Prophecy and the Sunday Movement.
By J.
LAST week we noticed the special efforts at the enforcement of Sunday laws, now being made simultaneously in different places all over the country; and not only in our own country but also in England and France. We have at different times lately called attention to the tendency in this direction, in both Europe and America. The tendency has now become the fact. The enforcement of Sunday laws and prosecutions for Sunday work, becoming so general, and being engaged in by so many different classes from the highest to the lowest,—from preachers to saloon-keepers, from religionists to Socialists,—is forcing the attention of all to the truth that this is fast becoming the leading question not only in the Nation but in the world. The papers, secular as well as religious, but more especially the religious, are discussing it. It is especially remarkable how everything is bent to the recognition of Sunday. The whole tide of human events seems to be set in that direction, and every element is going with the current. Even the Jews who, as a people, have stood for ages the bitterest persecution for their religion's sake, are in this readily yielding, and, now willing to go with the multitude to do evil, are deserting the truth of God as to the Sabbath of the Lord, and are going over to the Sunday. The New York Observer says that "it is proposed to form a World's Day of Rest League, and a convention of representative Jews is advocated, which will endeavor to secure the transfer of the Jewish Sabbath to the first day of the week. It is urged that this uniformity would add greatly to the influence of the principle of resting one day in seven." We have no doubt that it will. We wish some influence could be brought to bear that would greatly revive the old-fashioned principle of obedience to God. God gave a commandment that men shall rest on the Sabbath of the Lord. He gave this commandment that there might be uniformity. In the commandment he plainly declared that the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God—not the "Jewish Sabbath"—and that in it—the seventh day—thou shalt not do any work. Yet in spite of that commandment, the world sets about to form a World's Day of Rest League, to secure the world's worldly observance of the first day of the week, and to get the Jews to transfer the Jewish Sabbath to the first day of the week. Before these men of the world get their World's League formed, and have by it secured the world's uniformity in the observance of the first day of the week, it would be well for them to remember the word of God that says: "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." It is one of the clearest possible proofs of the lack of real godliness in the professed church of Christ, that all this ready favor of the world it mistakes as the manifest favor of God, while the word of God declares that it is enmity with God. There could be no better evidence that Sunday is not of God, than is furnished in this, that Spiritualists, Socialists, Labor Unions, Catholics, and all such, so heartily unite in favor of it. "For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness! and what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? . . . Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord." No interest that makes for righteousness can be promoted by the favor of such elements as are now swiftly rallying to the support of the Sunday institution. This consideration alone demonstrates the unrighteousness of the Sunday cause. And yet we are not the least surprised that these things are so. We are not surprised that even the professed church of Christ should stoop to an alliance with the world to maintain by civil power the influence which she deems her right, but which through her own worldliness and lack of self-respect she has lost. We are not at all surprised that the church should endeavor to maintain by civil power the position before the world which she has lost by her own lack of the power of godliness. And that she has so lost her position, no stronger proof is needed than is shown in her willingness and even anxiety to ally herself with the world, that she, re-enforced by the non-religious elements of the world, may wield the power of the world. We say we are not surprised at any of these things for we have for years expected to see the very things that are now seen throughout the so-called Christian world. For years we have not only expected to see an alliance between the church and the world by which the civil power would be wielded by the church in her own behalf, but we have expected to see the Sunday and its compulsory observance made the basis of the alliance. For years we have expected to see the Sunday, and controversy concerning it, become the leading question in this Nation. We have talked it and preached it, we have written it and printed it, when as yet the most strenuous advocates of the Sunday only accounted it as among the very least of the questions that pertained to Christianity. Yet now these very men concede all that we have taught, and they themselves claim that upon the preservation of Sunday hangs the destiny of Christianity in this Nation, and that if it is to be preserved the religious element must be re-enforced by the non-religious, and even the Socialistic. For more than forty years, in public and in private, by speech and by print, Seventh-day Adventists have constantly taught that there would be the very condition of things which now is and is impending. And this upon the authority of the word of God. In fact from no other authority could such teaching have been derived, when it was as confidently urged so long before as it is now; when as yet there was apparently no probability of its coming to pass; and when even the supporters of Sunday themselves steadily refused to admit that there was any possibility, much less any probability, that it should come to pass. The word of God contains a solemn warning that must be given to the world. It is the Third Angel's Message of Revelation 14. That message says: "If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup776of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." Rev. 14:9, 10. In years past it was known among Protestants that the beast is the Papacy, "the man of sin," "the mystery of iniquity." Nowadays Protestants are not so ready to let it be known, yet it is the truth now as it has ever been. The "beast" represents the Papacy. The Sunday is the one grand institution which the Papacy sets forth as the sign of its authority. It is by the establishment of Sunday instead of the Sabbath of the Lord that the Papacy has thought to change the law of God. In thus changing the law of God, the Papacy has virtually declared independence of the Most High. In thus presuming to put away an institution—the Sabbath—which rests upon the authority of Jehovah, and putting in place of it an institution—the Sunday—which rests solely on its own authority, the Papacy has exalted itself above God. In demanding the observance of the Sunday, which rests upon its own authority, instead of the Sabbath, which rests upon the authority of God, the Papacy has usurped the place of God. In thus demanding obedience to its own authority instead of obedience to the authority of God, the Papacy has usurped the obedience, and in that the worship which is due to God. The commandment to keep Sunday holy is the first commandment of the church of Rome. To keep Sunday is to keep the commandment of Rome, for there is no other commandment for it. But there is mentioned the image to the beast. That which formed the beast of the prophecy was the union of Church and State—the union of Catholicism and the State. An image to the beast must be likewise a union of Church and State, but in this case a union of Protestantism and the State. This image to the beast is to be formed by the union of Protestantism and the State in the United States. But it is to enforce the worship of the beast, and the receiving of his mark—see Rev. 13:11-17. As the keeping of Sunday is to keep the commandment of Rome and to recognize her authority, so to compel people to keep Sunday is to compel them to keep the commandment and to recognize the authority of Rome. To compel men to keep Sunday, is exactly that for which the Protestant churches in the United States are now grasping for civil power and working up the Sunday laws and their enforcement. It is to compel men to observe Sunday that the Protestant churches in the United States invoke the re-enforcement of the non-religious and Socialistic elements of society. But to compel men to keep Sunday is to compel them to do homage to the Papacy, and the Papacy is the beast. To compel men to keep Sunday is to compel them to worship the beast. Therefore the Protestant churches in the United States are at present engaged in a movement to compel men to do what the word of God by the Third Angel's Message solemnly warns them not to do. The present movement of Protestantism in behalf of the Sunday is in the course of fulfillment of Rev. 13:11-17, and the Third Angel's Message (Rev. 14:9-12) is God's solemn warning to all men against it, and his call to come out from among them and be separate, and to "keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." It is for this cause that all these years Seventh-day Adventists have been preaching and publishing that there would be in the United States exactly what now is here, and this is only the beginning. The fourth commandment of God says, "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. . . . The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work." The first commandment of the man of sin says: "Remember that thou keep holy the Sunday." Whose commandment are you going to keep? Whom will you worship? The Third Angel's Message is now the one thing of the greatest importance to the people of the United States and of the whole world, for the enforced worship of the beast is to be made universal. J.