THE NEW ORDER OF GOVERNMENT.
A SHORT time ago, in New York City, a professional National Reformer said:— Congress should be the interpreter of God's law in the same sense that Congress interprets the Constitution. Nor would this result in a state church. What we desire is the union of religion and the state. Then, in noting the objection “that Congress could not interpret the law of God so as to please members of all denominations,” he answered that “it would come a little hard at first, but in the end it would work satisfactorily.” Upon all this the Outlook says:— We agree, as we have repeatedly said, with the position that conformity to divine law is the basis of a just government, but not with the Puritan deduction, maintained by Dr Foster, that Congress should attempt to administer a theocracy. Yes, that is true. The Outlook does agree, and for a long time has agreed, with the position that “conformity to divine law is the basis of a just government.” Oct. 6, 1900, the Outlook said:— Just government rests neither upon the edict of a few strong men nor upon the consent of the many; it rests upon the law of God. No government is just which does not conform to the law of God. Just governments rest on conformity with the laws of God. At the same time it also said:— Human governments are, or ought to be, attempts to ascertain what these laws are, and to adapt the life of the community to them. A righteous democracy is simply one way of ascertaining what are the laws of God, and of conforming the life of the community to them. In democracy a large proportion of the community—in America about one in ten—participate in this endeavor. The other nine tenths are under the government of this one tenth. This method has two great advantages over all other forms of government. Now, since, according to the Outlook's theory and model of just government, only “about one in ten” have really to do with the conforming of the life of the community to the laws of God, wherein does it762differ, in principle, from that of Dr. Foster? The difference is not in any sense one of principle. Nor is it a difference even of operation. For Dr. Foster finds in Congress the representative body of the whole “righteous democracy,” through which this “righteous democracy” expresses its will in “attempts to ascertain what these laws” of God are, “and to adapt the life of the community to them,” while the Outlook's method of operation is, not the whole body of the “righteous democracy,” but only “about one in ten.” Thus, as actually stated by the Outlook, in the words before us, between the Outlook's theory of just government and that of Dr. Foster, which it criticises, there is no difference either in principle or in operation, but solely of degree, and even that very slight. Where can there be any real or practical difference between “one in ten” of a “righteous democracy” attempting “to administer a theocracy;” and one in ten thousand or ten hundred thousand, in a body called Congress, doing the same thing? The thing that is done is the same in both cases: the thing that is attempted to be done is the same in both cases: the theory of government from which springs the thing that is done, or the thing that is attempted to be done, is the same in both cases. Therefore it is as plain as A B C that the Outlook believes in and advocates, both theoretically and practically, the identical form of government that Dr. Foster the National Reformer does. And the only possible ground of dissent from Dr. Foster's order of government that the editor of the Outlook really has, lies in the mere incident that the editor of the Outlook does not belong to the same church, or sub-order in the “righteous democracy,” that Dr. Foster does. In other words, the editor of the Outlook could not allow that it would be exactly just government for Dr. Foster to conform the editor's life to the laws of God, nor for Congress to conform the editor's life to Dr. Foster's views of the laws of God. And there are tens of thousands of the people in Dr. Abbott's “about one in ten” in the “righteous democracy” who would likewise, and with equal reason, decidedly object to the others of that “one in ten” in the “righteous democracy” conforming their lives to the laws of God. However, it is not necessary to follow that phase of the case any further at present. From the Outlook's own words the facts plainly appear that the Outlook believes in identically the same sort of government that Dr. Foster the National Reformer does; and that the Outlook recognizes that that form of government is definitely a “theocracy.” And from this it is perfectly plain that the Outlook, in repudiating the American principle of civil government,—“the consent of the governed,”—in repudiating the republican principle of the Declaration and the Constitution, does so solely in the interests of a man-made theocracy, precisely as the confessed National Reformers have always done. And this again reveals the mighty fact that the repudiation of the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution, by this nation, from Aug. 12, 1898, to date, in which the Outlook has been a leading factor, is clearly in the interests of a man-made theocracy, and will as certainly be followed by that form of government as night follows day. And that makes plain the truth that this national repudiation of the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution—the principle of government by the “consent of the governed”—is the mightiest stride that has been taken since 1892 in the making of the Image of the Beast.