THE THIRD ANGEL'S MESSAGE.
Of the papacy, the Beast, as one of the three items which mark his exaltation against God, it is written that he should “think to change the times and the law” of the Most High. This the papacy did, as far as it lies in any power to do it, when it set aside the Sabbath of the Lord, and, under a papal curse, condemned its observance, and exalted Sunday in its stead. In these articles we have given quite fully the evidence that demonstrates the fulfillment of that prophecy which said that he would “think to change the times and the law” of the Most High. It is this attempted change of the Sabbath which, more than anything else, reveals that feature of the papacy by which the word of God distinguishes the papacy as “the man of sin”—“transgression of the law”—and “the mystery of lawlessness.” Greek and R. V. This, because it is a principle in governmental procedure, recognized as such in law, and so regarded in history, that for a subordinate government to reenact, especially with changes, a law made by the supreme authority for the government of the subordinate State, is “tantamount to a declaration of independence” on the part of the subordinate government. And any power, whatever it might be, however it might be organized, and wherever it might be on the earth, that would presume to take the law of God and incorporate it in legislation, with changes, would, in that, declare itself independent of God. The papacy did this when, by its working, the Sabbath was incorporated in legislation, and yet all that pertained to it was transferred to another day, thus incorporating the law of God in the legislation, with changes. That was the assertion of independence of the power and government of God. And that could be nothing less than the very pinnacle of the arrogance of lawlessness. Now, as has already been pointed out in these studies,—in the REVIEW of May 29,—the government of the United States has exactly repeated that action of the papacy. When the United States government incorporated the fourth commandment of the law of God in its legislation, and then in its legislation deliberately changed the Sabbath of that commandment to Sunday—in that thing the government of the United States asserted its independence of the power and government of God, in the very likeness of the papacy. It would be impossible for any power more certainly to change the Sabbath, so far as any power can change it, than the United States government has done in the exact likeness of the papacy before it. And this action of the United States was performed at the bidding of an apostate church, just as the change was originally made in the Roman Empire. From 1888 until 1892, the whole National Reform combination tried its best to get Congress and the whole government of the United States to do what the leaders of that combination knew to be an unconstitutional thing; that is, for the government of the United States to decide the Sabbath question by law, and fix it to Sunday as the American sabbath. While the National Reform combination was making this endeavor, as Congress did not respond readily enough to suit them, they added threats to their “petitions,” and their other efforts. These threats of the combined religious elements of the country were to the effect that they pledged themselves and one another that they would never again vote for, nor support for any office or position of trust, any member of Congress, either senator or representative, who should refuse to do their bidding to pass the church-instituted provision closing the Columbian Exposition on Sunday—the “Christian sabbath,” the “Lord's day,” etc. And everybody knows, or at least has had an opportunity to know, that Congress surrendered to these threats, and publicly advertised that it did not “dare” to do otherwise. And when an effort, based upon the Constitution, was made to have Congress undo its unconstitutional action, and place itself and the government once more in harmony with the Constitution, and with the sound fundamental principles of the nation, this same religious combination renewed its former threats, and added to these such others as best suited its purpose. The result was that the Congressional committee that had the matter in charge, and that thus acted for the whole Congress, definitely excluded the Constitution from its consideration, and deferred exclusively to the demands of that religious combination. And this, as declared by representatives in Congress, because not to do so only resulted “in stirring up animosity toward the fair, and in creating antagonism on the part of the church people.” And, as declared by a United States Circuit Court:— By a sort of factitious advantage, the observers of Sunday have secured the aid of the civil law, and adhere to that advantage with great tenacity, in spite of the clamor for religious freedom, and the progress that has been made in the absolute separation of Church and State. . . . And the efforts to extirpate the advantage above mentioned, by judicial decision in favor of a civil right to disregard the change, seem to me quite useless. . . . Christians would become alarmed, and they might substitute for the stars and other symbols of civil freedom upon the banners of their armed hosts, the symbol of the cross of Christ, and fight for their religion at the expense of their civil government. They have done this in times that are passed, and they could do it again. And he is not a wise statesman who overlooks a possibility like this, and endangers the public peace. . . . The civilian, as contradistinguished from the churchman, though united in the same person, may find in the principle of preserving the public order a satisfactory warrant for yielding to religious prejudice and fanaticism the support of those laws, when the demand for such a support may become a force that would disturb the public order. It may be a constantly diminishing force, but if it be yet strong enough to create disturbance, statesmanship takes account of it as a factor in the problem.