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    cannot any longer make use of it , and concludes with professing his candour and integrity , and his confidence in 'God . After this letter had been read in the meeting of the Venerable Company , they appointed a committee of five to examine it with care , and to suggest the steps which it would be advisable to take . Into the detail of their

    Report we have not space to enter ; suffice it to notice some of the principal points . They admit , then , frankly , that considerable changes have from time to time been made in the catechism , but they do not admit that these changes were all made by the sole authority of the clergy , or that they had not the implied , if not the express , sanction of the government . They produce , p . 73 , a very remarkable declaration on the part of the Venerable

    Company , when , in the year 1725 , they confirmed the ordinance quoted by M . Gaussen , which says that the catechism contains a summary of the Christian doctrine : the reasons of their decree , which was approved by the Council , contains this sentence— " That if the profession required from the pastors , mentions the catechism , it is not that it would place it on a level with the Scriptures , nor bind us to follow it in every respect , but

    merely to signify that we find in it the sum and substance of the Christian doctrine . " " From this , " say the Committee , " we may fairly conclude , that the pastors of 1725 by no means meant to make the catechism of Calvin a profession of faith , a rule , a flag , to mark out the Church of Geneva , but that they regarded it only as a convenient text-book , as a summary , which they were not bound to follow throughout" They then go into the history

    of the changes which had been introduced . They shew that every vestige of Calvin ' s catechism had at length been struck out , and that the sale and distribution of the two catechisms which were proposed by the Company in the year 1788 , had received the distinct sanction of the Council , which expressed to that venerable body their satisfaction and gratitude for the zeal which it had shewn in what related to the public instruction . P . 76 .

    They affirm , that if the authorization of the French government , under whose dominion they then were , was not sought for the amended edition of the catechism , which was prepared by a committee of pastors in 1810 , it was only to avoid the delay which would probably attend such an application ; that no obstacles were opposed by the civil authorities to the printing of this amended edition , nor yet any remonstrance made against it

    from any quarter ; and that repeated reprints , with alterations , were issued without any one lodging a complaint . In 1791 , an edict was passed , ordering a revision of the ecclesiastical ordinances ; and it contained this remarkable sentence , * ' Till the said revision shall have been made and sanctioned by the sovereign Council , the ecclesiastical ordinances actually in force shall continue to be observed and executed in their full extent , with the exception , nevertheless , of those points in which contrary usages have been introduced—in respect of which the said usages shall continue

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    612 The Pastors of Geneva and M . Gaussen .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 612, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/36/