Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1900-07-20

it involves separation from the Church
Of Christ; but hereticai departure from
UNCONVENTIONAL opinion involves nothing
more than removal from one denomina-
ton to another. The use by sects OF
UNCONVENTIONAL churches of the terms
censure, suspension, deprivation, degra-
dalton, which involved consequences
worse than death in the older times, when
the one Church thought itself q court
of Jesus Christ, whose sentence was rati
fed in Heaven, is moro of a shame to
the denominations which usurp the func-
tons of Christ's court than to the min
lister condemned by them as a hereto.
Heresy trials are as necessary to the
Church as civil and criminal trials are
to the State. All organizations of men
must have the right Of government and
the power of discipline in order to main
tain their integrity and to purge them
selves Of unworthy members.
1t is the abuse Of the heresy trial that
has made it a disgraceful thing to the
modern Christian. 1t still has a legiti-
mate use. The justice of a trial depends
upon the composition Of the courts. The
judges in civil courts are men who have
been trained in the law and who have
been selected for their special Qualfica
tons for the bench. The jury is Sc
iected from those who are free from
prejudice and are willing to give verdict
in accordance with the evidence. The
defendant is protected in every way as
to his rights and privileges and by the
presumption, of his innocence. How diff
ferent in ecclesiastical courts! A few
lawyers and Judges among the lay dele
gates may be familiar with civil law.
but this is a serious disqualification for
the pratice Of ecclesiastical law, which is
so different. Few of the hundreds of
delegates are competent to sit as Judges.
They are still less competent to sit as
jurors. Their minds have already been
prejudiced by ecclesiastical controversy;
many of them have been chosen as dele
gates simply because they represented a
party either hostile to the accused or
favorable to him. They feel themselves
pledged to represent their party.
Few Of the hundreds OF representatives
could sustain the tests applied to jury
in a criminal case, and yet heresy is a
criminal charge in ecclesiastical law and
involves the severest penalties. The
General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States has dis
tinguished itself by deciding cases OF
doctrine by partisan majorities. There
fore. the men condemned as heretics are
the heretics of the majority and the
orthodox Of the minority.
Suppose that the Legislature Of the
State or the Congress of the United
States were to sit in Judgment upon tn.
orthodoxy Of Mr.. Bryan and condemn
him as guilty under severe penalties
and you have a situation parallel to the
General Assembly Of the Presbyterian
Church sitting as a court Of trial and
'ondcmning by a strict party vote. The
situation is made worse by the fact that
any minister, however disqualified. may
force the body to consider charge:
against any other minister. It is not
surprising that the situation has become
IN intolerable one that will surely de-
stcoy the body if it is not reformed. All
the safeguards familiar to civil law
should be thrown around ecclesiastical
courts, and every precaution should be
taken to guard the defendant in his
rights and privileges and to ward off
ecclesiastical partisanship..
In England and Scotland, as we'll as
in the United States, ecclesiastical trials
have been made simply mischievous; the
tendency has been to disrupt the de-
nominations and to demoralize and weak
IN their influence
The frequent abuses have been more
striking than the infrequent uses. They
have not kept the denominations true
to their historical principles, for nothing
is more evident than that they all alike
have drifted in the stream of thought
of our age, and that opinions are floating
hither and thither away from the stand
ards of orthodoxy, and that the real
tests Of orthodoxy are the traditional
views of temporary majorities.