Where Is Religious Liberty Found?
By Editor
THE religious liberty numbers of the Signs of the Times have had a large circulation, especially in the state of California. Various responses have come to us, one of which we print, in part, in the following: “I am a freethinker, having long ago left far behind all interest in any Christian denomination, but your fight for freedom in the matter of religion is my fight too. Sunday laws can do no one any good, they confer no true happiness on them or us. They can not tend to weld humanity in one, or unite them in one common brotherhood. Unite church and state? Never! Never! I have read a little church history, as well as the history of some other religions forced upon the people. The result is ever and always the same, persecution. Now if it be not a part of Christianity to domineer, to hate, to be a diablo to all others not of our set or of our faith, then I have not read history aright, or else all of those traits, the meanest I know of, have clung to the Christian people like barnacles to a ship for two thousand years. O, I tell you it won’t do! That which carries the seeds of discord, misery, pain, and death is in very bad company, to say the least. But you and I have shaken them off, those bad traits. But how about those germs, brother? I shook the whole Christian hide off, to make sure. Amen. L. F.” Now just a few words with this candid reader, and all others like-minded. First, he says he is a freethinker. So are we — thinking with that glorious freedom of gospel liberty given us in Jesus Christ, thinking far out beyond this world with all its troubles and sorrows and pains and disappointments into that glorious world where there shall be no evil, for sin shall have been forever banished. 2. He is waging a fight for freedom, and so are we — not freedom for ourselves, but freedom for all. It is a fact that in the past, men have waged strong fights for freedom, but the fight has been for freedom for themselves. There never has been a time when the most persecuting body that the world ever knew did not believe in freedom for themselves. Rome believed in it when she was persecuting Protestants. John Calvin believed in freedom for himself when he was instrumental in putting to death Servetus. The Puritans believed in freedom for the Puritans when they put to death Quakers, whipped Baptists, and banished Roger Williams. That is not, however, true Christian freedom, for the man who really believes in the freedom that Christ taught believes in it not for himself, but for the other man as well. 3. Our friend says truly that Sunday laws are unproductive of happiness. They can do no one any good, can confer no true happiness on those who promote them, or those who suffer by them. They never make a community happier. They never bring any added religion into a community. In the very nature of the case they can not. 4. We are also agreed regarding a union of church and state. In the first place, the state ought not to be dominated by the church, or religious bodies of any kind, or in any way. And secondly, the church does not need the state, if she believes in her Master’s words, for He has promised all power for the promulgation of His gospel and the keeping alive of His truth in the earth. Therefore any union of church and state is perversive of the plan of Christ, and must work to the detriment of both church and state. Religion forced upon the people is, and can be, no true religion. The5 better the religion, the worse becomes its perversion if forced upon the people. A religion that is mere form, like some of the great historic religions, can be forced upon the people with little effect one way or the other. But the perversion of the true religion forced upon any people invariably results in suffering and persecution. For the Christian religion is a religion of heart, of life, of motive; and affection can not be forced. 5. Persecution is no part of Christianity. It is a part of perversions of Christianity. True Christianity stands and must stand absolutely separate from the state. It was the very Author of Christianity who said, "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." It was the Author of Christianity who said to His ardent disciple, "Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword," and who declared that twelve legions of angels could fight for Him, but that was not God's plan. It was the Author of Christianity who said that "My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is My kingdom not from hence." It was the Author of Christianity who said, "If any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world." And then He tells us that all judgment of God is reserved not for man, but for the last day. "He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12:47, 48. It was Christianity's great apostle to the Gentiles who said, "Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand;" who further said, "Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." And so we might continue to quote from the inspired words of the New Testament regarding Christianity, its authorship, and its authoritative promoters. Union of church and state, persecution for religious opinion, is no part of Christianity. 6. The name has been found in bad company. We never could conceive of a counterfeit without the genuine. Men never attempt to counterfeit a bad bill, or a spurious coin; their counterfeit is always of the true. The devil does not attempt to counterfeit false religions. He attempts to counterfeit and pervert that which is the very highest, clearest, purest, strongest, and best, Christianity. And all state religions have been perversions, or counterfeits, of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sad it is that this has come down through the centuries and been palmed off upon the world as the true religion of Jesus Christ, and thus the Master has been maligned and betrayed. God in His providence is working again by His Spirit and through His messengers to restore again that primitive religion which shall know no union with the world or with the state. 7. Our friend says that "you and I have shaken them off;" that is, all these seeds of discord and misery and death. Good! But he asks, "What about the germs?" He will find the germs of efforts to lord it over men's consciences everywhere, in everything, save one, and that is in genuine Christianity. Therefore we are Christians; therefore we believe in the Christian religion; therefore we not only do not desire to shake it off, but do desire to cleave to it with all our hearts, for the only hope of the world lies in that, and it is because of that that we are pleading for religious liberty now, not for ourselves, but even for those who do not believe Christianity; and we would like to say to them, and to all others, that the very best way to do, and the only true way to do, and the only Christian way to do, is to leave every man with God, and let him answer himself at the great judgment-bar as to how he has met the responsibility which his Creator has placed upon him. We only wish that our correspondent, and every one else, could look upon the matter as do we. W.