Departures From the Principles of Religious Liberty
[The following is a report of an address on religious liberty, delivered by Elder C. S. Longacre at the Greater New York camp-meeting, June 10, 1908. — Ed.] As the first illustration of a departure from the principles of civil and religious liberty, I will take you back into ancient history, to the experience of Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylon. About twenty years after the people of the true God were carried into captivity, this heathen king made a great image of gold. Then he made a decree that every man in his kingdom should bow down and worship that image. They were compelled to worship. Every one was forced to this worship, irrespective of belief or conviction. When the decree was issued, and went into effect, there were three men among the children of Israel who refused to bow down and worship that image. The king was very wroth when he learned that there were subjects who did not obey his law. Let us see what was the result of legislating upon religious matters in this instance. The king called them into his presence, and offered them another chance, saying, “If . . . ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.” But true to their conscientious convictions and to the law of their God, they answered: “Be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” For this resistance on the part of his subjects to the religious laws of Babylon and to the king himself, Nebuchadnezzar ordered the heat of the furnace multiplied seven times. But God wrought a miraculous deliverance for his faithful servants. Here God put himself upon record that the king did not do the right thing, and that his loyal servants took the proper course when they refused to yield obedience to the coercive religious law of Babylon. “Well,” says the modern religious-law advocate: “Of course Nebuchadnezzar was wrong, because he was trying to enforce a false religion; but it would have been all right if he had enforced the true religion. To be sure, he thought he was enforcing the true religion, and every religious zealot thinks he is enforcing the true religion. But after God frustrated the king’s decree in a remarkable deliverance, then Nebuchadnezzar blessed the true God and exalted the true religion. He now made a law to exalt the true religion,—the genuine religion above every false religion,—and compelled every one to submit to it; and any one who resisted the true religion was to be visited with a swift judgment. All this was to be done to aid God, and advance his cause. Now notice the attitude God took toward the king to correct him. He gave him a dream, and told him in the interpretation of it that it was given “to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men;” that is, in the realm of morals and righteousness. In this dream, God asked the king to desist from forcing divine obligations upon the people, “by showing mercy to the poor; if it may be an healing of thine error” (margin). What was his error?—Why, he had stepped into the domain of God, and was forcing the true worship upon all, irrespective of their convictions. Moreover, God told Nebuchadnezzar that if he would not accept his counsel, and correct his error, he would drive him from men for seven years, and make him to eat grass as an ox in the field. “After that thou shalt have known that the heavens do rule.” He did not humble himself, nor correct his error by showing mercy, and giving God his rightful place to rule in the kingdom of men. So God took his reason from him for seven years, and as a lunatic he roamed the fields. After that Nebuchadnezzar issued another decree, to all people everywhere, and it contained but one sentence: “Peace be multiplied unto you.” In the rest of the fourth chapter of Daniel, the great king tells the reasons why he was led to issue this universal proclamation of peace to all people everywhere. “Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven,” was his closing testimony. It was a personal thing with him now; and he did not attach even an exhortation to his testimony, much less a law to compel others to accept his views on religion. Again, after the Babylonian kingdom was overthrown, and the Medo-Persians became the rulers of the world, the true people of God were handed over to another heathen ruler. The first king was soon induced to make a religious law that got Daniel into trouble. One lone man—a small minority—refused to respect this law on the ground of religious convictions. No fault could be found with the character of Daniel in his life and conduct, save this one thing, that he did not regard the law that had been signed which was to regulate the exact time of his worship. This law they held could not be altered. But Daniel purposed that he would not allow any man or set of men to regulate the time of his worship, and God honored him by a remarkable deliverance in the position he took against this religious law which infringed his liberties as to the time of his worship. The reason that God put these things upon record in the Bible at that time, and also had the kings both issue proclamations of universal peace and freedom in religious matters to all the people everywhere, was that these things should serve the purpose of a standing memorial for all people, and kings, and rulers of nations for all time to come. The reason why God so miraculously delivered his faithful servants at this time but in later times allowed them to be slain when they resisted the oppressive laws of the earthly kingdoms, was for the simple reason that those ancient heathen nations and rulers had had no opportunity of learning from any source the position that kings ought to take on matters of religion. They were unwittingly ignorant, and God had to resort to these remarkable measures to teach them the individual right of conscience above the authority of the State, in matters pertaining to faith. When the state proceeds now in the face of these remarkable records to force and slay men who will not compromise religious convictions for state enactments which are against them, the God of heaven allows them to proceed; but they have an account to settle before heaven’s tribunal for not heeding the lessons of the past. Another departure from the fundamental principles took place when the church united with the state in the days of Christ. The church could not of itself carry out its schemes, so it linked arms with Cæsar. The result was that it fought against God, and condemned to death even the Son of God, because he had no respect for the traditions which they had enacted into civil law. A church, when united with the state and intoxicated with its power, will not stop with man if he differs with her, but will even pull God from his throne, and execute him if he does not submit to her carnal ordinances. Again, the evil results are seen when we trace the history of pagan Rome,—the union of a heathen religion with the state. Pagan Rome would tolerate the Christian religion only on condition that the Christian religion also recognize the pagan. They said: “We will let you preach Christ, but you must also recognize Cæsar as pontifex maximus, or high priest.” This they refused to do, and the ten Cæsars of Rome put to death over five million faithful Christians. The twelfth Cæsar—Constantine the Great—nominally accepted Christianity. A few years later the professed Christian church linked arms with Constantine. Soon Justinian made a decree recognizing the chief bishop of the Catholic Church as the head of all the churches, and the head of that church as the corrector of heretics. From the time this decree went into effect in 538 A. D., the Church of Rome made and administered the laws for all religious people in the Roman empire, and employed the state as its servant to execute them. The result was that ninety-five million faithful Christians were martyred, and the church became so oppressive that her own papal states revolted, and took the scepter from her hands. The Church of Rome is reaping to-day the results of that unholy union with France, which is just awakening from her long sleep during the night of the Dark Ages. The reformed churches, as they left the portals of the Roman Church, swore that they would eternally contend for a total separation of the church and state; but soon, when they got into the majority in certain states in Europe, they immediately combined the church and state, thus following the example of the papacy. John Calvin in Switzerland set himself up at the head of the church and state, and framed laws which resulted in the persecution of all heretics to Calvinism. He caused Servetus to be burned at the stake for no other reason than that he was a heretic to Calvinism. John Calvin formulated laws for Scotland and England in which he set the church above the state, and used the state as a tool to aid the church. Soon in Scotland and England where these reformers were in absolute power, they waded through seas of blood as they mowed down Catholics, Puritans, Quakers, and Baptists who differed from the Covenanters, or Calvinistic Presbyterians. Thus the history of ancient and medieval times has been one of constant persecution and bloodshed, because of intolerance whenever the church and religion were established by law. May God save this nation from like shipwreck. May God preserve the grand principles of a non-establishment of religion in this nation as set forth in the Constitution. Constantine paved the way for the downfall of the Roman Church by enacting a Sunday law, the first religious law for the Holy Roman empire, which cemented the union of the church and state then. Protestant America is being lured into the same deceptive snare, and every liberty-loving citizen should protest with voice and pen, and bring to light the forgotten history of the past.