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IV. MISCHIEFS OF CHURCH COURTS.

RABBI ALEXANDER, THE COPPERSMITH, DOING MUCH EVIL.

THE spirit of the world is so closely incorporated with the objects, management, and effects of "Ecclesiastical Judicatures," that pernicious consequences unavoidably must result from the perpetuation of any system, in which "the spirit of antichrist" essentially predominates. To promote true religion and the prosperity of the church of Christ, never has been any part of the design for which "councils" assembled.

"Church Courts," as the term itself implies, necessarily involve a usurpation of divine authority. They differ in degrees of impious despotism, but not in the fact of the actual transgression; for in every claim and exercise of unlawful jurisdiction, there invariably must be an abuse of power. All civil tyrannies prove it; but as the crime is more heinous, so the results, in their spiritual relations, are more pestiferous.

Remember the last Methodist Conference at Cincinnati. What can be a more outrageously antichristian assumption, than that which they arrogated, when they attempted to prohibit their brethren Scott and Storrs from attending a public meeting to which they were invited, and from taking part in its proceedings?

The business to be transacted, or the object of the meeting, is non-essential. It is the muzzling power which was asserted, to chain ministers by the leg, and to gag their mouths from prayer, and from proclaiming gospel truth, because that truth will disturb and frighten obdurate sinners,-against which we loudly protest.

Much of the "vain jangling" that is displayed in ecclesiastical assemblies, is inseparable from those "foolish and unlearned questions, whereof come envy, railings, evil surmisings, and perverse disputings of men destitute of the truth," that are constantly introduced for discussion. Many of those "strifes of words" are a contention for forms and ceremonies, with which the " power of godliness" is little more connected, than the war-whoop of an Indian is like "David's sweet harp of solemn sound." Of that fact we need no other proof, than a recurrence to the cases of George Duffield and Albert Barnes. Whatever was the real topic of disputation, or whatever was the actual meaning of the litigants, no Christian who reads their speeches, as published by themselves, can evade the deduction, that some of the debaters violated John Witherspoon's rhetorical rules : "Never begin to speak, till you have something to say," and "Leave off when you have done." I "guess" if that old Scottish foreigner had been present at some meetings within the last few years, and had been empowered to enforce his own "twa short rules of rhetoric," many brawlers who had nothing to say, or who talked only nonsense, would have been commanded to keep their

seats; and numberless long-winded "pratings of malicious words," full of fury, and fight, and foolery, would have been corked down in their owner, to find vent in some other place and form. How sternly would the author of the "Ecclesiastical Characteristics" have snubbed Diotrephes, and silenced Demetrius, and scowled upon Tertullus, and chastised Alexander!

LAWYERS IN CHURCH COURTS.

If any subject demands the serious attention of Christians, it is this:-the election of lawyers to offices in the churches.

Without doubt, much of the corruption now existing in Church Courts arises from the admission of lawyers into them. Men who long have practised wrangling, the browbeating of witnesses, the mystifying of self-evident truths, and the twisting of positive facts into a perfectly contrary meaning, expressly to contradict their fellow craftsmen, and who torture all their ingenuity, to condemn the innocent, and to clear the guilty; and who engage in all that course of chicanery more pertinaciously, according to the remuneration which they receive-those men may be reformed, but to apply the old quaint proverb-" It is difficult to teach an old dog new tricks !”– Luke xi. 45, 46, 52.

A pious young man recently informed me, that after he had pursued his studies during some months, with an attorney of New York, who is an officer of a church, he abandoned his course, with an unconquerable abhorrence of that profession. "I saw," said my friend, “such

scandalous knavery, and heard such shameless falsehoods, no better than subornation of perjury, that my whole soul repelled the awful delusion, that a man whose occupation is continual ungodliness, should pretend to any religion at all; and much less, that he should be a very influential member in the church, and in Ecclesiastical Judicatures."

Upon one occasion, after having heard an incomprehensible harangue, I remarked to another listener, "If that last speaker was not manifestly a preacher, I should have supposed that he was a lawyer earning his fee."

"That is just it," said my neighbor, "he was considered a smart lawyer some time ago, till he took it into his head to turn preacher; but he cannot quit his old trade."

The churches must adopt the rule, that lawyers shall not fill offices among them. To delegate an attorney to an "Ecclesiastical Judicature," and then expect social harmony, is ineffably preposterous.

From that anti-evangelical source, doubtless, proceed those hair-splitting contentions; that cold-blooded, killing reproach; the commixture of truth and error with good and evil, until no person can separate the venomous compound; and that "all deceivableness of unrighteousness," which so often have proved that many modern protestant Church Courts are genuine Dominican iniquisitions, and conclaves of Jesuitism.

Much of the disputation in Church Courts is expended upon subjects that the Rabbis introduce, for no other purpose than to perplex the strangers, who attend with a single eye to the glory of God, and with no other intention than to do good. When the business, as it is called, is

actually commenced, the uninitiated find themselves in an arena of wordy gladiators, in which scarcely any thing is evident but the fact, that nearly the whole scene is a labyrinth of mystification, verbiage, and sophistry.

Another portion of the conflicting show, is almost a skirmish for antiquated and perplexing forms, in which the turbulent and disorderly altercation for "order! order! order! question! question! question!" is an edifying comment upon the origin, operations, and abuses of churchcraft, and the corruption of " Church Courts."

Often have I been reminded of the truth of a remark which was made by a judge of one of the Philadelphia Courts; and of a similar opinion expressed by two gentlemen of Pennsylvania. I refer to the year 1814, and to the case of the Pine street Presbyterian church, which then excited such deep interest. They declared, that they did not believe a jury of twelve decent men, from any class of society in Philadelphia, could have been gathered together, who could have been induced to return a verdict equally corrupt, as the Presbyterian General Assembly of that year decided.

That opinion is confirmed by the recent declaration of an enlightened Presbyterian elder of New York, who, for many years past, has almost always been a member of "Ecclesiastical Judicatures." He averred-"I am convinced, that is quite time for every Christian society to cast off the yoke, and become independent of all "Church Courts." I never attend one of those meetings, without being astonished at the manifest change which that un

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