Trial (Christianity)

“ They cannot close their eyes; and if they could, they cannot close their ears. What they refuse to read they cannot fail to hear. It is the trial permitted for the purity and confirmation of their faith. The trial is severe for many. In order that they may stand well so severe a trial, they must be prepared for it by thorough instruction in the Christian doctrine, especially in the fundamental truths of our holy religion. ”

“ Now, as inspiration or direct revelation from Heaven is not believed even by Christians (at least the more rational) of this day, though in the early and middle ages of Christianity priests and monks would have sworn that God communicated with them every day, let me suggest that, in the course of your defence, you ask the Jury trying your guilt or innocence as a libeller of that religion, whether they believe it to be founded on truth? ”

“ Known unto God, and God alone, are all our hearts. Daily and repeated experience convinceth us, that the greatest talkers are not always the greatest doers. How therefore any of us may behave when put to the trial, the trial itself can only prove. ”

“ Yes, we are all going to judgment, the trial of eternity before the all-seeing Judge. We are all formed in a great procession. No matter whether we are good or bad, in a state of grace or of mortal sin, no matter whether our case is a good one or a bad one, no matter if our cause be just or unjust, we are all going to judgment—all going to the great trial, in which every living soul, each man and woman and child, shall be the prisoners at the bar, and God, the judge of all, shall sit upon the great white Throne. When will that trial-day come? No one knows, not even the angels, our Lord says. ”

“ In all the courts of Christendom it binds the consciences, if it does not mold the convictions, of judge and jury in passing judgment upon the rights of life, liberty, and property. The Bible is everywhere to be found. ”

“ Every modern mission-field can illustrate the possibilities of a "persecution" which may be altogether private, or which at most may touch only a narrow neighbourhood; which may never reach the point of technical outrage, yet may apply a truly "fiery trial" to the faithful convert. ”

“ Nevertheless, the authenticity of the Gospel narratives, which form the record of fact in the trial of Jesus, and the credibility of the Evangelists who wrote and published these narratives, have been subjected to the rigorous tests of rules of evidence laid down by Greenleaf and by Starkie. ”

“ As one of the members of counsel who is not an agnostic, I would like to state the objection from my point of view. Your honor has the discretion to have a prayer or not to have a prayer. There was no exception offered and I can assure the court when we talked it over among ourselves as colleagues, there was no exception felt to the opening of these proceedings by prayer the first day, but I would like to ask your honor whether in all the trials over which your honor has presided, this court has had a clergyman every morning of every day of every trial to open the court with prayer? ”

“ But the single witness is enough to "justify the ways of God," and reduces what otherwise would have been a monstrous triumph of evil to the character of a severe trial of our faith, severe indeed as the trials of an evil world will be, but no more than a trial such as, with God's grace, may be overcome. ”

“ By their testimony every statement and every miracle must be tested.
Those who endeavor to obey all the commandments of God will be opposed and derided. They can stand only in God. In order to endure the trial before them, they must understand the will of God as revealed in His word; they can honor Him only as they have a right conception of His character, government, and purposes, and act in accordance with them. ”

“ He had learned that every soul worth Christ's dying for, is worth all the effort we can make, either for its deliverance or its establishment. Well did the Psalmist say, "When I was in trouble thou hast enlarged my steps." The Psalmist got the enlargement right in the trial, just as we often do. Much of our development is obtained in the furnace of trial; in fact, I believe most of it. Let us be thankful, therefore, for the dispensation of God's grace, whether it be bestowed by trial or in sunshine; whether it comes in storm or in calm, knowing that God allows all for our highest good. ”

“ Others again, outwearied with the length and weight of the trial, under the temptation of antichrist's formidable strength on the one hand, and a deceitful prospect of an insnaring liberty on the other, are overcome either to be hectored or flattered from their testimony. And so, in these churches, comprehending all that are free from persecution at this time, the witness for Christ is in a great measure killed. ”

“ It is the present purpose, in Part 218III, to enumerate, in the form of a Brief, the errors committed by the Hebrew judges of Jesus, as the result of their failure to make the facts of their trial conform with the legal rules by which they were bound in all criminal proceedings where human life was at stake. ”

“ It is a day of trial to us; but our trials are light, and the test that we are subjected to is but light, compared with the final test to which we shall be subjected when the Son of Man shall be revealed from heaven, taking vengeance upon them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have mentioned once or twice concerning the trials that await the Saints at that time. We look forward to the day when the Son of Man shall come in his glory as the greatest event and most sublime display of power and glory that were ever beheld by mortal eye ”

“ We could have a thousand or a million witnesses, but this case as to whether evolution is true or not, is not going to be tried here, within this city; if it is carried to the state's courts, it will not be tried there, and if it is taken to the great court at Washington, it will not be tried there. No, my friends, no court or the law, and no jury, great or small, is going to destroy the issue between the believer and the unbeliever. The Bible is the Word of God; the Bible is the only expression of man's hope of salvation. ”

“ Fortunately, the weight of authority, in every case, is so overwhelmingly in our favor, and our contention is, in each case, so well founded in reason, that we feel justified in now proceeding to a discussion of the real merits of the case, involved in answers to the questions: What was the nature of the charge or charges brought against Jesus at the Hebrew trial? ”

“ During the development of a system of law-giving, when the accumulated experience of humanity had not sufficed to produce perfection, man in his darkness, his ignorance, and superstition, turned to the supernatural, and devised certain ceremonies by which the judgment of God might be evoked to demonstrate the guilt or innocence of the accused.
[Pg 24] The antiquity of the ordeal, as it was called, cannot be measured. Such a form of trial is found to have existed in the earliest ages, and even now traces of it linger among savage tribes of the earth. ”

