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neva , after asserting that it was un-Q ( JESTIONABL . Y THE MOST MORAL , city in Euiiope , added , ** I do not attribute this so much to their religion , as to their domestic education , and
the circumstance of every one being known to his fellow-citizens ; " but I deny to that gentleman and to Dr . Smith who has quoted him the right of judging the motives of the members of a different church , if their conduct
be correct . * ' By their works ye shall know them , " said Christ , and this is the only test that a Christian can allow . Be it well remembered , however , that the question at issue with Dr . Smith 3 s , not whether the morality
of the Genevese is Christian morality , but whether they are or are not , when compared with other nations or Calvinistic societies , * ' grossly immoral and openly flagitious / ' and it is these
charges that I have repeatedly called upon Dr . Smith to prove . With respect to another assertion he has made , ** that there is no proportionate increase of true Christians in
Geneva , " as I do not , like Dr . Smith , assume the right of searching the hearts of others , lean only say that , judging from their works , I believe there to be a much greater number of true Christians in the present Genevese Church , than there were in the
golden age of its orthodoxy , when , according to Burnet and other writers , religious pretensions , hypocrisy , insincerity , cheating and secret lewdness , were often associated together . Before I take my final leave of Dr . Smith , allow me further to notice his
couduct to M . Chenevifcre . Dr . S . gravely and coolly declares , " I have done him no injury , / have offered him no insult , unless it be an insult to bring evidence of the numerous and wide departures from truth , which
appear throughout his Summary . " I deny that Dr . S . has brought evidence of this ; and even had M . Chenevikre been greatly mistaken in many instances , was no allowance to be made foe the different \ iews under which
men very differently educated may see the same thing ? " I have offered M . Cheneviire no < n * ult , " says Dr . Smith . What ! is it no insult to tell a respectable minister w the gospel , that he is guilty " of oeliberate fraud and falsehood /* that
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" his heart is hardened beyond evert £ very high degree of moral callousness ; * that " falsehood is its food , and the most outrageous calumnies gt congenial delight" ? Is it no insult to publish and republish such calumnies against him ?*
Is calling a Christian minister a liar , a tbief , a callous-hearted devourer ojf falsehood and eatumny , no insult ? Yet Dr . J . P . Smith flatly denies , m the face of his own words , that he has offered M . Cheneviere any insult ; he calls this gross abuse only " bringing evidence against hitn : " it is ,
indeed , such kind of evidence , as the Reverend writer and his party are too much in the habit of bringing against ? Unitarians . This gross abuse Dr . S . may call " evidence / 9 and I admit that it is evidence , and fearful evidencetoo , of the temper and spirit of the writer who deals it forth .
I have offered him no insult . " I wonder that the Reverend writer did not blush to his very fingers * ends when he had written this sentence , and immediately dash his pen through it .
Let me ask Dr . Smith , whether he would think it no insult to be accused * " of deliberate fraud and falsehood ,, of moral callous heartedness , and with feeding greedily on outrageous calumnies and falsehood" ? W-hat would
he say of the veracity of that man , who , after having loaded him with such gross abuse , should coolly say , " I have offered Dr . J . P . Smith no insult" ? But I leave Dr . Smith to reconcile his fi / t ; denial of having
offered any insult to M Chenevifere , with his own conscience and the public . Those persons who have not visited Geneva , may hence learn to appreciate the value of his evidence ,, when it is directed against persons of a different faith from his own . The
spirit and temper of Dr . J . P . Smith may recal to some of your readers the memory of Archdeacon John Philpot , who was himself impr isoned for heresy * in the reign of Queen Mary ; but even
in pr ison he evinced as much persecuting zeal as the Catholic party ; the axe and the faggol were not in his power to use , he therefore was compelled to confine his attacks to words and personal insult .
When Archdeacon John Philpot published his defence for ^ p itting on an Arian > he did not pretend that he
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Remarks on the Republxcation of Dr . Smith's Letters respecting' Geneva * 333
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1825, page 333, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2537/page/13/
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