Shall We Have Law, or No Law?
By W. N. Glenn
To RESPECT a Government is to respect its laws; to disregard the law, is to disregard the Government. It is the character of the laws that renders some Governments attractive and prosperous, while others are repulsive, degrading, and prone to decay. There can be no such thing as a Government without definite law. There are two classes of immigrants from the older countries to the United States. One class seem to have an idea that here they will find license to do as they please, without legal restraint; they have no love for the Government further than to accomplish their selfish or vicious purposes. The other class are pleased with the salutary laws of our land as compared with the more arbitrary statutes of European countries. They have been attracted to our shores by the wholesome character of our legal system, which, under a republican form of Government, is designed for the good of the whole. These become orderly citizens. All communism, socialism, nihilism, or rebellion is antinomian in its character and tendency. Where laws are oppressive, or favorable to certain classes to the detriment of others, there may be a show of excuse on the part of the oppressed to break the bands of tyranny; but no well-disposed person ever thinks of violating or desiring to evade a proper and equitable law. And there can be no manner of rebellion so utterly heartless and inconsistent as that of one who claims to be a citizen of the Government of God endeavoring to set aside the law which he has pronounced "holy, and just, and good." There can be nothing more unreasonable than the religious communism which, professing to come out from the dominion of sin and to assume allegiance to the Government of Heaven, will denounce the pure principles of the decalogue as "oppressive bondage"—a "grievous yoke." What is there in the ten commandments that is oppressive or grievous to a virtuous person, desirous of honoring God and doing good to his neighbor? What would be thought of a human Government that would remove all obligation of its citizens to hold its executive officers in higher esteem and more worthy of obedience than the authorities of other Governments? How long would the Government of the United States stand intact if her laws were abolished and the statutes of antagonistic powers were allowed full sway within her territory? Or suppose all the laws, State and national, against murder, theft, perjury, adultery, etc., were abolished; what would prevent a state of anarchy in a very short time? There would be nothing to check it, and so sure as violent men exist, it would come. Those who have lived on the extreme frontiers, and especially in the mining regions of new countries, where thousands have crowded in advance of organized local Government, can testify to the tendency under such circumstances. Yet to abolish law against these crimes is just what many professed Christians maintain that God has done and ought to have done. And they say very hard things of those who hold that such devastation in the Government of Heaven has not been sanctioned by the supreme Ruler. It is even claimed that God sacrificed his own beloved Son in order to secure the abolishment of his law, and thus relieve his people from all legal allegiance and restraint! A moment's thought will be sufficient to expose the fallacy of such preposterous assumption, although it is the logical conclusion of all anti-law theories. There is now a great cry for a "Sabbath" law in this country, and the religious element has been making strenuous effort toward that end for years. At the same time they tell us that God found such a law to be so oppressive, his people being unable to keep it, that for the sake of "liberty" he repealed it. Is not, then, the move for a Sabbath law an acknowledgment of a desire to restrain that liberty which they claim God meant to establish by abolishing the law? Why, during all these years of clamor for a Sabbath law, have they not observed the one established by the Creator himself, in the beginning, and which is part of the code that Christ came to "magnify," and even sacrificed his life in order to sustain its honor? Is it not because of the reckless communism that exists in the heart of disobedient man? There is also a popular and very proper outcry against Mormonism, and the established church is loud in its demand for anti-polygamy laws and their rigid enforcement. And so say all good citizens; but wherefore, if God has purposely abolished the statute containing the prohibition of adultery, in order that men might enjoy the "liberty of the gospel." Why make other laws to enforce chastity, if it cost the blood of the Son of God to get rid of the one he had made? Surely a law of God's making would be as "holy, and just, and good" as any that man could make. And there is much complaint of fraud in official circles, and peculations in responsible places in almost every county and city in the land, causing great loss to many honest people. But if God has abolished "Thou shalt not steal," what professed subject of his can consistently complain of the result, or call for the execution of human enactments against embezzlement and public robbery? Furthermore, if God has repealed all the decalogue, what right has man to re-enact any of its Heaven-abolished principles? Especially, how can professed subjects of the heavenly King consistently cry for laws, immunity from which they are now claiming to be the highest type of gospel liberty. W. N. GLENN.