he will never hate them, he will never reject them on account of their belief.' "No appeal has yet been made to the religious world in a spirit of greater charity and reciprocal tolerance. The clergy of Geneva address themselves to all men who believe in God. 'We only refuse,' say they, to recognize as Christians those who themselves refuse to take that title. If you acknowledge Christ and the holy Scriptures, we recognize you as Christians and as brethren; we do not ask you on that account to renounce any of your dogmas, any of your doctrines, but only not to impose them on us." Sismondi's Progress, pp. 74—77. We have no reason to doubt, and much reason to believe, that such are the sentiments of the Apollo of the party, the pastor and professor of divinity, M. Chenevière himself. In 1819 he published a work, which from the co- . pious extracts given in the "Histoire," &c., appears to be precisely of the same character with that cited by M. Sismondi. He tells us here, that he has done his utmost to reprove cette manie Athanasienne; that is, to put down the doctrine of the Trinity; that all the aberrations on religious topics originate in the absence de l'esprit philosophique; and assigns more particularly four special causes: namely, Contempt for reason, recourse to authority, the passion for systems, and the evil of abandoning in theology the march which men follow with success in other sciences, to arrive at the truth. In the development of his ideas, he makes reason the only judge of the truths of revelation: he treats Calvin and the fathers with no little lack of ceremony; the general councils are very summarily dispatched; and as to the Swiss Confessions, Gulliver was not more effectually fixed to the earth by the inhabitants of Lilliput, than is the professor Chenevière, by their unphilosophical constraint. He compares them to the "grand clou, que saisit Deborah, pour attacher son ennemi a la terre;" and pathetically demands, "Garotté par ces confessions de foi, comme par autant de liens, peut on perfectionner la science? p. 93. The march of science! We wish this worthy personage would take logic into his ranks, even if it were only among the raw recruits. We trust that we shall not offend very seriously, when we say that we have been tempted to relax our brows occasionally at the professor's reasoning; and have now and then thought that the art of Mnemonics might not be without service in his camp. We will explain, by an instance or two, what we mean. And first, as to logic: In opposing the publication of the Helvetic Confession, the heralds of the venerable Company argued and M. Chenevière has given us the argument with evident approbationthat if the public should thus see their pastors opposed to each other, and the holy Scriptures opposed to itself, then there would result, &c, &c. Could the professor be really serious in the assumption? Did he actually mistake the Helvetic Confession, and their reglement of 1817, for parts of the holy Scriptures? If not, where is the connexion between the contradiction of these instruments to each other, and the assumed opposition of the holy Scripture to itself? The publication of the Confession would indeed prove, as it has proved, that the new creed was in flat opposition to the old one; but against the Scriptures no man of common understanding could ever dream that it proved any thing. For another marvellous instance of the same sort, we refer back to p. 699. M. Chenevière and his friends abhor the idea of being directed what the ministers shall teach, and boldly and most authoritatively declare what they shall not; they abhor a dead pope (Calvin or the Helvetic Confession), as it is somewhere remarked, and they see no inconsistency in submitting themselves to two or three dozen little popes. Secondly, as to Mnemonics: "It appears," says M. Chenevière, reporting the decisions of the Consis 1826.] Review of Geneva and Canton de Vaud Controversies. tory, by the answers and writings "Gèneve n'est plus Chrétienne! voilà "Pourquoi tout ce tumulte? pourquoi tant de fracas? Parce que les Genevois n'ont pas voulu, parce qu'ils ne veulent pas être Methodistes." Precis des Doats, p. 8. If the learned professor will read over again his own definition and description of Methodism, he will see that his memory has deceived him. The Church of England would certainly condemn, and in the strongest terms, the principles avowed by the venerable Company; but he must be a bold man who would ascribe to that church all the notions assigned by the professor to Methodism. For other instances, see Dr. Pye Smith's Vindication. Our deliberate opinion then, concerning the church at Geneva, is unquestionably, that it has departed awfully from the faith of the Gospel; and that it deserves no longer to be ranked among the orthodox churches of Protestant Europe; and we condemn in most unqualified terms the trickery which has endeavoured, by so many artifices, although with little success, to delude the world by plausible" amphigouris," and unwarrantable attempts at secresy. Neither can we speak otherwise than in terms of strong reprobation of the treatment which has been inflicted by the venerable Company upon the advocates of a purer faith, the assertors of the doctrines of the Reformation. This treatment, we admit, might doubtless have been worse; and whether it owes its mitigation to the pastors or the civil authorities, we shall not very scrupulously inquire; but it is bad enough and neither in England CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 299. 