Juries.
James Dodson
FREE DISCUSSIONS.
[For the American Christian Expositor (January 1, 1832). Vol. 1, no. 9, p. 364.]
JURIES.
The duty of all who profess “the common Christianity,” in relation to “serving on juries,” ought to be well understood. The act of the supreme judicatory is “absolutely prohibitory,” the reasons assigned.
1. “There are moral evils essential to the constitution of the United States.” Under this head we have the following particulars:
“There is no acknowledgment of the being or authority of God.” This is a radical defect, tantamount to declaring independence of Jehovah’s government. “The nations that forget God shall be turned into hell.”
2. “There is no acknowledgment of the Christian religion.” This does not give “permission to the jury to make the revealed will of God the rule.”
3. There is no professed submission to the kingdom of “Messiah.” How could there be, when there is no acknowledgment of the Bible which reveals him. All sin in the universe is resolvable into rebellion against Messiah, “who is made Lord of all to the glory of God the Father.” Ezra ix. 6.
4. It gives support to the enemies of the Redeemer. By granting charters of conservation to temples of blasphemy against the trinity of persons in the Godhead, and against the divinity of Jesus. The revenue of Harvard University is, in a great part, from the state treasury. That institution employs, and amply pays, more than twenty Unitarian professors. The mother of harlots and her harlot daughters have their charters of conservation.
5. “It admits to its honors and emoluments, Jews, Mahometans, Deists, and Atheists.” This is contrary to the common conscience and rebellion against the command of God. “Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people, able men, such as fear God, hating covetousness, and place them over to be rulers,” &c. Exo. xviii. 21.
6. “It establishes that system of robbery, by which men are held in slavery.” See U. States constitution, sect. V. art. IV. clause 5, and art. W. also art. IV. sec. II. clause III. and sec. IV.
7. “It violates the principles of representation.” This it does by what Mr. Madison, in the late Virginia convention, called the “three-fifths principle.” See U. States constitution. art. I. sec.II. clause III.
II. The inconsistency of this practice with our standards, and “known and appointed,” and enforced “usages.”
1. “Jurors are executive officers created by the constitution.” This constitution is impious—the U. States constitution.
2. They mingle together the virtuous and the profane in one sworn association. “Say ye not a confederacy to all to whom this people say a confederacy.” “Can a man take fire in his bosom and not be burned?”
3. The juror places himself upon oath, under the direction of a law which is immoral, as in the slave holding and other states, there are constitutional laws, regulating the transfer of slaves; trafficking in the souls and bodies of men.
4. The supreme judicatory “warns church members against sitting on juries.”
5. They never contravened the old law of the church.
6. On the admission of members the initiate vows to obey the judicatory in the Lord.
7. Therefore, he who swears the juror’s oath sins against God’s law, and the law of the church, and breaks his vow.
Albany, Oct. 13, 1831. J[AMES] R. W[ILLSON]