| 667 call attention. It occurs in section 42, paragraphs 21 and 22; and is that requirement making it the duty of the church, or its members, to deliver certain transgressors up to the law of the land. If any man kill, rob, steal or lie, he shall be delivered up to the law of the land.
We do not know just what class of liars or lies this command was intended to reach, but we believe it includes the false swearing named in the commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness;" by which men are injured in person, property, or reputation as a result.
Those clauses referring to killing, robbing, or stealing are quite clear and no one need to mistake them. Those who may be members of the church ought to understand that crimes of the nature of those named in this part of the law should be delivered up to the law of the land.
Deity does nothing without reasons for it; and there must be good reasons for such a command as this. Are they difficult to understand?
1. The law of the land has taken cognizance of crimes falling under the heads referred to, and provided an adequate penalty in punishment. The church has not the right to put any man in jeopardy in life, person, or property. He who kills has no forgiveness for his crime at the hands of the church; the church can not forgive crime against the life of man; nor can the church take the authority into its hands to punish such a crime. The church has no tribunal authorized to arrest a criminal, restrain him of his liberty pending a trial, summon witnesses for either prosecution or defense, to issue warrants, or order the execution of them; hence the very proper command to deliver such a criminal into the hands of the courts whose duty and province it is to inquire into such cases.
2. Robbery, theft, and lying, or slander, are all crimes of such a nature that there should be and there is so nice a discrimination in regard to the degree of guilt involved in each respective case, that the proper degree of punishment may follow, that courts like an elders' court are not authorized to sit in judgment, weighing the evidences, and determining the degree of criminality. The courts of the land may attach fines and imprisonment, and enforce the decrees of the court in which the matter is tried and determined; but the church can only deal with the accused and guilty person for his moral privilege of association with the church, and can not take of his goods in fines, nor restrain him of his liberty in imprisonment. For these reasons to protect the church from such malefactors, the Lord provided that due regard should be had to the law of the land.
3. The moral turpitude of the crime of adultery is almost immeasurable; for the first offense the church may forgive the transgressor, for the second offense the church may not forgive, but must cast him out who is guilty. This crime is taken cognizance of by the law as a cause for separation between married persons; and in all cases where the injured person designs not to condone or forgive the wrong when coming to the knowledge that it has been committed, that person should at once deliver the wrong-doer up to the law of the land that the decree of separation may be
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