The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-06-07
The Briggs Case.

During the long and exciting trial OF
DR.. BRIGGs TIE SENTINEL has carefully re-
Trained from any expression Of opinion
that might in any way prejudice his case,
but now that he is convicted and In fair
way to be sentenced it seems the clear
path of duty to say thai We have not the
slightest idea whether he is guilty or not,
or OF what he is guilty, or what punish
ment should be inflicted upon him for his
crimes In most of the cases of heresy
that have attained celebrity there was
something like unanimity in the decision
of the high joint committee that was in
power. When CALLED was tried for
claiming that the sun did not revolve
about the earth the teaching of the
scriptures was shown 10 be conclusive
and the judges agreed as to his guilt In
deed, so ACKNOWLEDGING WAS this trial that
CALLED himself was satisfied of his own
guilt and moved to make the nomination
unanimous. He also withdrew his Of
fensive remarks and permitted the sun to
continue in its former course without mo-
lestation. In this case, however. BRIGGs
insists that he is teaching the simon-pure
presbyterianism and his accusers are the
heretics, and as nearly one-fourth of the
convention is with him it is doubtful
whether he is actually guilty or whether
he merely got whipsawed in the pri-
mares that selected the delegates.
| But prjnla fdcie he is guilty, and the
next question is, What are you going to do
about it? As we understand 1t he is guilty
OF differing in some respects from the pro-
claimed views of the church, or at least
| from the Interpretation that the majority
| put on those views. In such cases it is
sometimes best to change the views. 1t
may be remembered that when COLUMBUS
was DESTROYS of going in search of q new
world, the bishops of Spain were called
in to give their opinion. They unani-
mousIy agreed that it WAS contrary to the
scriptures that another world could exist,
and one of their chief reasons was that if
| it existed the inhabitants would have been
| denied any access to salvation, which was
a reflection ON the infinite goodness of the
creator, and therefore hereticai. But
when the new world was found the
bishops promptly came over to the ideas
| of COLUMBUS. which was a very sensible
thing for them to do. Ii anyone should
come alongnow and claim that it was wrong
for Providence to permit the new world
to exist for 1892 years without any call to
christianity he would be pronounced heret-
ical just as COLUMBUS was for intimating
that the same thing was right.
The great difficulty as to this case APP
pears to lie in the utter impossibility of
| determining whether BRTGGs is right or
wrong in his theories. There is no wav
now of determining whether ISAIAH wrote
the book of ISAIAH any more than of de-
termining whether HOMER wrote HOMER.
Neither can there ba determining OF the
| question of progressive sanctihcation. !"
| BRIGGS claims that the redeemed keep on
sanctifving perpetually, and the majority
| are of the opinion that they can never be
any holier than they are. or rather than
they will be when they Law aside the ten
ement of clay that burdens them. This
| is a hard question Ii Brother WAXA-
MAKER, for instance, should lay aside his
mortal frame, his bargain counter and
his political alliances, he would probably
be hard to improve on, and yet much may
be expected from the purifying power OF
divine grace and good society. Obviously
one side or the other is wrong, and when
the mistaken parties reach the home of
the blessed. and learn definitely that they
have been Prosecuting the saints. they
will be in a very humiliating situation.
1t strikes US that the safest plan for all
parties concerned would be to postpone
| this question indefinitely.