloodstained career. The present generation may go down to their graves covered with gilded laurels, before the multitude will be aware of a diminution in their splendour-and from their gains nothing will be taken: while those who hold the public purse employ soldiers, they will doubtless be well paid.

By the great" Author and Finisher of our faith," that imperishable seed was laid in the ground, which will spring up producing a plant for "the

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healing of the nations"! which will finally obtain a glorious victory over every description of evil; and this most destructive branch of it already takes alarm from the zealous exertions of a few peaceful men. We look for no farther miracles than have already been displayed. He, whom the Almighty sent to save mankind by turning away every one of us from his iniquities," has furnished his true and enlightened followers with ample means to bring about this mighty change. His perfect precepts and his bright example have "showed us what is good"! Both decidedly proclaim, that it is essential to "do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God,"-none of which things are practicable in a state of warfare.

The more I consider, the more certainly do I come to this conclusion ; either the flaming sword must wrest the New Testament from our hands, and utterly destroy, or again immure it between walls impenetrable to the public eye; or its precious records, which so plainly and powerfully delineate the character of our Lord, and so incessantly in the epistolary parts exhort his followers to view him as the perfect model set forth for their imitation, will change that instrument of destruction, and its fellow enemy of man, the spear, into those useful helpers of the human race, the ploughshare and the pruning-hook.

War and real Christianity cannot subsist together. Men have called, and firmly believed themselves to be zealous followers of the benevolent and holy Jesus, while, with feelings of atrocious malignity of which the savage beasts of the desert are happily by nature incapable, they were leading bands of their fellow-men to the destruction of their brethren! Nay, more than this; when they have been conducting to the stake or the rack, those for whom Christ both lived and died, because they asserted opinions differing from their own, they have not only thought themselves, but have been believed by multitudes of professing Christians, to have been true and meritorious disciples of him who "was led like a lamb to the slaughter," who, "when he was reviled, reviled not again" but willingly laid