Last-Day Protestantism
By L. A. S.
WHY do Seventh-day Adventists stand apart, denominationally, from other people in the religious world? What is it that justifies them in maintaining this religious separation? A definite and weighty reason is demanded in explanation of their peculiarity in this respect. And in every Seventh-day Adventist mind this reason should be clearly defined. It is not because it is, naturally, either pleasant or advantageous for them to be peculiar, that they have separated themselves from other churches. It is only for a reason which in their view amounts to a positive necessity for such action, that they occupy this position. Anything short of such a reason would not justify them in it. And that reason is, that they are Protestants. They protest against every manifestation of the papacy, and they cannot remain in any church which is dominated by the principles of the papacy. It is the manifestation of the papal spirit which has driven Seventh-day Adventists out of all other churches in the world. All Seventh-day Adventists should therefore know what the characteristics of the papacy are, and what are the principles of Protestantism to which as a denomination they are committed. The essence of the papacy consists in the exaltation of man into the place of God. In the Vatican at Rome sits one who openly proclaims himself the vicegerent of God on earth, invested with authority to command all men in matters of religious faith and morals. Those who admit his claims do not go beyond his word for the foundation of their faith. They believe, nominally, in God, but their ideas of the will of God are supplied wholly by the teaching of pope and prelates. Thus they look to man instead of God for a knowledge of the way of salvation; and thus it is that a man, mortal, fallible, sinful, like unto his fellow beings of earth, “as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thess. 2:4. This is the papacy in its full flower; here is seen the fullest development of which the papal system is capable. But the papal spirit has budded and blossomed elsewhere in our world than at the Vatican. The popes are not the only men who have been exalted into the place of God. The papal church is not the only one in which the Word of God has been supplanted by the word of man. The history of the Protestant churches shows the workings of the same antichristian influence. The rule of Protestantism is that God’s Word, and that only, is the true foundation of faith, and that the only sure guide into religious truth is the Holy Spirit. But the spirit of self, which leads an individual to cling to his own opinions and practices in opposition to light from God, has prevailed in the Protestant churches, so that, as new light has come to them from the inspired Word,—some new message marking a forward movement in the work of God, and calling for a reform in religious life,—they have rejected it, and fallen back upon the word of man for their justification. Thus when the Sabbath message came, pointing out that God’s Word declares the Sabbath to be the seventh day and not the first, they persisted in observing the first-day institution, and for justification in so doing appealed to the writings of the church “fathers.” Finding no authority in the Word of God for the first-day sabbath, they turned for authority to the word of man. Against the Scripture for the seventh day they set up the sophistry and speculations of human minds in behalf of the first day, claiming that Christ and the apostles changed the Sabbath day, though there is nothing to support this claim save the historical fact that a change of the day was made in the early centuries under the authority of “the church.” This is Catholic church history, and agrees with the papal claim that the church had authority to change the Sabbath, and did change the day as a sign of that authority. But he who goes over to this position can no longer consistently claim to be a Protestant. The Protestant churches one after the other, have become dominated by a spirit which sets up human ideas, arguments, and traditions against the message of truth from the Word of God. He who would be guided by that Word alone must of necessity seek a place of worship where “the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified.” 2 Thess. 3:1. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty,” and that Spirit will not remain in any company where the Word of God is bound by human traditions. In the plan of salvation that Word is supreme, as being the sole foundation of faith, without which salvation is impossible. Therefore, as one church fell away from allegiance to the Word of God, and turned to tradition and human authority for support in its system of worship, God called out a new company in whose midst the Word of God could be free, and intrusted to them the message of salvation to the world for their time. It is thus that Seventh-day Adventists have been called out from the churches of this day, and intrusted with the proclamation of the great message announcing the hour of God’s judgment, and warning men against the worship of the “beast” and his “image.” For a knowledge of Christian truth and duty, do you look to man? or do you look to God? Your answer to these questions tells in what company you belong, whether in that one in which the spirit of Christian liberty prevails, or in that one dominated by the spirit of the papacy. Is it the Word of God, or the word of the pastor, that settles in your mind the question of Christian duty that has been raised? In the pathway of your religious experience, are your eyes fixed upon some human leader? or do you see “no man, save Jesus only”? Some people think that a religious movement must come to naught unless it can point to some visible leader—some man who directs every action, and whose word in all matters is supreme. We thank God there is no such leader in the work of the third angel’s message. There is no one, and we want no one, to draw the attention of the people away from God to himself. If our leader be not Jesus Christ, and if his Word, and that alone, be not sufficient for our faith in all points, then the message we bear is not of God. But by these very tokens we know that it is of God, and that it is moving forward under his guidance to a glorious triumph. Let us study more and more to be true to the Protestant rule of life,—Jesus Christ, and him only, our leader; the Word of God, and that only, our rule of faith. L. A. S.