Plymouth church and its pastor,: or, Henry Ward Beecher and his accusers .../ Compiled by J. E. Doyle.

THE TRIAL OF CHU'RCHES.
love which God has kindled in every other. Fellowship is the
interchange of love and sympatllhy and mutual service between
neighboring churches, and it should exist among all churches,
of whatever sect, but especially between those of the same
faith and order. That this fellowship nay develop itself in
kindly suggestions, in affectionate advice, or even expostula tion, I admit. For fellowship which virtually punishes, though
the penalty be moral, is all the more oppressive on that very
account, since in the progress of Christian civilization moral
penalties are transcendently more painful, and if wrongly or
unskillfilly- employed more oppressive, than any other punish ment can be.
2. Whenever any church shall openly and avowedly change
the essential conditions upon which it was publicly received into the fellowship of neighboring churches, it is their right,
either by individual action or by council, to withdraw their
fellowship. If any'churlch shall, by flagrant ineglect, make itself a cover for immorality, or shall exert a pernicious and
immoral influence upon the community, or upon sister churches,
they hlave a right to withdraw themselves ifrom the contagion.
Precedingi distellowship, in all such cases, there may be, and
should be, such affectionate and reasonable inquiry as shall
show that the evil is real-that the causes of it are within the
control of the church, that the evil is not a transient evil, such
as may befall any church, but is permanent. and tending to increase rather than diminish.
3. I make a distinction between a withdrawal of fellowship
b y the will of individual churches and the arraignment of a
church, an d virtually putting it upon trial before a council.
There is no power on earth that can try a sovereign church.
By w hlate ver name it may be softened, and by whatever authoritie s j ustified, the denunciation or excommunication of a church
b y recommendation is in derogation of its local independence,
and is without warrant in the Word of God. The attempt to
bring churches to trial has never been productive of good. It
i s likely in every way to produce mischief. There was never
suc h an occasion to employ councils and to withdraw fellowship u pon their recommendation as in New-England during the
Unitarian controversy. But there was never a council called.
While, then, I heartily believe in we fellowship of churches, I
a m mindful that it was thlroclgh the claims of fellowship that
the churches of old learned to exercise domination, and that
there is an inherent danger in the disciplinary exercise of fel tn
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