“ The very fact that the murderer has the chance of another trial after his conviction demonstrates that something must be done, and quickly. If the secular law is not able to wipe out such a blot then the church must help. ”

“ Being lawless from the beginning, no legal restraint makes the presence of witnesses necessary.... He certainly thought of an honest, lawful trial, in the legal form; an honest and legal examination of witnesses, a fair consideration of the testimony, and after mature reflection the rejection thereof on account of insufficiency” (Martyrdom of Jesus, pp. 69, 70) . ”

“ By Christian pay were hireling lawyers retained—by Christian witnesses confronted—by the Christian Press misrepresented—by Christian juries found guilty, by Christian judges condemned.' It is necessary to put the argument in this cumulative form to satisfy some understandings; but a well-informed and candid Christian can hardly be supposed to need formal proof on this head. A careful study of the Evangelists some time after this imprisonment, satisfied me that the religion of Jesus involves persecution. ”

“ Courts don't allow of chit-chat. Look ye, the evidence of the resurrection of Jesus is before the court, recorded by Matthew, Mark, and others. You must take it as it is; you can neither make it better, or worse. ”

“ Further, clerics and priests, more than others, are bound to those things that are necessary for salvation. Yet clerics and priests are forbidden to give evidence when a man is on trial for his life. Therefore it is not necessary for salvation to give evidence. ”

“ At length they agreed that a trial should be made to this effect, that if fire sent down from heaven should consume the slain victim of either of them, that religion should be accepted as the true one which performed the miracle. ”

“ We bring trials upon ourselves which God did not intend for us. We increase manifoldly our own trials by every consent to sin."—Pusey, Parochial Sermons, Vol. II, p. 121.
[5] "Past sin involves present trial, not present sin. When a man has once turned to God his past sin will not be imputed to him either in itself, or in its effects. One who has given way would by God's just appointment, visiting for sin, have trials. He need not, if he wills not by God's grace, have sin." ”

“ The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 351the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." [337]
Under a fair trial, in daylight, with full freedom of defense to the accused, abundant evidence could have been secured of the miraculous powers of Jesus and of the truthfulness of His pretensions to a divine origin. Testimony could have been introduced that would have been not only competent but entirely satisfactory. The New Testament narratives tell us of about forty miracles that Jesus performed during His life. ”

“ All the documentary evidence we possess is Christian. It is the witness of an interested party, uncorroborated by a particle of testimony from independent sources. I do not forget that the literature of your early Church includes a letter from Pontius Pilate to the emperor Tiberius, giving a detailed account of the trial, sentence, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ; but this is one of the many forgeries of your early Church, and is now universally rejected as such alike by Protestant and by Catholic scholars. ”

“ The trial, or judgment, of the overcomers of the Christian Dispensation and of the Dispensation that preceded it, has been much more severe than the trial of the world will be in its judgment day; for these have had to withstand Satan, the prince of this world, with all his wiles and ensnarements, while in the world's judgment day Christ will be reigning, and Satan will be bound, that he may not deceive the nations. These have suffered persecution for righteousness' sake, while then men will be rewarded for [pg 303] righteousness, and punished only for unrighteousness. ”

“ Note, The Spirit's working is not to supersede, but to engage and encourage ours. Though the Spirit testify, ministers also must bear their testimony, and people attend to it; for the Spirit of grace witnesses and works by the means of grace. The apostles were the first witnesses that were called in the famous trial between Christ and the prince of this world, which issued in the ejectment of the intruder. ”

“ And yet, with an unaccountable confidence they have presented a book to your honor, and attempt to put that book in evidence with the confidence of a man not learned in religion, because any man learned in religion knows it is no more the version of the Bible than a dozen or half a dozen other books. Therefore, your honor, we object to the Bible going in evidence, or that book going in evidence, but insist that the prosecution prove what the Bible is before they put it in evidence. ”

“ Some people think we have passed the day of trial, but let me tell you that you need not fear that, for if you are faithful you shall have all the trials you can bear, and if you are not faithful you will have more, and will apostatize and go to hell. ”

“ Judicial proceedings are murderous and no better than mob violence when judges and jurors enter upon the trial of the case with a determination to convict the accused, regardless of the testimony. The principles underlying this proposition are fundamental and self-evident.
Now the Gospel narratives disclose the fact that three different meetings of the Sanhedrin were held in the six months preceding the crucifixion, to discuss the miracles and discourses of Jesus, and to devise ways and means to entrap Him and put Him to death. ”

“ Moses, or, as Christians affirm, the deity speaking by Moses, has laid down this rule of evidence in cases of guilt: "One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall the matter be established." This rule is commended in the New Testament in the case of offences (Matt, xviii. 16) . What then can be more fair to Christianity than to examine its claims by a rule of evidence held righteous by itself? ”

“ The thing here insisted upon is, that the state of trial, which religion teaches us we are in, is rendered credible, by its being throughout uniform and of a piece with the general conduct of Providence towards us, in all other respects within the compass of our knowledge. ”

“ In some cases, it appears desirable not to suffer trials of a criminal nature to appear in print, particularly when the facts are too indecent, lest the tender feelings of any should be injured, or that information given which had better be withheld; but when the subject of conviction is a creature, who pretends to be the guide of hundreds in the paths of our Holy Religion, and under its sacred name, is not only ruining the bodies, but the souls of many of his hearers, p. ivthan silence becomes a crime, and a full exposure an imperative duty. ”