THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC.
THE past of this nation has been wonderful and glorious. No nation ever rose to her height of power and grandeur in so brief a time. No nation ever possessed such unlimited resources. Before no nation were ever placed such possibilities and opportunities for good. No nation ever set before the world the true principles of human government as has this nation. What shall be its future? First let us inquire, What has made its great past? That is, What, apart from material providences, has given the people of the United States their standing among the nations of the world as a nation? What principles made her great? Before Babylon, Grecia, Medo-Persia, and Rome stretched wonderful possibilities in territory, in wealth, in power. But each had within them the essential seeds of ruin. A haughty imperialism and an intolerant State-supported hierarchy were dominant factors in all these empires. The doctrine of "the divine right of kings" in the State, and the hierarchy in the place of God in both law and judgment in the church, were the channels along which these great empires moved to their doom. Imperialism fostered arbitrary, unreasonable decrees, despotic and cruel oppression, and thus bred revolt and rebellion. An intolerant and State-supported hierarchy fostered ambition and division and bred the grossest corruption, deception, and cruelty. Add to these the polluting, corrupting, debasing nature-worship which bore sway throughout the careers of these great empires, breeding idle luxury, abominable revelings, gross licentiousness, with consequent effeminacy and premature senility, and we have abundant cause for their rapid decline. Their hardihood, strength, virility, and martial valor in the beginning, were due to their incipient poverty and frugality. But ease, wealth, and luxury, with all their concomitant evils, soon sapped their vigor and precipitated premature decay, leaving each a legitimate prey to its successor. The Office of the Church.
No one greater evil ever befell a nation than the union of religion with the State. In a sinful world it is God's plan that the church shall be the conservator of religion, the light of the world, the salt of the earth, drawing from Him all her knowledge, wisdom, light, power, influence, and authority, and, by this very relation with Him, having no relation whatsoever with the world or the governments of earth. The work of the church is directly with the individual heart and soul. Her mission is to unite men and women as individuals with God. It is not in any way her mission to deal with the masses of the world directly. Of course, the greater number to whom she can preach and minister the Gospel, the better; but in preaching to large numbers she reaches and helps them as individuals, or not at all. Her true, uplifting influence upon the government and the mass is an indirect influence exerted in her pure teaching, the godly life of her children, and the holy atmosphere of heaven in which she should continually move. This is God's plan, and a mightier uplifting influence the world never saw. It is when the church has failed in these things and fallen from her high ideal that she has sought alliance with the State, and endeavored to bolster up her waning powers for good by State influence,—statute law and penalty. In a sinful world the institution of the State is necessary. Its only rightful purpose is to suppress incivility, and to conserve the equal civil rights of all. Religion having to do with the heart and motive, the State, having no power to read the heart, can, of right, have nothing to do with religion or its concerns. While it is the duty of civil government to protect every man in his right to worship—or not to worship, as he may elect—and in his own way serve the conception of God he may possess, this protection is to the man, not the religion. In other words, it is the duty of civil government, not to support, protect, or promote any religion whatsoever, of either majority or minority, but to protect and conserve the equal rights of all persons within its sphere. That allows every soul the privilege of worshiping or serving his conception of God as his conscience dictates so long as he does not interfere with the life, property, chastity, or reputation of his fellow-creatures,—the equal rights of all. But civil government has no right to come between man and his God. It may not say that he shall make one day in a week a day of worship, or all days. It may not set apart a certain day in the week, the month, or the year for such worship, tho the great majority demand it. In such a case it is its duty, as it is its glory, to protect the sacred equal rights of the minority—however small—in that minority's dissent. In all the great empires of the past these principles were almost wholly wanting. At times divine radiance seemed to sweep away the darkness, but "the darkness comprehended it not." The Church (for all the religions of the past were perversions of the true) and the State were united. Each, in itself designed to be a blessing in a sinful world, becomes a double curse by being united with the other, even as two chemical elements each harmless by itself, compounded become a deadly poison. Sometimes in these empires the State was dominant, as in Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and earlier or Pagan Rome; sometimes the Church dominated the State, as in Papal Rome. The results in each were essentially the same in character,—ruin of both Church and State. In the former the results have been worse, because the deadly union has been wrought by the rejection of greater light. Subjects of Divine Prophecy.
Because of the union of Church and State in these great empires, and the nature of the government to which this union gave birth, these kingdoms have been symbolized in the "sure word of prophecy" by cruel and ferocious beasts. For instance, in the seventh chapter of Daniel, Babylon is represented by a lion with eagle's wings, Medo-Persia by a cruel bear, Grecia by a quadruple-winged, four-headed leopard, Rome by a great and terrible and cruel beast, having ten horns, in its latter history being dominated by a diverse "little horn," which sprang up among the ten, continuing in various phases and changes till Christ should come and possess all kingdoms. In the twelfth chapter of the Revelation, Satan, the great adversary, working through these apostate Church-and-State governments, is represented as a great red dragon; while in the thirteenth chapter (verses 1-10) these empires, symbolized in Daniel, are represented by one composite, seven-headed beast, including all of Daniel's symbols, and all swayed, dominated, and energized in their evil work by the adversary. More especially does this composite symbol of Rev. 13:1-10 apply to Papal Rome, as the preceding empires are, at the time of the application of the prophecy, all in the past. Papal Rome—dominating the divided Roman Empire—is shown to be the legitimate inheritor and successor of the Church-and-State governments of antiquity. The career and work of Papal Rome is, in the scripture above referred to, set forth as one of the heads of the seven-headed, ten-horned beast, or, rather, that beast itself under the domination of that particular head, or form of apostate government. That power would blaspheme God, His name, and His tabernacle (verse 6), would cause, by oppressive laws, the world to worship or render it service (verses 4, 8), "make war with the saints" and "overcome7them" (verse 7), and would "continue forty and two months" (verse 5), 1,260 days, or so many literal years, from A.D. 538 to A.D. 1798, during which time the Church dominated the State in religious matters. At the end of that period that head is wounded to death, marking the end of that period of papal domination with the capture of Pope Pius VI. by General Berthier. Verse 10. By the above symbols and powers all the Old World territory has been covered. The union of religion with the State, and an oppressive imperialism have left their blighting curse upon the fairest of lands, and under it millions have groaned for centuries, yet nursing and fostering the very evils which cursed them. There was a lighted way out of the darkness in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but the poor blinded world would not see it. And so the Lord had to let them go on and on, till it seemed that truth and justice were almost lost from the earth. Then "the morning star of the Reformation" dawned, and the Reformation itself soon burst forth in glorious light from an unbound Word of God, through humble men. In that Reformation was born anew and given to the world the everlasting truths of the Gospel, namely, justification by faith, the responsibility of the individual alone to God, and the absolute separation of Church and State. These were among the essentials of that mighty protest at Spires. True, they did not then bear ripened fruit, save in individual lives. But the seed was sown in clod, in mountain, in rock crevice, in valley, on the waters; and the growing of the seed shattered temples, clave mountains, and shook kingdoms. Souls who saw "men as trees walking," did not always avoid mistakes. In many ways they still permitted the corrupting influences of the old leaven to work. They endeavored to confine the new wine in old bottles, and endless trouble followed. Finally, persecution on the part of Papal Rome and a growing longing for life on the part of the children of light, planted in the New World the seeds of liberty which had been rejected by the Old. In the New World a new experiment in government was tried. The light of the Gospel preached by Jesus and His apostles concerning man and his relation to God and his fellows, was wrought into the charters of American civil government. More anon.