NATIONAL REFORMERS—THEIR PURPOSE AND ITS OUTCOME.
By Editor
THE complaint and purpose of National Reformers are well set forth in the following language from Rev. J. M. Foster in the Christian Statesman of October 8:— "But our national Constitution is secular. It does not contain the least reference to God or his law. It is silent as the grave respecting the King of kings. It is a compact of political atheism. And I cannot see how any follower of the Lord Jesus Christ can conscientiously swear to support it. That Constitution is 'the supreme law in this land,' and ultimately the government will and must be conformed to its spirit and letter. Now the question is, Shall this nation incorporate Christianity and the Author of it in the Constitution, and thus provide a legal basis for our Christian laws, institutions, and usages in the fundamental law in our land? or, Shall the Constitution be left to entirely eliminate Christianity from our government, and completely secularize it? National Reformers cry with one voice, 'Amend the Constitution [Italics as we find them].'" This is the object of National Reformers, as declared by them for the last thirty years. "But would it not be well to carry out this object?" asks one. "Are not Christ and Christianity to be desired in our Constitution? and would it not be well to have our Christian laws, institutions, and usages placed on a fundamental legal basis?" There are many who sincerely and conscientiously ask this question, and in their own minds answer it in the affirmative. They decide thus because they look only upon the surface of the question. Jesus Christ cannot be placed in the Constitution of any government by law. His name may be placed there; that document may say we recognize the Author of Christianity as our ruler, but that does not make the government Christian, nor does it make Christ ruler. The Jews declared that they were "Abraham's seed" (John 8:33), but Jesus answered them, "If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham" (verse 39); and then he told them their true condition and ancestry: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him." Verse 44. And yet the Jewish people made high professions of reverence and love of God. His holy name was so revered that they did not utter it; his precepts were written upon their phylacteries; they made many prayers; they fasted; they paid tithes; they kept up an elaborate form of worship; they professed to be looking for Messiah, the Deliverer. But all their professions did not change the facts. They did not know how much they were not the children of Abraham; but in a little from that it was demonstrated that they were not only the children of the father of lies in respect to their false profession, but that they were also children of the "murderer from the beginning;" they put to death Him whom they professed to love, and for whom they were looking for deliverance. But they thought they were doing God's will. And was not Jesus, in their opinion, guilty of blasphemy against God? and was he not therefore worthy of death? So it was with the apostate church in the Dark Ages. Their laws recognized "Christianity and the Author of it," in order to "provide a legal basis for their 'Christian laws, institutions, and usages.'" Among these "Christian laws and usages" was the sacrifice of the mass, penances, purgatory, transubstantiation, the Sunday, and other things equally unscriptural. And yet they were called "Christian," every one of them. They thought that it was necessary to legalize all these things or Christianity would be eliminated from human governments. They did as they thought to do, and brought into the government, not Christ, but antichrist; not the mystery of God, which is Christ in the heart and life, but the "mystery of iniquity," which is opposed to Christ. And after they had by law acknowledged their perversions of Christianity, in order to maintain those perversions and show due respect to the false christ they had enthroned in the temple of God, they found it necessary to put to death, in every imaginable form, from twenty to fifty millions of the saints of God, who had so much of Christ in the heart that they dared to disregard the false christ in the law. And this is the kind of government that we will have under the National Reform régime. With Christ and Christianity in the Constitution, human tribunals must decide who is Christ and what is Christianity. If the human tribunal is Mahometan, Christ will be a prophet; if it is Unitarian, Christ will be a mere man; if it is Trinitarian, Christ is very and eternal God; if Roman Catholic, Christ's representative—vicegerent—is the pope of Rome. According to these same human tribunals, Christianity will mean as many things as Christ does, and Christian laws, institutions, and usages will take as various forms as the church spires which point heavenward. Decided by a Baptist tribunal, immersion alone would be baptism; decided by Presbyterians, sprinkling alone would be baptism. One church66counts marriage a sacrament, another a civil contract. But there is one thing on which all the professed Christian church would agree, and that is the American Sunday. Around that their hosts are gathering. That is the rallying point of their legions, the coat-of-arms on their banner. Having no basis in Scripture, Jesus Christ silent as regards the day, it is substituted for the Sabbath of the Lord, and its term of authority must be held by human laws, because it has naught of divine law. This unchristian institution, it is safe to say, will be one of the "Christian" institutions of the National Reform government, and the false christ whom they place in the Constitution will be the author or promoter of the Sunday, while the Christ of God will be dishonored and rejected. And as the Jews in their zeal crucified Christ, so these people will, in their unwise zeal, put him to death anew in the person of his saints. This will be the inevitable logic of such a government as National Reformers seek, and to which this country is fast drifting. When once religious laws and institutions become a part of the government, they will from their very nature be considered the most important by the partisans of that government; and these religious dogmas will be the very laws which will be disregarded by the honest-hearted Christians who believe in following God's word. The partisans of the government, in order to vindicate their unholy work and uphold the dignity of the government, would be compelled to prosecute and persecute those who for conscience' sake turned from their man-made god and a legal religion. It may be said that such a government will never be seen in these days. It is already beginning to be seen; and it looks as though an amendment to the Constitution will not be needed, as the Supreme Court of the United States has already declared (February 29, 1892) this to be a "Christian nation," and that the Constitution is in harmony with this. Congress has emphasized this fact by making a national Sunday law. Yes, the thing will come. How do we know it? Read Revelation 13. God has predicted it in his word. We now see its beginning. The end is not far off. The SIGNS OF THE TIMES lifts a warning voice to every Christian in the land, to have naught to do with the deceiving, baleful movement. Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world;" and those who seek to make him king simply enthroned a false christ, and adopt a corresponding christianity. Against this great and world-wide movement, God gives the following solemn warning:— And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, 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 cup of his indignation. . . . And they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receive the mark of his name. Rev. 14:9-11. Says the Lord by the prophet Amos (3:7): "Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophecy?"