PERSUASION VS. COMPULSION.
By M. H. Brown
God is love, and his law is a reflex of his mind, a transcript of his character, hence his law is a law of love. Its commandments all grow out of the principle of love; hence love fulfills the law. Rom. 13:10. The Saviour, who came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matt. 5:17), and to magnify it and make it honorable (Isa. 42:21), had the law within his heart, and delighted in it (Ps. 40:7). This gives conclusive evidence that his service was a service of love. He himself declares, "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." John 15:10. Love leads to willing service and cheerful obedience, hence love is necessary to the fulfilling of the law. "This is the love of God that we keep his commandments." 1 John 5:3. This is the only service that God will accept, because when any other principle than love, or any other motive than to please God, actuates us in religious exercises or religious observances, we are governed by a wrong principle, by a selfish motive, and therefore we worship and serve the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:25), and have another god before the Lord. Let us illustrate this point. When a person starts out in the service of God, or is baptized, or joins the church, or performs any religious duty, or refrains from doing what the Scriptures forbid, to advantage himself, or to please a friend, or because of public opinion or a popular sentiment, he exalts the creature above the Creator. He seeks selfish interests and the honor of men, and not the honor that comes from God only. That was the condition of the Jewish people in the time of Christ, and he speaks of it as an insuperable obstacle to their believing in him. John 5:44. "Without faith it is impossible to please him" (Heb. 11:6), and "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23). Hence an outward, formal, religious observance that is not rendered in faith, to please God and honor him, must be rendered in unbelief, to please ourselves or our fellow-men. This is surely exalting and honoring the creature above the Creator, while professing to honor and worship God, and this is not only hypocrisy, but idolatry; and as such service and worship are not prompted by faith in God and inspired by love for him, they are sin against him. Religious observance rendered because of human influence or pressure cannot be acceptable to God, because it is not prompted by the love of God and the influence of his Spirit. Moreover, such service or worship is really given to that agency or power whose influence or pressure secured it, and not to God. When human power, whether exercised by the church or the State, leads us to the observance of the rites and ceremonies of religion, we render obedience to that power, and thus worship it, instead of rendering obedience to God and worshiping him. Hence it becomes a matter of vital importance to us all that we examine ourselves to see whether we be in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5), the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3); and have the faith of Jesus (Rev. 14:12), the faith which will enable us to seek the honor which comes from God only, and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea, and the fountains of waters, or to see whether we shall yield to earthly powers, and thus worship them by obeying the laws they make enforcing religious institutions. From the principles already laid down, it must be evident that all worship or service must be voluntary and come from the heart to be acceptable to God, and that compulsory service is really but outward and formal, and, instead of being rendered to God, is given to the power which compels it. OBEDIENCE THE HIGHEST WORSHIP.
Obedience in the realm of religion is the highest form of worship, for it is the test of allegiance and loyalty; hence those who seek by law to enforce any religious observance or institution are really enforcing a false worship instead of the worship of God. This would be true whether the observance was commanded in the Scriptures or not; for if men outwardly observe a religious institution because it is enforced by civil law, their obedience is not rendered to God, but to the power enforcing the law, and thus they give their allegiance and worship to an earthly power instead of to the Lord of heaven. It is in this way that the beast and his image are worshiped. Rev. 13:11-15; 14:9. All true Protestants know that the mystery of iniquity, which began to work in Paul's day and developed into the "man of sin," who sat in the temple of God and opposed and exalted himself above God (2 Thess. 2:3-7), was none other than the apostate church of Rome, symbolized in the Revelation by "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots." By forsaking her Lord and forming a connection with the State, she made use of the civil power to enforce obedience to her will, and thus caused those who submitted to her power to worship the beast, while those who refused to yield went down to martyrs' graves, and she is represented as drunken with their blood. Rev. 17:6. In her history we have the logical result and the necessary fruit of compulsion in matters of religion, and, when placed in contrast with the life, character, and teachings of the Prince of Peace and his apostles, and the fruit of their unselfish labors in winning by love, beseeching, persuading, exhorting, and entreating the people to be reconciled to God, we have an object lesson which is wonderfully instructive to those who are willing to be taught of God. When professed Protestants forsake their Lord by uniting with the world and seeking the power of the State to enforce their will upon the people in religious things, will not the same terrible results follow as were seen when the Church of Rome pursued the same course? Will not like causes produce like results? When Protestants adopt the same principles and the same policy, and use the same means, that Rome did to extend