New-York tribune., 1910-05-24
New York Ministers Will Defend
Charges of Heresy.
DOCTRINES IN THE BALANCE
To Decide Fitness for Ordination
of Three Union Seminary
Graduates.
EBy Telegraph to The Tribune. ]

passed away. Miss Moulton. OF PROVIDENCE,
his fiancee, has been constant attenoant
| at his services in connection with the AS
sembly. and he breaches as he seldom has
preached before.
What is true of the leader of the evan
gelistic campaign is true of his pianist,
Robert S Hardness, who is to return to
Australia soon to bring back bride from
his home land Dr. Chapman went TO
| Washington to-day, and Miss Moulton re-
| turned to Providence. 1t is said that DR.
! Chapman's friends are congratulating him
! upon his prospects, both financial and mat
| rimonial, for John II. Converse, who died
recently, left trust fund of $4,000. the
| income from which is to be given TO DR..
| Chapman during his life.
| Turning from love to warfare, the Cen
eral Assembly declared this morning that
the heresy case from the New York Pres
| bytery should be tried by the permanent
judicial commission, whose members have
been summoned here at little expense,
the chairman coming from California to
| preside at the session. and other members
| from various parts of the country They
will pass upon the complaints and appeal
| of twenty-eight ministers and tflirty-six
/ elders of the New York Presbytery, nine
| OF the latter being from the Fourth Ave
nue. Church.. whose pastor is one of the
committee OF complainants.
Another member of that committee is DR..
John Fox, last week secretary of the Amer
| lean Bible Society, but this week a mem
ber of the New York Presbytery. DR.. Fox
maintained stoutly that, although not
Jekyll and Hyde, ne was obliged to act in
a dual capacity; he draws his salary as
secretary of the Bible Society, but he COM
plains against the Synod of New York as
Presbyter. After the heresy case is dis
posed of he will be secretary again
The judicial commission received the four
| pamphlets in the case at noon to-day, and
! an hour after luncheon its members were
! deep in the mysteries of the virgin birth,
! the authority of the Bible, miracles. the
resurrection and heaven and hell. These
were the topics under review when Archt-
| bald Black, now pastor in New York; John
| E. Steen and George A. Fitch were ex-
| amined by the New York Presbytery a year
ago DR.. John W. Dinsmore chairman of
| the commission, presided and DIR. Robert
| Hunter. secretary, assisted by another
member of the commission, read the sixty
| three page pamphlet which recited the
! complaint and appeal, the transcript of the
record to the synod and the action Of that
| body, together with the theological state
ments which the young men prepared be-
| fore they were examined.
Tomorrow the committee of the COM
plainarts the Rev. Drs. John Fox, Walter
D. Buchanan and Frederick E. Shearer, all
of New York will occupy three hours
fortifying their appeal. The Rev Drs.
David F. Bonner of Binghamton; Edward
D. Bailey. of Brooklyn, and Jesse r
Forbes of New York, will defend the
| Synod of New York, against whose action
| the complaint is made. It is possible that
a Judgment will be reached on the case
and reported to the general assembly on
| Wednesday
/ A singular feature connected with the
duties of the judicial commission is that
unlike similar commissions in the lower
| courts of the Church, the judgment of the
assembly's commission is rot final. When
| the synods commission reports its decision
| cannot be appealed from, but the judgment
/ Of an assembly's- commission may be
! affirmed. reversed, modified. suspended or
-sr,it+ed for further hearing After giving
the case TO the commission for trial II is
nossiblA to reopen it and have it discussed
| by the entire body.
The grounds of the appeal made by the
appellants is that the synod made mis-
| take and did an injustice in sustaining the
! New York Presbytery in licensing the three
voune men and in ordaining two OF them
! Mr. Fitch. who has gone to China, and Mr-
! BLACK. who is now the pastor of the Bed
ford Park Church, in New York Among
| the specifications are these:
That the synod by neither reversing the
decision nor censuring the preSoytery Tor
tts Sllsta iuing the examination OF the can
ddate CMr. Black and by Dreaming mn I'm
| candidate which position as to the virgin
| birth of Christ the presbytery admitted
and acknowledged in the an answer tha TssbT ro fTe
| terv thereby has virtually declared that
such agnosticism may be held and dlssen1l,
| mated within our church as IN supotantiaa isd
! conformity 10 our confession ana 10 the
Tba+ "T5 This decision of the synod totally
disrepards and is in fragrant violation OF
| the solemn and of the repeated lnluncnQns
ond admOnitions of the General Assembly
! concerning it's candidates for the ministry
and their education to the effect that before
/ ijcensure and ordination the presbytery
should ascertain whether they haa pesn
reII instructed and indoctrinated in the
nrjnAinIes, doctrines and polity of the Pres
| bvterian Church, and that they are IN
seat seatrj,as - and Ioyai TO evangelical Chris
tisnitv. and because by this decision the
sVnod showed itself Indifferent to loyal
| observance of the letter and spirit OF Such
| ini,Inctions and admonitlons
! An interesting feature OL lilS pANoSiie
bores,, trial is the fact that DR.. Fox in his
brief statement against the orthodoxy OF
| .ha Union Seminary men, quotes the elo-
o,,e,,+ words of a recent theological scholar
ubo though differing from us as to many
,,as+ions all the more may therefore in
| ,r,,ct us as to this precious and essential
a-+,o1a of the common heritage of Christen-
| aorou (the virgin BIRTH DIR. Foxs humor
| 80 he discovered when It IS realized that
Tho Theological scholar" whose words he
,raises so highly was himself suspended
s-oro the Presbyterian ministry by the as
.ar,bIv before which he is now hailed as
the defender of the doctrine of the virgin
birth of Christ
| Dr Charles A. Briggs, according to DR.
| I,ox declares that the Church can no
,,,ora dispense with that doctrine than II
can dispense with the incarnation of Christ
b;,,,eelf" He further affirms that Chris
,ian scholars as a body are not at all du-
hto,,e about the virgin BIRTH" and that they
cannot possibly recognize that the birth of
Christ was by ordinary human generatioh;
that II would be a revival of the HISTORIAN
baresy and be a denial of all the Christian
/ .t;losonhy of tsne centuries, with all the
| r.rio,,s consequences therein involved. II
-,o,,td turn back the dial of Christianity
early two thousand years; ii would break
nth historical Christianity and its apos-
.olto foundation; and imperil Christianity