A CORRESPONDENT writing from Los Angeles, under date of January 7, 1913, and who says that he is an “ex-priest of the Church of Rome,” takes issue with a recent article on the Federal Council of Churches by Mr. K. C. Russell. He says:
“I believe that the earlier we have unity upon religious doctrines and unity of churches, that is to say, consolidation of the entire religious world separated from politics, the sooner will the millennium come.
“I believe that so long as there are those who class themselves as ‘Protestants,’ there will always be friction and persecution as well as religious hatred, sanctioned alike by both Protestants and Catholics against one another.
“As an ex-priest of the Church of Rome, and as one accepting no one’s dogma but my own, I believe that the very antagonism among the Protestants is constantly adding to the strength of Rome. I also believe that the Seventh-day Adventists are viewed by most Protestants in the same light as Romanists.
“Seventh-day Adventists make very poor neighbors among Protestants by their tinkering and hammering on what the Protestant regards the Sabbath day. And all churches, Protestant and Catholic, regard them as filching the Jewish Sabbath, not so much because they believe in the righteousness of it, but to be different.
“It is only a matter of another century, when Rome will predominate; and long before that time every denomination and sect will have adopted a Jesus different from one another, and all of them will have different gods, all of which will be fighting one against the other.
“There are too many sects; too many creeds; too many fanatics, and the most dangerous of them all, in religion and in the field of labor, are the Seventh-day Adventists. Protestants and Romanists alike hate them, and some day a well-directed inquisition will terminate them. Fanaticism is the greatest danger to our country.
“I believe that even God hates a Seventh-day Adventist for no other reason than they are counterfeit Christians (so-called) of a hybrid type.”
We have not space for all of Mr. James Mullowney’s creed, but we give the gist of it, especially that its spirit may be seen. We make the following brief observations:
1. “Unity upon religious doctrine”—“consolidation.” “Unity upon doctrine is a matter of individual conscience. Mr. Mullowney must have believed in this or he would not have left the Church of Rome and set up his own ‘dogma.’ Granting, then, the right of individual belief, what force, or power, would he use to consolidate?
2. “Separated from politics.” But that is just what a consolidated church never has done, separated from politics. That was the warning which was given this country years ago by Hon. R. M. Johnson, adopted by the Congress of the United States, that a consolidation of religious forces to effect a political purpose is always dangerous; and one of the objects of the Federation of the Protestant Churches in America, is to purify politics, and through politics enforce certain Christian dogmas. The Roman Catholic Church has never been separate from politics, only as she has been compelled to be. How can such consolidation bring the millennium?
3. “Friction and persecution.” There has always been friction between those who are loyal and faithful to conscience and the Word, and those who are not. It was the Master Himself who said, “I came not to send peace” on earth, “but a sword.” The whole difficulty lies in this, that there are conscientious souls who will be faithful and bold toward God, whatever may come, and there are those, on the other hand, who will count them fanatics and stubborn, and will exercise the power of the civil arm to bring them to their ideas of what ought to be,—hence always friction and persecution as long as the carnal heart is against God’s law. Mr. M. will never find it otherwise in this world.
4. Why did Mr. M. add to the “antagonism” in the differences, by himself separating from the Church of Rome? True Protestantism protests only against those things in the professed church of Christ which are contrary to the Word. Our critic ought to read the famous “Protest of Spires.” That protest was both Christian and Biblical in all its essentials.
5. Regarding the Sabbath, Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists, and the seventh-day keepers there are scattered among other denominations, have regarded the commandment of the eternal God and the example of the Lord Jesus Christ with apostles and prophets, a sufficient basis for the observance of the seventh day. To them it is vital.
6. Our critic is putting off the predominance of Rome a good deal farther than present indications will warrant. The “more sure word of prophecy” has spoken upon this question, and everything indicates its fulfilment.
7. If too many sects and too many creeds, why does Mr. M. set up another sect of his own, and another creed? Why not stay with that church which he believes will predominate, and which his letter seems to indicate will blot out Seventh-day Adventists? and if, as he believes, God hates them, why can he not leave them with God?
Of course one can see that as long as he holds his present attitude, which is intrinsically and emphatically Roman, it is only an easy step to constitute himself, if he has the power, God’s agent, and be the means of bringing an end to the hated sect.
Ah, brother, it is a bad state to be in,—contrary to every principle of the Master. It was Jesus Himself who said, “If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” It was He who said, concerning His pitiless murderers, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” It was His apostle who said, in speaking to those who crucified the Christ, “And now, brethren, I know that in ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers;” and it was another apostle who said, in referring to the wicked rulers of this world, “But we speak God’s wisdom . . . which none of the rulers of this world hath known: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.”
The above quotations from our critic clearly reveal to us just what the Federal Council of Churches will accomplish if they are enabled to carry out their religio-political schemes. We believe that many of them—the majority of them—do not believe in persecution, or hold any such spirit as is indicated in the above; but when they have enacted the laws, set in operation the legal agencies for persecution, we may be very sure that there will be plenty of minds who have such decided and malignant hatred toward some whom they are pleased to denominate12fanatics, that persecution will inevitably follow. Of this God has forewarned us in His Word, and of just such things as this, this journal has given warnings from its very existence.
