p. 6 | DEMONSTRATED FAILURES by G.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 8, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 41.

DEMONSTRATED FAILURES.

By G.

VI. National Religion.

Every religion in this world, excepting the religion of Jesus Christ, is a religion of human works, an effort of man to save himself from destruction, an effort in some way to curry favor with some real or imaginary deity. The very thought of adopting any religion implies a conscious lack of natural merit, which must be overcome by some means. It is also true that every religious individual desires to see other people adopt his religion. Attempt to disguise it as he may, every religious man is logically a proselytist. If sincere, he deems his religion better for all mankind than any other, and he will favor whatever means his religious conviction will allow to induce others to adopt that religion. To this end he will use whatever power his religious conviction will suggest or endorse. If his religion be of Jesus Christ, he will use only the power of the Holy Spirit, which operates through the Word of God. If his religion be of works, he is cut off from the power of the Spirit, and shut up to human power.

Of the religion of works the most potent power is the power of civil government; therefore, when the Christian Church began to apostatize, it gradually lost the power of the Spirit, and began to feel after the power of the government. While the Spirit was the acknowledged guide of the professed disciples of Christ, the civil government was a means through which they were persecuted. Paganism had the favor of the government, and its votaries were not persecuted. So when influential Pagans became connected with the Christian Church, they conceived the idea that it would be a good thing to compromise

a little, gain favor with the powers that be, and avoid persecution. In this way they finally gained sufficient influence to “convert” the emperor. Constantine was sagacious enough to see the superiority of the Christian religion over Paganism, as also the growing influence of its adherents. As a matter of political policy he deemed it wise to formally adopt the Christian religion.

But the more power the church gained in the government the more she lost of the power of the Spirit. It was not many years after the government officially espoused the Christian religion, and the church began to utilize national power, that the church commenced persecuting those who were opposed to a union of the Church with the State. It was not many years until the professed Christian church, with its newly acquired national religion, was anathematizing those Christians who maintained allegiance to the commandments of God. This national religion, popularly styled “Christian,” developed into the Papacy, which is briefly described in 2 Thess. 2:7–10. And following this consummation was the Dark Ages—twelve hundred and sixty years of papal persecution, with all its indescribable horrors.

Now, if national religion had any merit at all, certainly a national Christian religion ought to be as much better than all others as Christianity is better than all other religions. And if the power of civil government had any potency as an auxiliary force in the propagation of the Christian religion, certainly the strongest civil power the world has ever known would be the most potent of all. So there could be no better or fairer test of the fruit of national religion than that of the best religion on earth nationalized by the strongest political government on earth. But the Lord Himself, in portraying this fruit in advance, pictures it as a “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved. But for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” Matt. 24:21, 22. Thus was this national “Christian” religion so especially hostile and tyrannical toward even the elect of God, the history of its work fully verifying the Lord’s forecast.

But some will say that was the Papacy, which was not a fair representation of Christianity. True, but the Papacy was itself the fruit of nationalized Christianity—that is, Christianity so far apostatized as to seek the power of civil government as an auxiliary. The Christianity of Christ and His apostles never could be nationalized by any worldly power; it could not be induced to give up the greater power of the Spirit for the lesser power of the world. Nor could any world-power be induced to adopt the religion of Jesus Christ. No world-power attempting to carry out the Golden Rule, or standing on the doctrine to “resist not evil,” or “to love thy neighbor as thyself,” could long maintain a position among the nations of earth. Any religion that could be nationalized by any civil government must needs be a religion of physical force. The nations of this world are seeking only such alliances as will add to their physical power, directly or indirectly.

But we are not left without demonstration of the failure of national so-called Protestantism. A protest of Bible Christianity against national religion—a nationalized religion professing to be Christian—was the origin of Protestantism. Luther was the human leader in the Reformation, and always resisted the union of Church and State, or national religion. As long as this position was maintained the Reformation was a power for good, and the influence of those times is still manifest to some extent. After Luther’s death, however, a Lutheran Church was organized, and in time was nationalized. It is the national religion of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway; but it is generally conceded that its only power is the power of the governments behind it.

The principal exponent of this national religion is Germany, yet with all the influence that such national religion could wield, the government was unable to resist the power of Rome in the national politics. Even the great “iron duke,” Bismarck, had to give way to the Papacy in certain measures affecting her interests. Now note particularly, when the Reformation was without national alliance or feature, it made positive headway in Germany against the Papacy with strong national backing and temporal power; but professed Protestantism, in the form of debilitated “Lutheranism” nationalized, is obliged to yield before the Papacy shorn of its temporal power. And all the “Protestant” governments of Europe (excepting Sweden), with their national religions, have so far lost their Protestant principles as to keep at the Vatican, or periodically send to the Vatican, some kind of diplomatic representative to keep up friendly relations. All this because of the peculiar notion that at some time Rome’s friendship may be of some temporal benefit, or that her enmity may prove a detriment to their temporal welfare.

God gave Israel the true religion, but when the masses regarded it as a formal rather than a heart work, and made of it a national rather than an individual matter, there was a disastrous failure. Their national religion ran the natural course of religion depending for its momentum on human power—it ran into dead formality and intolerance. The failure of national religion in Israel’s hands is conceded on all sides. Yet even more striking was the failure of the Christian religion when it degenerated into the national religion of Rome, and of Protestantism when it became the national religion of the governments of Europe. And in the face of all these failures, we have the manifold, multiform elements of so-called National Reform stretching every nerve for the establishment of a national religion in this country. Beware of it. It is a thrice-demonstrated failure.