THEY KNOW NOT WHAT SPIRIT THEY ARE OF.
By Editor
THE Scriptures teach that Satan is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit which now worketh in the children of disobedience.” As He brought calamities upon the earth in fire and flood and pestilence in times past, so as the time of Christ’s coming and the end of the age draws near all these evils will increase. Right at this very time the same prophetic word tells us will go forth to the world this Sabbath agitation. The truth will be preached concerning the true Sabbath, and apostate Christianity will endeavor to force upon the souls of men a false sabbath. To give them more power over the masses they will appeal to everything to excite superstitious fear. They will say that cyclones, the great conflagrations, etc., are the judgment of God upon the nation because the false sabbath is disregarded. In 1884 Seventh-day Adventists published the following:— It will be declared that the nation is offending God by the violation of the Sunday sabbath, that this sin has brought calamities which will not cease until Sunday observance shall be strictly enforced, and that those who present the claims of the fourth commandment, thus destroying reverence for Sunday, are troublers of the nation, preventing its restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity.—Great Controversy, vol. 4, edition of 1884. As the brave firemen of Chicago were perishing in the flames of the disastrous fire in the great cold-storage building on July 10, a convention of preachers and laymen were assembled in the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburg, Pa. There were present John Morrison, State treasurer of Pennsylvania, and Rev. Dr. George, secretary of the American Sabbath [Sunday] Association. Resolutions were passed denouncing Sunday opening of the World’s Fair, and deciding to do all in their power to boycott the Exposition, and the report says that they “wound up the meeting by declaring that to-day’s fire and consequent loss of life were the result of a visitation of Providence. . . . It was as the convention was about adjoining that news of the accident at the Fair was received. Many ministers said that nothing better could be expected, and that worse things would happen.”—S. F. Examiner. There are those, we presume, who will believe all this; and some who profess to be the children of that loving Father will rejoice. To such we commend the words of our Lord:— “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Like John and James of old, before the Spirit of God had regenerated their hearts, these zealous reformers are anxious to call fire down upon the heads of those who agree not with them. Let them, and all who would be led by them, ponder the words of Christ spoken to James and John on that occasion:— “And they [the Samaritans] did not receive him [Christ], because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of Man has not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” It does not require a great stretch of imagination to conceive what would be the fate of Sunday transgressors if the power were in the hands of these Pittsburg “reformers.” They would make Cotton Mather and Graham of Claverhouse blush with their inhumanities. One more fact which we wish to state to all: Sunday is not a holy day; it has never been given of God as such; it has never been commanded, blessed, or hallowed by the Great Head of the Church, and the World’s Fair people are transgressing no divine law in swinging open the gates. There is not one word in all the Bible, which these Sundarians profess to believe, which commands the observance of Sunday; and “where no law is, there is no transgression.” Rom. 4 : 15. Chicago and the whole country is wicked enough, but God will not condemn one soul for not doing what he has not commanded, or doing what he has not forbidden.