707 nor on the continent of Europe will visitor, who gave lectures to the it ever be forgotten. The zealous students from the Epistle to the Romans, may, for any thing we know, have taken to himself an authority very provoking to the rulers of the ill befitting his own station, and Academy; and he may possibly have conducted himself with more than seemly contempt for the regular also, in addition to his boldness in teachers of the place. M. Malan asserting unpalatable truths, may have wandered into discussions of views derived rather from a warm little profit, and have indulged in imagination than a sound judgment, and may have rejected, with too determined a spirit, the opportunity of returning into the church from which he had, for conscience sake, found it necessary to withdraw. such hypotheses as possible at least, We admit and are willing to make every allowance, on these accounts, for the irritated feelings of the ecclesiastical rulers; but all this affects not the great question at issue: it leaves M. Chenevière and his associates, as instruction, just where it found them. to religious principle and Christian Neither can we be at a loss to account for this apostacy. Independently of other considerations, the single fact of the venerable Comto the Helvetic Confession on the pany doing away with subscriptions part of candidates for orders, is sufficient to account for it. There can be little doubt, we admit, that the persons who so covertly introduced that change of system were deeply tainted already with principles adverse to those professed by the great leaders of the Reformation: but we must, in common charity, conclude, with equal confidence, that, when they subscribed that confession on being ordained to the ministry, they believed it to be consistent with the word of God. Their views therefore must have subsequently changed: and the question with them would then be, "Shall we now resign our situation of pastors; or shall we en4 U deavour to get rid of this obnoxious Confession, and deprive it of authority?" Their integrity gave way to the temptation; and from 1705 they took care that the avowed creed of their church should inspire no qualms into the consciences of future. candidates for orders. Had subscription to the Confession continued to be exacted, the apostacy of that generation of pastors might have perhaps perished with them: no conscientious man would have affixed his signature to articles which he did not believe: and on that most important doctrine--most important from its inseparable connexion with that worship which is in spirit and in truth, and with the other essential articles of the Christian faith-the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ, the Church of Geneva would, we may trust, have preserved the truth unimpaired and inviolate to this day. The Articles of the Church of England correspond in essential points with the Helvetic Confession: and though they certainly do not restrain every minister of our communion from falling into the same apostacy with the Company of Geneva, yet one effect they do produce-that if a minister thus circumstanced do not feel himself bound in conscience to resign his situation, at any rate his erroneous principles die with him: the next candidate for orders, if a conscientious man, subscribes the articles from a conviction of their truth, as strong as if his predecessor had never lived to deny them. And without undervaluing the other safeguards of sound doctrine in our own venerable church, venerable not in title only, but in uncompromising love of the truth, and in suffering for the sake of it, we cannot but feel that, in requiring subscription to her articles, she has raised a most powerful embankment against those poisonous and overwhelming floods which have covered the church at Geneva. Dr. Pye Smith, who has said, in his Vindication of the persecuted ministers, many excellent things, and who has stated, with great force and justice, the degeneracy of that church, and the little credit which is due to such intrepid assertors of whatever likes them as M. Chenevière, appears to us to have entirely overlooked this important argument. As a Dissenter, he expresses himself with much satisfaction on the abandonment of articles of faith; and, will he forgive us for saying it? with some common-place remarks about the benefits of such a loose and latitudinarian principle, not suited to a person of his extensive knowledge and experience? Is it the Genevese system of a mere acknowledgment of the Scriptures as the word of God, which Dr. Smith would undertake to vindicate? Would he think it a sufficient security for the orthodoxy of a minister, according to his own views, and in his own denomination of Dissenters, that the candidate for the ministry professes to believe in the Bible? Is it not, on the contrary, the general, if not the universal, practice of Dissenters, to require of their ministers a declaration of faith; and that too for the most part in the presence of the congregation over which they are to preside? And is this a scheme which leaves the mind of an honest man more free than subscription to articles? Would our Dissenting brethren admit to one of their chapels a young minister, who, in place of making a public profession of attachment to their principles, should dilate upon the benefit arising to the cause of truth from leaving him unfettered on such matters, and giving him on all such subjects the most free exercise of mind? Would they not reply to him? "We have no quarrel with you; but you must go to another class of Christians. You cannot be of our communion." And what is this but to require his consent to articles and creeds? What is it but to do by a side-wind-and therefore with less solemnity and openness what the Church of Eng land does by a direct and decisive requisition? It is a curious fact, that the Methodists in this country, although, since their first Conference, they have submitted their preachers to examination both as to principles and conduct, and hold annual conferences for the regulation of their concerns, and for the maintenance of discipline, have recently declared their intention of taking refuge in articles. The following is an extract from the minutes of the last Conference, held at Liverpool, July 1826. "Question xxv. Can any further improvement be made in our mode of examining persons proposed for admission to important spiritual offices in our connexion, either as leaders, as local preachers, or as travelling preachers?-Answer 1. It is deemed desirable, that a series of questions on the most essential points of Christian doctrine, experience, and practice, and embracing also the leading points of our established discipline, in reference to the duties connected with those offices, be forthwith prepared; and that to those questions, when sanctioned by the Conference, distinct and explicit answers should be given in the proper meetings, by every new leader, local preacher, or candidate for an itinerant ministry, before he can be fully admitted, or officially recommended for full admission, to the exercise of any of the offices here specified. 