p. 7 | Back to Rome

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 4, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 14.

Back to Rome

Back to Rome.—The Watchword and Truth, of Boston, in speaking of the Federation of Protestant Churches, says:

'If the union proposed had in view greater efficiency in the God-appointed work of the church, it would, indeed, be a matter for rejoicing. But when it proposes to control 'all matters affecting the moral and social conditions of the people,' and when political and civic relations are included, we call a halt. This is the very thing which Rome aspires to accomplish now. . . . Moreover, this purpose may promote hypocrisy by making it desirable for politicians to have the backing of 'the combined influences of the churches' on election day. This promises to bring us back to the days of Roman supremacy, when, in the words of Milman, 'The moral authority of religion, and consequently of the clergy, might appear legitimately to extend over every transaction of life, from the legislation of the sovereign, to the domestic duties of the peasant.' We fear that this will lead to many evils, and not the least will be the destruction of every barrier between a witnessing church and a government state. It will make the state a piece of machinery through which the church may accomplish her arbitrary will. It may not be that the Protestant attempt at this rôle in the future will be productive of anything better than the sorrowful persecution of the church of Rome in the past. Be careful to render unto Cæsar the things of Cæsar, and to God the things of God.'