FORBIDDING TO BUY AND SELL.
By G.
Roger Williams a Case in Point.
It is remarkable how things deemed impossible eventually work out. It is remarkable how the doing of things that appear to be right will open the door to the accomplishment of things that are wrong. That is why processes set on foot as "reform" may lead to retrogressive results. The prophecy of Revelation 13 reveals an earthly power—a "beast coming up out of the earth," having "two horns like unto a lamb" and that "spake as a dragon." It is also said that this beast causes the people to make and to worship a "beast," previously mentioned in the same chapter, and that they should receive a "mark," or sign, peculiar to that first-mentioned "beast," or power. Furthermore it is said that this two-horned beast shall cause that those who refuse to worship the first beast and to receive his mark shall be denied the right to buy or sell, and that they shall be put to death. Now all Protestants agree that the "first beast" mentioned in that chapter is the Papacy. But when it is shown that the United States Government is the two-horned beast because only it, of all others, meets the specifications, we are met with the objection that such a thing would be impossible in a republican government, or in a free country. But in a country where the law can forbid the people to buy or sell on stated days, what is to hinder—when public sentiment is sufficiently inclined—the prohibition of certain classes from buying and selling at any time? When the precedent is already set, and the people who advocate the principles of the power in whose interest such laws are enacted shall have secured sufficient influence in the government, what is to hinder their procuring any law against their opponents that they may desire? Now it is a well-established fact that the Sunday-sabbath institution is an ordinance of the Papacy. The Roman hierarchy holds it up as a mark of the authority of "the church" to ordain festivals, even in contravention of the law of God. Yea, more; they cite the Sunday institution as the mark which even Protestants quite generally recognize. It is also a prominent fact that professed Protestants all over the United States are strenuously urging the observance of this mark upon the people, and urging the law-making powers—national, State, and municipal—to enforce it upon the people. Then what is more logical, when they shall have secured the power, than that they should go further, and have the law declare that those who oppose the edict forbidding men to buy or sell on Sunday shall be prohibited from buying or selling at all? The general government, in some degree every State and territory, and many municipalities, are already committed to the recognition of the Church-and-State "image" and of the "mark" promulgated by the Roman Church as her special badge of authority. The working of professed Protestants through political intrigue with the government—that is, on Roman Catholic lines—is no new thing. This was carried to the bitter end in the persecution of dissenters by the Covenanters of Scotland and the Protestant State Church of England. Also when the Puritan exiles came to America seeking "freedom to worship God," it was hardly a dozen years before they were themselves persecuting men for any disregard of this same Roman Catholic institution. It was for this very reason that Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts in 1635, just fifteen years after the landing of the Pilgrim fathers at Plymouth Rock. The historian says: "He was censured by the court because he taught that magistrates should not punish the breach of the Sabbath or dictate on the subject of worship." And the colonial governments, with the possible exception of Rhode Island, were founded in the Church-and-State principle, by men who professed to be Protestants. Thus it has been demonstrated that when professed Protestant "reformers" start out on the papal principle of setting up their ideals through government manipulation, it is but logical that their efforts should culminate in a full-fledged "image" and the enforcement by crucial penalties of the recognized "mark." And it is but reasonable, yea, to be expected, that the Spirit of prophecy would foresee and foretell the result. That this government may go so far as to forbid men to buy and sell property that is of itself useful to them and to the public, is mooted by men of the world without reference to matters of religion. The great railroad "merger" case is familiar to most people in this country. A company known as the Northern Securities Company was formed for the purpose of buying and combining the stock of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific Railroads. Suit was instituted in a United States Court to prevent the "merger," on the ground that it was in violation of a law of Congress. The court decided that to buy and sell the stock of the two roads in that way was illegal. The people all over the country have been rejoicing because the formation of a great railroad "trust" is thus supposed to be foiled. But if the decision should be affirmed by the Supreme Court, it may prove a precedent that will be perverted or constrained to work prohibition not thought of by the framers of the Anti-trust Law. At least this is the opinion of a lawyer of national repute. One who has been Attorney-General of the United States says of the decision: "If this decision carries with it the broad principle it seems to, Congress will have power to tell a man what he shall buy, and forbid one man from purchasing what may be owned and used by another." It is popular to talk glibly about the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, but it is possible for the Constitution to be utterly ignored by "the powers that be." And the more they become imbued with the imperial Church-and-State idea, or the more they come to politically fear the element among the people that would enforce that principle under the pretext of "reform," the more liable they are to ignore the Constitution. When Congress and the Executive Department and the Supreme Court and a prevailing sentiment are agreed as to the political expediency of any measure, the Constitution is powerless to check them, or to remedy any evil that may accrue. That has been demonstrated. So when the Supreme Court becomes a little more Catholicized in its personnel, and the executive becomes a little more impressed with the expediency of placating Rome, and Congress becomes a little more fearful of the political influence of the Bureau of Reform, it will not be long until we shall hear of the decree that those who oppose the Church-and-State "image" and the Sunday "mark" shall neither buy nor sell. The prophecy will surely be fulfilled, and everything is shaping for a speedy fulfilment. G.