2. Our president and secretary, with Messrs. George Marsden and Robert Newton, are requested to prepare, in the course of the year, such a series of questions as is above described, and to submit them to the consideration of the next Conference." p. 83. There are some other matters which we might suggest to Dr. Smith, in reference to his opinion of Established Churches; but this subject would carry us into irrelevant discussions. We must also defer our examination of theCantonde-Vaud part of the question to our next Number. (To be continued) LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE, &c. &c. GREAT BRITAIN. PREPARING for publication: - Death on the Pale Horse; by the Rev. J. Bruce ;A Sequel to the Diversions of Purley; by J. Barclay ;—Ezekiel's Temple; being an Attempt to delineate the Structure of the Holy Edifice, with Plates; by J. Isreels. In the press-Howell and Stewart's Catalogue of English Theology. Cambridge. The following is the subject of the Norrisian prize-essay for the ensuing year:-"The proofs of General Judgment to come, and the advantages of the knowledge revealed to mankind concerning it." The Seatonian prize has not been adjudged this year. The new regulations for the examination of candidates for writerships, in the service of the East-India Company, are as follows. Two examiners are appointed from the university of Cambridge; one of them to be annually replaced. The candidates will be examined in the Greek Testament, and in some of the works of Homer, Herodotus, Demosthenes, or in the Greek plays; also in some of the works of Livy, Cicero, Tacitus, and Juvenal, including collateral reading in Ancient History, Geography, and Philosophy. They will further be examined in Mathematics, including Euclid, Algebra, Logarithms, Plane Trigonometry, and Mechanics; and also in Modern History, principally taken from "Russell's Modern Europe," and in "Paley's Evidences of Christianity." The splendid pile of building at the British Museum, for the reception of the library given by the king to the public, is nearly finished. The west front is towards Bedford-square. The entrance is at the end of Montague-place. The first apartment on the right is of very great length, extending to the centre of the building. The adjoining room is nearly equal in dimensions to the first, beyond which there are two rooms. The whole of this noble suite of apartments, which are very lofty, are of an equal height, and decorated at the top with an enriched cornice, frieze, &c. which encircles the whole of the rooms. The ceilings are highly decorated. The frame work, which supports the room, is entirely of iron, which renders the building fire-proof. UNITED STATES. A society of Jews has been organized at Charleston, South Carolina, with the professed intention of bringing back their religion to the standard of Moses and the Pentateuch. The society was instituted in January 1825, after a fruitless remonstrance addressed to the rulers of their body. The objects of their remonstrance were, to reform the service of the synagogue, to cut down its repetitions, to shorten the length of it, to enforce better order during the performance, and to introduce the language of the country for the Hebrew, which few of them understand. COLUMBIA. It is stated that a mine of platinum has been discovered at Antioquia, in Columbia. Hitherto this precious metal, so valuable in the arts, had been found only in the Uralian mountains in Russia, in Brazil, and a few other places, but always in alluvial lands, where it could be met with only accidentally; but it is asserted that the metal exists in real veins in the newly discovered mine. BRAZIL. S. D. Andrada, a gentleman of Brazil, in a memoir on slavery, addressed to the legislative assembly of the empire of Brazil; after describing the inhumanity of the slave trade, and after reproaching the Portuguese nation with being the first that made it a branch of legal commerce, says, "Such, however, is the effect of avarice, that men see tears flowing in torrents from the eyes of their own species, without calling forth a single sigh of compassion or tenderness from their flinty hearts. Avarice never thinks and feels like reason and humanity. In order to repel the accusations justly raised against its proceedings, it resorts to a thousand captious pleas, to serve as an apology. It asserts," (among other reasons which the writer mentions and refutes in detail,)" that if these slaves did nocome over here, they would be deprived of the light of the Gospel, the knowledge of which every good Christian is bound to promote." Of how little avail is this argument he shews by describing the deplorable effects of the institution of slavery upon the character of the priesthood themselves. "Our clergy," he says, "with only a few exceptions, ignorant and corrupt, are the most eager to become possessed of slaves, in order to add to their own riches, by hiring them out to labour, or employing them in tilling the ground; although frequently, out of the chosen females who may have had the misfortune to fall to their lot, they form Turkish harems to gratify their own vices." He adds, that no families, however rich and respectable, can enjoy the benefits of education, uncontaminated with such examples, on the part of their teachers, constantly before their eyes. The impolicy of, and the actual loss incurred by, the continuance of slavery in Brazil, are also demonstrated by him. OTAHEITE. In the journal of the proceedings of the deputation to the court of Ava, the writers state, that the king's palace is not only splendid but marked by chasteness of design in the structure, and taste and elegance in the ornamental part. The well-constructed wall and gates around it shew that the person of the monarch is secure against intrusion. The population of the city, though it would seem to be overrated, is reckoned at a million. It is found necessary to draw ropes across the streets at night, to assist in preventing robberies. Any one passing the streets after a certain hour, if unable to give a satisfactory account of himself and his business, must be content to undergo confinement till morning. The king, in receiving the deputation, appeared as if |