New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1859-02-18
RIGHTS OF TIE CHURCHES.

The controversy bet geen DR.. Cneegers Church
and some late discontented members thereof, to
which before now we have had occasion 10 allude
in these columns is present depending before an
Ecclesiastical Council in this city The origin aud
history of that controversy, as our readers will
recolIect, were briefly these: DR.. Cheeyer, being
Impressed with the sinfulness of slayeholding-a
sin, by the way, TO which some members of his
conere CATION, from their extensive commercial
connections with the South, might be supposed to
have some special persons, tenptation.-saw ft to
introduce that subject into bis pulpit discour.es'
Some of the members Of TIE Society and brethren
of the Church, who seem to have expected of their
minister that be should preach smooth things or,
at least, should carefully confne himself to the
condemnation OF such sns as the leading members
of the Society were willing to have regarded and
condemned as such, were highly offended at this
proceeding. AS DR.. Cheever did not pay much at.
tenton so far as bis preaching went, to their indi-
vldual hints and expostulatOns, some seventeen OF
them finally banded together and sent him
letter-whether in the shape OF round robin We
are not able to say-inyiting him to resign.
As neither the Cambridge nor the Saybrook plat
form contained the least hint Of this form Of pro-
cedure, Dr. Cheeyer quietly put this letter in his
pocket and went on preaching as before. So the
discontented seventeen watched their opportunity,
and, in the absence of DR.. Cheever, on Western
tour, called Church meeting in hopes to get that
body to second their movement, but not succeeding
in that, came out the next morning 10 the nswspa-
49,. :, - of firth uia,r
of DR.. Cheeyers mlsbehsyor and uDfi ness to con.
tinue minister of the Church Of the Puritans.
They hoped, we suppose if they could not compel
the Doctor TO abandon the Church, a. least to stir
up the society 10 abandon ths Doctor; and SIS if
TO set the example of what they doubtless hoped
would prove regular stampede, they themselves,
with their female connections, applied to the
Church for letters of dsmisson. The Church, il
seems, in ordinary cases, hsd been accustomed 70
grant such letters in the following form:
"Tbs certifes tia, A. B. member Of he Church tae
his or her request diIsee AID affect 'ns;ey recon-.
merted fellow alp of The Cnrrh Of any other
CaGroh Of Jesus Crit with whom God my sppout his Tor
he'll residence .aa when received by ru og he'll pe:a
har relation TO ;Ais Church viii cease
To the female applicants for dismissal certificates
were given according to the above form, but in
those given TO the malconIents the epthet good
applied 10 their standing, also the sfectiobate
recommendation to new Church relations were
omitted, they being simply dismissed to the fellow
ship of any other Church with whom their resi-
dence nigh. be divinely appointed, while the LAG.
clause, implying that, til they joined some new
Church, they would still be considered members Of
the Church Of the Puritans, also left out
The point contended for By the seventeen NAL.
contents BY whose eI.pArte action the Council has
been called-the Church not having joined in calling
il, though j. appears by its Committees this:
They insist that they were entitled to letters in the
usual form; that, being confessed to be in regular
standing" il followed therefrom, that they were in
good standing" and that, being in good and
regular standing, they were entitled to be "afec-
+" tionstey recommended" to such other church
or churches as they might 1T to join, and more
over, that they did not zee fl to join such other
church or churches, they were entitled to rem,in
in the Church Of the Puritans Is thorn 10 the
flesh for the punishment, We suppose, OF the sins
of that Church The Church of the Puritans insist,
on the contrary, that they, AID other coagresa-
tional chuIches-for the question is ono not Of
individual iltefest merely, bat Of the rights Of the