"And hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God." Eze. xx, 20.
"And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Luke xxiii, 56.
"And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." Acts xvii, 2.
The true Sabbath is found in the very bosom of that moral law, which is called immutable and unchangeable by both Catholics and Protestants. If unchangeable, then Sunday-keeping is only a man-made institution. Its very name betrays its origin.
A Sunday-keeper says:
"Our Sunday takes its name from the bright sun,
By heathens called the God of light and day;
At his approach the morning has begun,
Rejoicing nature glories in his ray."
A Sabbath-keeper replies:
"The Sabbath takes its name from God's own rest,
When he at first the earth's foundations laid,
This day alone is sanctified and blessed;
And thus for man the Sabbath-day was made."
From all that we have now seen, we are prepared to expect stringent laws against those who will not conform to the popular doctrines of the day. A few months more may bring us into close places, though we cannot expect that Church and State will be formally united, until probation ends, and the restraining influence of the Spirit of God is withdrawn, and the time of trouble such as never was, comes upon the nations of the earth. In that time, those under the sentence of death, because they will not worship the image, will be delivered, as were Daniel and the three worthies under like circumstances.
All that remains, then, to form the image, is the marriage of Church and State. Their courtship has been long, and their love for each other is undying; their vows are plighted, and the bans are published. That they will be declared one ere long, is sure as the prophetic word.
OUR DUTY.
What then, we inquire, is our duty? It cannot be our duty to obey any ordinance of man, when it conflicts with the higher law. Disobedience to such laws becomes duty when the law of God is at stake. That342we are correct in this, we offer the following proof:
"Since, therefore the law is chiefly right reason, if we are bound to obey a magistrate as a minister of God, by the very same reason and the very same law, we ought to resist a tyrant, and minister of the Devil."
BLACKSTONE SAYS:
"If any human law shall allow or require to commit crime, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natural and the divine."
COKE SAYS:
"What the Parliament doth shall be holden for naught, whenever it shall enact that which is contrary to the rights of nature."
LUTHER SAYS:
"Unjust violence is, by no means the ordinance of God, and therefore can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whether the command comes from Pope, Emperor, king or master."
HAMPDEN SAYS:
"The essence of all law is justice. What is not justice is not law: and what is not law, ought not to be obeyed."
CICERO SAYS:
"Those who have made pernicious and unjust decrees, have made anything rather than laws."
"When the Waldenses were commanded to obey the church of Rome, they replied that:
"In what regarded their religious worship they could obey no commands which interfered with the laws of God."
The Congressional Committee of 1830 Report:
"The framers of the constitution recognized the eternal principle, that man's relation to his God is above human legislation, and his right of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate."
The Constitution of Pennsylvania is equally explicit; it says:
"No human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience."
LORENZO DOW SAYS:
"Human governments have no right to interfere by assuming a power to tolerate man to pay his devotion to his God. For before any human government existed in the world, there was a compact between man and his Maker, which cannot be altered by any human laws. Therefore, all laws ought to be made in conformity to this pre-existing compact; otherwise they do mischief by making encroachments upon the rights of conscience, and cause confusion in society by creating brawls and animosities, consequently all denominations of religion should be protected in the peaceable enjoyment of their rights. And universal rights of conscience ought to be established in every land, agreeable to the Creator's law, primarily established by him. Moral duties are the result of moral law, which is the divine prerogative alone; and man hath no right to invade the moral duty of another, for this is the right of the divine government. No man therefore, nor set of men, have a right to infringe upon, or bind, the conscience of another."—Dow's Journal, pp. 423, 467.
DR. ADAM CLARKE SAYS:
"Render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," is a maxim of Jesus Christ; but when Cæsar arrogates to himself the things that are the Lord's, then, and in such cases, his authority is to be resisted.—Comment on Dan. iii, 17.
To live nobly, we must be noble; and we become noble by resolutely banishing every unworthy thought and feeling.