National Reformism at Winona Lake, Ind.
By C. M. S.
Liberty's Citadel Under Fire
To the National Reformer the United States of America is a nation in open rebellion against the government of heaven. For that reason the National Reformer does not vote in general elections. To do so would be to lend his support to a government that has bid defiance to the King of the universe. This attitude is assumed toward the national government because the national Constitution confines its provisions to the civil or temporal affairs of men. Were the Constitution a document which abounded with declarations of allegiance to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ, and exercised a strict supervision over the religious concernments of men, as did the early charters and constitutions of the American colonies, it would be in harmony with their belief and purpose, and they would be able to exercise the franchise without doing violence to their consciences. But as that immortal foundation of American jurisprudence leaves every man free to follow the dictates of his conscience—to worship or not to worship as he may choose—it is out of harmony with those early colonial charters, out of harmony with the cruel practises built upon them, and, therefore, out of harmony with the purposes of the National Reform Association, which are based upon those colonial charters and experiences. That we are not doing them any injustice in stating that their purposes and plans are of the colonial type is apparent from their own declarations. Said Dr. J. M. Wylie at this institute:— The influence of the civil government in shaping morals makes it necessary that the New Testament prophet, the man who speaks for God, shall proclaim God's will concerning this department of the kingdom. The fact that civil government controls the education of our children, the vital question of marriage and divorce, and even the lives of the citizens, demands that it be placed under divine law, and that God's spokesmen shall utter his will. The prophets understood better than the kings the fundamental law of the land, and kings were compelled to consult them. The reformers and the preachers in the early days of our republic were men who had an important part in molding the destinies of the nation. What is this but a return to colonial days and methods? The preachers of those days told the state what was “the will of God,” and the subservient state enforced the preachers' interpretation of that divine will. It mattered not what cruelty it entailed, it was “God's will,” and they were his agents; and they made him responsible for all they did. They held that the state must “be placed under divine law,” and they attempted to place it there, and through their attempt to do that there was created, not a paradise, but a purgatory. The ministers of those days considered themselves God's spokesmen. They were the ruling force in politics; and with their mental vision dazzled by the glamour of that power, they were blind to the great matters of justice and equality between man and man, to the rights of men in the matter of choosing unmolested what religion they would profess, or whether they would profess any; and that abuse of power by those ordained to the service of God, that practise of injustice by those ordained to the cause of righteousness, has sprinkled the nation thickly with scoffers, skeptics, and infidels. “God's spokesmen shall utter his will,” said those colonial legislators. They were his spokesmen; they uttered his will (or professed to); and then they placed themselves on the throne of vengeance to execute God's wrath upon all whom they judged to be disobedient to him or under the frown of his displeasure. “God's spokesmen shall utter his will,” says the National Reform Association. Will they utter it without putting it into execution? Their colonial prototypes did it, and we have no reason to suppose that they will not do the same, once they are clothed with the requisite power. “The prophets understood better than the kings the fundamental law of the land, and the kings were compelled to consult them,” says the National Reformer. What is this but the plainest kind of declaration that when their plans mature, when this nation has been “Christianized,” as they express it, the church will control the state, molding all its legislation, and sweeping away every guaranty of freedom of worship. The prophets (that is, the preachers) are to tell the state what it shall and what it shall not do; they are to interpret “the fundamental law of the land” because they understand it better than do the laity. “The kings were compelled to consult” the prophets. So the representatives of the American government are to consult the modern prophets concerning what the government should be and do. That gives us a hierarchy in place of a republic, and the people are to be ruled by the ministers, instead of ruling themselves as our present Constitution provides. That it is the design of the National Reform organization to take the government of this nation out of the hands of the people, where it has rested so long, was shown by the address of Rev. J. S. Martin at this convention, on August 14. Mr. Martin is the general superintendent of the National Reform Association. He said:— This association proposes that there shall be a recognition made in our nation's fundamental law that the law of God as revealed through Jesus Christ, and not the will of the majority of the people, is the supreme law of the land. That association proposes that the national Constitution shall make that declaration; shall declare that the will of the majority of the people is not the supreme law of the land; shall declare that the law of God, as revealed by Jesus Christ, is the supreme law of the nation. That would at once put the nation under ecclesiastical control; for “the preachers are the successors of the prophets,” the expounders of the divine will, the authorized “spokesmen” of God. No law could be formulated without their authorization, or enacted without their approval. From a government by the people we would be transformed into a government by the ecclesiastical overlords of the people, who would utter their decrees as the decrees of the Almighty, and enforce them, as of old, without pity or compassion. This organization is not dangerous because of its numbers, for in its constituency it is not large; but because the tares it is sowing in the world are finding in a Spirit-lacking and power-loving church a most fertile field for their growth and propagation. As it was in the days of Constantine, so it is now. As the church loses the power of the Holy Ghost, she reaches out for the power and pomp and political influence of the world. The National Reform propaganda panders to a political priesthood's love of power and influence, and the slogan of its hosts catches the ear of many who have deserted the prayer-meeting for the caucus, and put the Bible critic where the evangelist used to be. It is this that makes their propaganda against the government and its Constitution a dangerous attack. Men who are looking for the loaves and the fishes of political influence will flock to its standard; and politicians, whose ears are always pressed to the ground to hear from what direction the forces they fear are approaching, will not be slow to wheel into line when the movement has attained sufficient influence. The association holds that this is a Christian nation; and being such, it is extremely inconsistent that it should have “a secular constitution.” Such a constitution, they hold, does not sufficiently safeguard the “Christian institutions, usages, and customs of the nation.” Said Dr. Wylie:— If the present Constitution will not sustain our national [religious] institutions and usages, then it is high time we had a new Constitution, or an amendment to the old one, that will furnish a sure foundation for the pillars of this republic. That they considered the national Constitution out of date, inadequate, and inconsistent with the nation's Christian5features, was repeatedly declared and emphasized during this institute. Said Rev. J. S. McGaw:— For one hundred thirty years we have tried the experiment of a secular constitution, and the moral, social, civil, and political conditions throughout the land declare beyond the peradventure of a doubt a secular constitution for a Christian nation is a failure. . . . The legalized evils of the hour are not the sins of the administration. The disease is constitutional, and we will never be able to eradicate it fully from our political system, until we treat the Constitution to a Christian amendment. . . . To continue to build on the insufficient foundation is neither good sense nor good statesmanship. The only wise thing to do is to put our government on a thoroughly Christian basis by an open acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as King and Lawgiver of this nation. That, in their estimation, would be the enthronement of Christ and the end of iniquity; for, said this speaker, “With the Christian principles of civil government thoroughly embedded in our fundamental law, there is not a legalized sin which could be legally reared upon it, and we could go forward building a national structure which would endure.” The coming of Christ, as believed and taught at this institute, is not the coming of Christ as taught by Christ and his apostles; but his coming is to consist of the acknowledgment of Christ as ruler by the various nations, led by the United States. That is his coming, and that is his crowning as the universal Ruler. That will usher in the reign of righteousness. It might be said in conclusion that this program will prepare the world, as nothing else could, for the acknowledgment of the universal sovereignty of the papal prince, sitting in the place of God and setting himself forth as the legitimate acting Prince of Peace. The present campaign of the National Reform Association is an attack upon the very citadel of our liberties, both civil and religious. It proposes a complete metamorphosis of the fundamental principles of the government, which will result in establishing a hierarchy on the ruins of the republic, and giving us ecclesiastical tyranny in the place of civil and religious freedom. C. M. S.