—The U. S. Circuit Court for the western district of Tennessee, 1891. Thus, by the confirmed lawlessness of the National Reform combination—the apostate Protestantism of the United States—the government of the United States was driven into the course of declaring independence of the power and government of God—the course of lawlessness marked out originally by “the mystery of lawlessness” itself. And by that example, from that day to this, lawlessness has risen and spread like a mighty tide in this nation, and now is being further followed by the nation itself, as such, in its repudiation of the Declaration of Independence, and its abandonment of the Constitution of the nation in its present practice of “governing without the Constitution.” And these things we expected and mentioned at the time. Six years ago we wrote and published the following words: “Multitudes of people in the United States are wondering and perplexed in beholding how widespread and how persistent is the spirit of violence and lawlessness throughout the land. To those, however, who have been carefully considering public movements in the last two or three years, there is nothing to wonder at nor to be perplexed about in all this, or even more than this, that has appeared. Indeed, to those who have been carefully studying the public movements of the last two or three years, this widespread spirit of violence and lawlessness has been expected; and now, instead of expecting it to end at the limits that it has reached, widespread though it be, it is expected to become universal.” We then recounted the facts, as to the change of the Sabbath by this nation, and further said that in all this “they have demonstrated that they have no respect for any law but such as their own arbitrary will approves. For without the slightest hesitation, yea, rather, with open persistence, they have knowingly disregarded and overridden the supreme law—the Constitution—of the United States. They have set the example, and established the principle, of absolute lawlessness. “These facts demonstrate that instead of their being truly the law-abiding portion of the people, these men are among the chiefest law-breakers in the land—the most lawless of all the nation. Nor is this at all to be wondered at. For, in order to accomplish this their bad purpose, they ‘gladly joined hands’ and hearts with the papacy—that power which the Lord designates as the ‘lawless one’ and as the very ‘mystery of lawlessness’ itself. 2 Thess. 2:3, 7, R. V. In view of such an example as this, should it be thought surprising that lawlessness would be manifested by others throughout the whole country as never before, and that violence would cover the land from ocean to ocean? “It was because of this lawless example of ‘the best people of the land,’ this principle of violence and lawlessness, forced upon the government by the combined churches of the country,—it was because of this that we have expected nothing else than that violence and lawlessness would spread through the land, and that we still expect it to become universal.” “This is not to say that the particular phases of lawlessness that have of late been manifested in so many parts of the country, have been carried on by the human actors therein in conscious and intentional pursuance of the example of lawlessness set by the churches; but it is to say that there is a spirit of things that must ever be taken into account. There is the Spirit of order, and there is the spirit of disorder. And when the Spirit of order has been so outraged, and the spirit of disorder chosen and persistently followed instead, as it has been in this case,—and that too by the very ones who profess to be the representatives of the Spirit of order in the earth,—then things are given over to the spirit of disorder and lawlessness, and nothing remains but that this spirit shall prevail and increase until it becomes universal.” It is the truth that, in the change of the Sabbath, this tearing down of God's memorial and exalting in its place the papal counterfeit by the government of the United States, in 1892-93, under the threats of the apostate Protestantism of the National Reform combination, the government of the United States was delivered over to the spirit of disorder and lawlessness, as really as was the Roman Empire in the fourth century. And that lawlessness, individual and national, will here increase, as it did in the Roman Empire of the fourth century, until it shall swallow up in ruin this nation, as it swallowed up in ruin the Roman Empire.