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more to torment his wife with his impertinence respecting her business. That condition the lordly Diotrephes spurned. Mr. D. would not submit to the decision of the Conference upon any other condition, and he was immediately excluded.

Mrs. D. became so mentally disordered that she dwindled into partial insanity and idiotism; and he sunk into uselessness, dependence, and debasement. Therefore, from all the roguery and tyranny of Church Courts, we should ever devoutly pray-" Good Lord, deliver us!" Amen.

PRESBYTERIANS.

Presbyterian "Ecclesiastical Judicatures, alias Church Courts," are full of those proceedings which gradually have been expanding their potency of mischief, until the principal confederated craftsmen, in mercantile phraseology, have dissolved partnership, but not by mutual

consent.

Amid so many intricacies, it is almost impossible to unravel the complex machinery of their craft. However, a few facts will assist us to comprehend something of the operations of Presbyterianism.

COMMITTEE OF BILLS AND OVERTURES.

One of the arch-contrivances is the "Committee of Bills and Overtures." To them is confided the introduction into the Church Court, of all topics for general

discussion. If that Committee choose to bury any motion, the member who proposed it to them may introduce it to the “Ecclesiastical Judicature." But wo be to him!—— Not only will his resolution be discarded, but he will ever afterwards be branded as one of the followers of Paul and Silas who "turned the world upside down." The effect is this--all measures which can best promote the craft, are first introduced. If there are any knotty and crabbed references from Synods, or Presbyteries, or Sessions, which cannot be evaded, but that contain casuistical questions which jeopard the aristocratical sway, or which it is contrary to the interest of the secret chiefs to decide, every possible manœuvre is executed to impede the discussion of them; or they are cunningly postponed, until it is hypocritically pretended, that too many of the members have withdrawn, the "Ecclesiastical Judicature" is too empty, or there is not time for the investigation and settlement of such a momentous topic. Thus the allinspiring themes which are connected with the cause of morals and religion, are laid under the table, where they repose, ،، still as midnight, and silent as death." The appointment of a "committee to prepare business," if men were infallible in judgment, would be most beneficial; but to commit to resolute partisans, who pretend to be neither upright nor impartial, the power of deciding what measures shall be introduced, and what propositions rejected, or of so arranging the documents submitted to them, that any motion which they disapprove must unavoidably be postponed, is the consummation of church

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craft.

That system is making progress in other assemblies, who boast of "free discussion."

In more than one instance it has recently extended to an absolute hindrance of members from speaking upon topics presented for debate. There is the prolific root of great evil in those "committees to prepare business," and they must be kept within severe restrictions, or other conventions and convocations will soon be as fully cursed by the operation of “ gag law" and "stop law," as Church Courts, and the Congress of the United States. The sons of civil and religious liberty must watch carefully, and be very cautious what masters they voluntarily take on their backs to ride and bridle them. A little fanatical irregularity in a meeting easily can be suppressed; but the absolute extinguisher of investigation, and argument, and debate, is ominous, fearful, and agonizing as that darkness which was felt, when no man saw another, or rose from his place for three days, throughout all the land of Egypt.

From four different occurrences we can accurately learn something of Presbyterian "Ecclesiastical Judicatures."

THIRD CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA.

Who of the senior citizens of Philadelphia has forgotten the contentions and the divisions which originated in the churchcraft which was contrived by two or three elders ? Who has ceased to remember the duplicity, the obstinacy, and despotism of the Philadelphia Presbytery? Who does not recollect the two-faced proceedings of the Synod?

Who does not know that the sole cause of the

whole commotion was the personal dislike of a few individuals to Mr. Ely? Who has banished from his memory the scenes for several days which were exhibited in the General Assembly? The unconstitutional ejection of the Synod of Philadelphia, and the plunder of the congregation of about twenty-five thousand dollars, as a bribe to induce two or three ruling elders, who would have made suitable counsellors for the scorpion-using Rehoboam, to withdraw from a society which they had embroiled in strife and disorder.

WILLIAM M'CALLA.

What person can have obliterated from his remembrance the appeal of Mr. M'Calla from the decision of the Synod of Kentucky? Has the revolting evidence which was adduced in that case lost one particle of its detestable qualities? Do not the palliations of indecorum, the magisterial rebukes of disobedience to the Rabbis, the wrangling on politics, the attempts to criminate youthful ardor in the defence of truth, the untiring endeavors to wrap up that which could not be justified, and the determined resolution, that from the first to the last was manifested, to condemn the innocent, thereby to exonerate the guilty, still exist in recollection, in all the freshness of the ever present reality? The decision was given diametrically contrary to the testimony, and to righteousness. Why was that course pursued, and why did the cause so terminate? Because it was necessary to support the dignity of Church Courts."

SLAVERY.

Many citizens in Philadelphia still remember the discussions which took place in the Presbyterian General Assembly, during the years 1815, 1816, 1817, and 1818. That controversy concerning slavery commenced with a reference from the Synod of Ohio, in 1815, who asked what course they should adopt concerning the Confession of Faith, which denounced all slaveholders as "stealers of men, sinners of the first rank, and guilty of the highest kind of theft." Were they obliged to receive such persons into their communion upon the testimony of certificates of membership, from the nominal churches composed chiefly or altogether of those transgressors who were condemned by their own creed? To that question, the Assembly returned only an evasive reply, which virtually affirmed that slaveholders were flagrant violators of the law of Christ, but that the brethren must receive them into their churches, or bear the consequences which might follow from any complaint against their rejection of the applicants. That duplicity augmented the difficulties. It transferred the inherent vexation from the "Ecclesiastical Judicatures" to individuals; and insured to every person, whether a preacher or elder, who believed the Confession of Faith, and was willing to enforce its doctrines in practice, all the inflictions of the slave-drivers' indignation, should they lay their merciless fangs upon any preacher or elder whom they might choose to denounce as their troubler. Notwithstanding the forcible arguments which were adduced, the decision full of subtilty was recorded,

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