National Reform and the Rights of Conscience
By C. M. S.
THE writer was never so forcibly impressed with the fact that the National Reform Association is actually and actively fulfilling prophecy as during the institute recently held at Winona Lake, Ind. This was particularly manifest in the attitude of the chief speakers toward the rights and consciences of the individual, and the exaltation of a church-state above everything human and into the place of everything divine. The nation is made a veritable god in the temple of National Reform,—a god of the Juggernaut type, riding in placid unconcern over the living consciences of the people, and crushing them under its ponderous wheels. In that organization, which is arranging now to spread out its influence and its operations to all parts of the world, the characteristics and the purposes of the papal power are blooming forth again. This is truly an image of that. The Word of God denominated that power “the beast.” That same Word tells of the making of an “image” to it, and we do not need to look farther than the National Reform Association in order to find an organization fulfilling the characteristics of that “image,” and ready to lead the world in doing the work which that image was to lead the world to do. The National Reform Association stands for the rulership of the world by one executive. So has always stood, and still stands, the Church of Rome; and she has the executive who is ready to occupy the position. The National Reform Association stands for a national religion, dictated by the church and adopted by the state. Upon that platform the Catholic Church has stood for centuries, and still stands. The National Reform Association stands for the idea that the church-state (into which it would turn the government) has a right to rule in the civil, moral, and religious realms. Holding such a position, it is absolutely impossible for it to grant to individuals the rights of conscience; for to admit one’s right to follow the leadings of his conscience in a state which claims jurisdiction over the religion of the individual, would be equivalent to admitting one’s right to follow his own wishes in relation to civil matters under an ordinary state government which has laws regulating civil affairs. If it is right for the state to rule in religious things, the individual, of course, has no recourse any more than he has in the ordinary civil state when he does that which is out of harmony with the civil law. The National Reform Association stands on that platform, and speaks of the rights of the individual as “so-called rights” and “miscalled rights.” In taking this position, that organization is in perfect harmony with—a perfect “image” of—the papal power. That power declares that freedom of conscience is insanity, and anathematizes the idea that “liberty of conscience and of worship is the right of every man.” See the encyclical of Gregory XVI, Aug. 13, 1862. Saint Augustine calls freedom of conscience the “liberty of perdition.”—St. Augustine, Epistle 105, al. 166. Pope Pius IX stigmatizes as among the errors of his time the idea that “every man is free to embrace and profess the religion he shall believe true, guided by the light of reason.”—Apostolic Letters, “Multiplices inter,” 10th June, 1851. The two organizations stand upon the same platform here. Said the Rev. J. S. Martin, in his address on August 17 upon “The Liberty of the Teacher:” — Among all the foes of our country we have none to fear even half so much as those who, in the name of religious liberty, and of individual rights of conscience, are infringing upon the rights of the Christian people and of the state itself. Liberty of conscience has always been dangerous to a tyrannical, state-enforced religion. So surely as men think, they will think outside the dusty, beaten path of stereotyped intellectual expression; and so surely as they worship God in spirit and in truth, they will express that worship in forms that are outside the rigid ritualistic ruts of state-enforced creeds. The Pope trembled on his throne when he found he could not stop the mouth or the pen of Luther, who was teaching a free salvation and the liberty of the individual to accept it. The liberty of the individual in matters of faith and conscience, as proclaimed by the Anabaptists of Europe, was looked upon by the church-states of Europe as a fearfully dangerous thing; and they were denounced as the chief enemies of those governments for holding it. So they were slaughtered by the thousands by those states which were still dominated by the papal idea that the rights of the individual are only “so-called” or “miscalled” rights, and that the state is a “moral individual” with rights which it must maintain even in immoral ways. No appeal of right of conscience of infidel or atheist or any other may free her [the state] from this which is her right and her duty [that is, maintaining her rights as against the so-called rights of any and all of her citizens]. That necessitates, of course, in the ultimate an absolute monarchy, which can do what it pleases without any regard to the wishes of “any and all of her citizens.” The National Reform Association, therefore, by its own teachings, condemns itself as an outspoken enemy of the republic. A republic, supposedly, and theoretically at least, is operated in harmony with the will of the majority of the people in temporal concernments. But here is an organization that openly advocates a rule which may be diametrically opposed not only to the will but even to the (“so-called”) “rights of any and all” of the people. We have intimated before that National Reformism is not in harmony with the principles of the republic. By such teachings as this they now openly affirm it themselves. Their program and their teachings are both incompatible with the American idea of government; that is, a civil government supreme in civil things, which leaves the individual conscience supreme in the matter of its relation to God. The National Reformer, when confronted with the idea that the individual must follow the leadings of conscience if his attitude in spiritual things is to be acceptable in the sight of Heaven, professes to be able to see only two possible results of such liberty—polyandry and polygamy. And to save the world from polyandry and polygamy, which are horrible enough, they would institute something equally horrible, and if possible more debasing, because of its proposed universality—the slavery of conscience to the dictum of a state-church, and the confiscation of the liberties of all the people. To prevent polyandry and polygamy, they think it necessary to prevent the Sabbatarian from following the law of Jehovah. They would make the Constitution a religious creed, and turn the laws of all the States into Articles of Faith.14 No better machine for the manufacture of hypocrites was ever devised. If the church of the third and fourth centuries was endangered and made an apostate by the conditions that caused unconverted pagans to flock into her fold, certainly the program which this organization is working upon is doubly certain to produce a like result. With a creed in place of a Constitution, and the church made a national institution, there is no kind of politician or wire-puller or grafter or hypocrite or scoundrel who will not fall upon his knees and cry for membership. The fact that this National Reform program has met with such favor among the federated churches makes its success assured; and its success means the perversion of our government and the reign of persecution for those who will not be hypocrites. In another article will be set forth the purpose of the National Reform Association regarding the promulgation of its doctrines in other nations. In that will be strikingly manifest how the National Reform Association is fulfilling prophecy.