ELOQUENT, BUT NOT BIBLICAL.
DR. T. DEWITT TALMAGE, in a sermon some time ago, is reported to have said:— Either the American Sabbath will perish and this nation be handed over to Herods and Hildebrands and Diocletians and Neros of baleful power, and Alcoholism will reign, seated upon a piled-up throne of beer barrels, his mouth foaming with domestic and national curse, and Crime will lift its unhindered knife of assassination and rattle keys of worst burglary, and wave torch of widest conflagration, and our cities be turned into Sodoms, waiting for Almighty tempests of fire and brimstone, and one tidal wave of abomination will surge across the continent, or our sabbaths will take on more sanctity, and the newspapers will become apocalyptic wings of benediction, and penitentiaries will be abandoned for lack of occupants, and holiness and happiness, twin son and daughter of heaven, shall walk through the land, and Christ reign over this nation either in person or by agency so glorious that the whole country will be one clear, resounding echo of heaven. It will be one or the other. This is similar to much of the lurid Church and State preaching, presented as Gospel to the masses, and by them believed, as doubtless by the preacher, to be the teaching of the Bible. But, reader, it is not. The Word of God knows no “American Sabbath,” or “American Sunday,” or “Continental Sunday,” or “Australian Sunday.” The only weekly Sabbath which the Bible knows is the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath of the Lord our God. The judgments of God will never fall upon an individual or a nation for using a day as common that God has not made holy; and he has not made holy the Sunday, American or otherwise. God will destroy sin; but “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4; Rom. 7:7), and “where no law is, there is no transgression” (Rom. 4:15). As in the Word of God there is no law concerning Sunday sacredness, there is therefore no transgression in treating the day as common. That the nation is threatened with dangers in other respects, there is no doubt; but the crimes named by Dr. Talmage are not dependent on Sunday-breaking. If Dr. Talmage and his colaborers desire to promote morality, let them preach the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ. Let them inculcate obedience to God’s commands through faith in the Gospel. Let them obey that law without question, not as interpreted by the creeds, not as they choose, but as God has given it. Just as long as preachers ignore the explicit command of God as expressed in the fourth precept of the Decalogue, just so long will their hearers lightly regard the other precepts of the law. If the instructors of the church of God are “partial in the law” as regards the Sabbath precept, they must expect their hearers to be “partial in the law” as respects other precepts. If the priests interpret one plain command of God’s Word to suit themselves, they should not complain if the people interpret other precepts to suit themselves. God demands of both preacher and flock sincere, whole-hearted, unquestioning obedience. One more point we wish to mention: Christ will never reign as above stated over this nation or any other as at present constituted, either personally or by proxy. He himself declares, “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36. He reigns now by his Spirit and Word in the hearts of his people. When these are gathered out of all kingdoms and nations, then Christ will come, gather them home to himself, destroy sin and sinners out of the earth, renew its face, and then establish his everlasting reign of peace over a people who are “all righteous.” But he will not do this by any political methods; “the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” Isa. 9:7. Such preaching as the above may be eloquent, but it is not Biblical. In the judgment day every soul will desire only that which will stand the test of God’s law, the rule of the judgment. Let them accept now; for “every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.”