her religion and advance her cause, do they not become Romanists in fact? and will not their work result as disastrously, and bring the same ruin in its train, as the work of Rome? When Protestants gain control of the civil power, as they have now done in this country, and seek to use that power in the interest of their religion, they secure a union of Church and State, and make an image of the beast. And by controlling the civil power through threats and intimidation, and thus securing the passage and enforcement of laws pertaining to religious observances, they compel obedience to their will, and enforce the worship of the image of the beast, which they have made and set up. Thus professed Protestants, by abandoning the principles of the gospel of peace, and losing the Spirit of the Prince of Peace, and substituting compulsion for persuasion, and force for love, are repeating the history of Rome, and they cannot escape her fate if they continue to walk in her pathway. They have become so drunken with the wine of Babylon, and have so largely partaken of the spirit of antichrist, that they are deceived into believing that they are doing God's service when they compel obedience to their own will, and use the power of the State to enforce their own views, and endeavor to save the soul by punishing the body. This is the papal principle. This is the policy of Rome. It is not Christian, but manifestly antichristian. The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. That power is the power of love in DRAWING, WINNING, PERSUADING, and it always leaves every man, however vile, the freedom of choice. "Whosoever will, let him come." Rev. 22:17. The world's Redeemer says, "Come unto me." He graciously invites all to come. He never asked, and would not accept, earthly power in carrying on his work, even when it was offered to him. He clearly taught that his kingdom is not of this world, and hence his servants could not fight or use force to advance it (John 18:36), and that those who take the sword (the emblem of human power) shall perish by the sword (Matt. 26:52). When the Church appeals to the State for power to enforce obedience to her will in religious matters, she turns away from that gospel which is the power of God, she substitutes human for divine power, compulsion for persuasion, force for love, and law for gospel. Thus the ministers of the church become ministers of the law, to spy out, convict, fine, and imprison, and visit the extreme penalties of the law upon the very ones which Christ came not to condemn but to save. Are they doing the work of the Saviour while engaged in such work?—Nay, verily. Would they not better exemplify the life and teachings of the humble Man of Calvary if they would be truly ministers of the gospel, seeking by precept and example to lift the fallen, to aid the unfortunate, to minister to the sick and needy, to point sinners to the Lamb of God, and, like Jesus, go about doing good? Will the infidel, the skeptic, the heathen be won to Christ by law, with its pains and penalties, or by the gospel, with its gracious invitations, its tender ministrations, and its labors of love? The answer is obvious.374The golden rule forbids compulsion, and teaches persuasion in matters of religion. It breathes the spirit of freedom, and will cause all who heed it to freely grant to others what they claim for themselves. It rules out of the fold of Christ the lordly bishops, the ambitious ecclesiastics, the self-inflated churchmen, who seek to lord it over God's heritage by arrogating to themselves divine authority, and claiming to be the representatives of God in executing the divine will upon those who, in their infallible (?) judgment, are violating the divine will. These professed servants of Jesus Christ, in the work they are doing and the position they are taking, are exalting themselves above their Lord, and following the example of the bishops of Rome. Christ would not judge between two brothers who disagreed in their property matters, saying, "Who made me a judge or a divider over you?" Luke 12:14. Now his professed servants are exalting themselves to judge between brethren, even in matters of faith and conscience, and they proceed to use all the earthly power they can grasp to uphold the one and punish the other. Do they not in this show that they are not the servants of Christ? They exalt themselves above him, and claim an authority and a power which he not only did not exercise, but which he expressly disclaimed, and thus it is seen that they partake of the spirit and nature of him who exalted himself above the stars of God, and declared that he would be like the Most High. Isa. 14:12-14. The memorable words of the United States Senate report in 1829, in response to the clamor from the clergy at that time for legislation in behalf of Sunday observance, are words of truth and soberness. The stinging rebuke which is given, and the great principles of Christianity therein set forth, are as truthful and appropriate to-day as when they were first written, and even more sadly needed. We quote:— Our Constitution recognizes no power other than that of persuasion, for enforcing religious observance. Let the professors of Christianity recommend their religion by deeds of benevolence, by Christian meekness, by lives of temperance and holiness. Let them combine their efforts to instruct the ignorant, to relieve the widow and the orphan, to promulgate to the world the gospel of their Saviour, recommending its precepts by their habitual example. . . . Their moral influence will then do infinitely more to advance the true interests of religion than any measure which they may call on Congress to enact. Let every lover of liberty, and every lover of true Christianity, labor by precept and example to inculcate the principle taught in the golden rule, namely, persuasion based on love, which wins the heart, instead of compulsion based on fear, which makes hypocrites and idolaters, or martyrs, who choose to obey God rather than men.