Their Own Definition by W. N. GLENN

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 31, 1889

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 27.

Their Own Definition.

By W. N. GLENN

EVERY prominent advocate of a religious amendment to the Constitution disclaims any desire to bring about a union of Church and State. They scout the idea that the establishment of the Christian religion by legal enactment would constitute such a union, and insist that such a result could only be accomplished by the legal adoption of some one denominational creed as the religion of the Nation. But even their own definition will sustain the assertion that the National Reform movement is a Church and State enterprise. They shrink from the name, because of its unpopularity, but not from the principle.

Let us test the project, and the ultimate design of the originators by the construction of the term Church and State usually insisted upon by their adherents. The National Reform Association is the creature of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and the association was organized for the express purpose of securing a recognition of the principles of that denomination in the Constitution of the United States. True, their plea is for “all Christian laws and usages,” but that expression had in view the broader purpose of securing the assistance of other denominations; and the ruse is proving quite successful.

The leading organ of the denomination in question is a publication entitled the Reformed Presbyterian, and as long ago as 1870, through the medium of its columns, Rev. James Wallace set forth the aim of the pioneers of National Reform in the following unmistakable language:—

“This important truth of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the nations, was attained by our reformed and martyred fathers in Scotland, . . . and has been transmitted down to us sealed with their blood, and is the precious and peculiar inheritance of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and distinguishes her from all the other evangelical churches in this and other lands. No other church professes to maintain this great principle in its practical applications.

“The distinctive principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church are the principles, and the only principles, of National Reform.

“The proposed Amendment of the Federal Constitution is an acknowledgement by the Government that God is the author and source of all authority and power in civil government; that the Lord Jesus Christ is the ruler of nations, and that his revealed will contained in the Bible is the supreme law of nations. Now the Association for National Reform proposes to have these distinctive principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church adopted into the Constitution of the United States, and annulling any parts of that Constitution that may be inconsistent with these principles. The adoption of this amendment into the Constitution would be the Government doing . . . the highest honor to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the greatest benefit to our church.

“The principles of National Reform are our principles, and its work is our work. National Reform is simply the practical application of the principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church for the reformation of the nation.”

These statements are confirmed by Rev. J. R. W. Sloane’s account of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, in the “Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia,” in which he says:—

“The more special and distinctive principle of this church, the one in which she differs from all others, is her practical protest against the secular character of the United States Constitution. Holding to the universal headship of Christ, and that civil government is a divine ordinance, and one of the ‘all things’ put under him as the mediatorial ruler of the universe, and that to him the allegiance of all nations is due, Reformed Presbyterians refuse close incorporation with any government which does not in some form recognize these principles, and give them effective expression in its legislation. On examination of the United States Constitution, that remarkable document is found to contain no recognition of God as the source of all legitimate civil authority, nor of his law as supreme above all human laws, nor of his Son as governor among the nations. . . . The Constitution does not recognize the Bible, the Christian sabbath, Christian morality, Christian qualifications for civil officials, and gives no legal basis for any Christian feature in the administration of Government.

. . . They take the deepest interest in that reform movement which has for its object the amendment of the United States Constitution in those particulars in which they consider it defective. Indeed, they feel specially called to aid in its success, at whatever cost or personal sacrifice.”

The Reformed Presbyterian Synod of 1886, in its report on National Reform, said: “It is ours to hold up the ideals of God which have originated the National Reform cause.” And the Synod of 1885 said of National Reform, that “This is the tap-root of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.”

Although the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union has espoused the National Reform cause, and the Prohibition party is fast becoming its ally, there is no change of the original purpose. Although the American Sabbath Union—embracing nearly every denomination and various other elements, including “Christians and infidels, saints and sinners”—has been added to the army, there is still no perceptible change of principles. The recent quarter-centennial of the National Reform Association reckoned all the progress of the combined forces as so much gain for the cause of National Reform.

With all the auxiliaries that have been added to the original force, there has been nothing to indicate that the National Reform of to-day is in anything different from the National Reform of twenty years ago, when it was acknowledged to be “simply the practical application of the principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.” Then the proof is clear, that no matter how many Christian denominations, or how many secular societies, or how many political parties may ally themselves to this movement, its success will be the placing in the Constitution, to be enforced by the Government, “the distinctive principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church.” And that, according to the definition insisted upon by those leaders who most emphatically deny such desire, will be to establish a Church and State Government.

W. N. GLENN.