Our Country | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 16, 1864

Our Country.

WHAT IS TO BECOME OF IT?

It is a pet notion with many to set this country forward as the true Israel. This ingenious perversion of the Holy Scriptures is for the purpose of flattering our people with the hopes and promises made to Israel. But there is another side to the appropriation. If we are Israel, we must expect Israel's judgments and desolations. And whether we will or not, God seems to have taken us at our word, and to be resolved to deal with us accordingly. We have now been suffering for years under strifes, storms, and corruptions which have already imparted to our political and social economy a complexion of no encouraging sort: reduced us to a condition, in general, which no one hitherto seemed to think possible; and given mysterious forebodings of the future, not very comfortable to the patriolaters who have been expecting so much peace and glory from the object of their adoration.

We have had fourth-of-July celebrations, thanksgiving-days, fast-days, and plenty of occasions made to hand, and to call out the country's ingenuity and eloquence in self-laudation, on which men high in position have uttered themselves with great freedom over the divine glories and redemptive mission of our nation, and given out large hopes of the impossibility of any serious or lasting damage ever happening to our liberties or institutions. It is lamentable to see how men of piety and research have thus been deluding themselves, and those who look to them for guidance. There is, perhaps, no department in which we have more erred and sinned than in this. And, as others have spoken without reserve on the one side, we may be permitted to direct attention to a few statements, for the consideration of such as are willing to look at things in the light of Scripture and fact, on the other.

There are those who think that our country is yet in its youth, and just maturing for a career of glorious promise, and that it is impossible, on this account, for it to be overwhelmed in the fierce and bloody agitations which we are suffering, or from any other cause. We see not the least force in this line of argument. Our country is not so youthful, even in years, as some seem to persuade themselves. Full three generations have passed away since the birth of its independence,—quite time enough to develop and decide what manner of people we are,—and in experience, self-importance, and general advancement our country is older than many nations that have lived five times as long.

But, even admitting that we are yet in comparative youthfulness, and that immense capacities and advantages have been lavished upon us, which as yet have played but a small part in the activities of the world, what does it signify? How many a costly and well-built ship, with everything planned and promising for the service of successive generations, has been wrecked and lost on its very first voyage! How many a noble young man, with every endowment of nature, position and education for a long life and exalted destiny, has been cut off in the opening of his usefulness and distinction, with all the high promises which clustered round him unfulfilled! And the Sovereign Disposer of all things may just as well deal in the same way with nations.

There are others who believe that the perpetuation and spread of our particular ideas and institutions are so linked with the civilization, enfranchisement, and conversion of the world, that we certainly are safe, whatever may transpire. The Anglo-Saxon race at least is that to which multitudes assign this sublime mission. This, too, we regard as entirely a delusion. The Anglo-Saxon race, indeed, has much to distinguish it from the general mass of mankind. It has played a conspicuous part in the world's progress in intellectual culture, inventions, enterprise and wealth; but it needs quite too much civilizing, enfranchising, and conversion itself, to be looked to for the accomplishment of so much. How can it achieve for mankind what it has never been able to achieve for itself? "Like begetteth like;" and if it could, even in the slow process of centuries, bring the rest of the world to its own status, what would it be but an immoral world,—a materialistic, skeptical, unsanctified world,—a world tenfold more the servant and thrall of the devil than a child and worshiper of the true God? It would neither be at peace with him, itself, nor in harmony with heaven, and, in the ordinary course of things, never could be. With all the godliness, faith, saintship, missionary fervor, and real nobility which have been developed among the Anglo-Saxons, estimated with respect to their superior privileges, the most wicked, godless, hypocritical, atheistic, and heaven-defying people on earth have been, and to this day are, these selfsame Anglo-Saxons. Look at but a few facts.

It is the Anglo-Saxon race which claims to be the depository of the true Christian religion: and yet it is the stay of Mohammedan empire and its antichristianism, and even encourages and protects paganism itself at some points, with all their vast, besetting, and dehumanizing abominations. It is the Anglo-Saxon race which boasts of being the great apostle of the principles of righteousness and just government, and yet poisons millions of the Chinese annually, enforcing the infliction with armed fleets; takes America from the Indians, and the Scinde from its lawful possessors, by robbery and murder; kills races of men to

get territory to which it has no claim; makes treaties to plunder those who enter into them, breaks them to gain lands, blows the helpless to atoms because they dare to renounce and seek self-preservation by force of arms.

The Anglo-Saxon race professes to be the messenger of peace, yet carries a sword ever warm with blood, and often with the blood of its own immediate kindred. The Anglo-Saxon race gives itself out as the missionary of Heaven, and the evangelizer of mankind; yet it is earth's most successful propagandist of atheism, infidelity, and resistance to lawful authority; the educator of nations in rebellion and supreme selfishness. In a word, the Anglo-Saxon race is an embodiment of the same depraved humanity found everywhere upon earth, only a little better cloaked with Pharisaism, a daring falsehood, and the spirit of worldly gain, a little more plentifully sentimental, a little more unfalteringly self-idolatrous, and a little in advance of the apostate nations on their way to the judgments of God Almighty. So far from looking to such a people as the predestined instruments to convert and regenerate mankind, we feel rather, with a certain divine of England, that "the depression of the Saxon race is absolutely necessary for the moral and religious improvement of the world." So far from being the redeemer which men would have it, it needs rather to be put out of the way, that the promised redemption may come. At any rate, there is in it nothing hopeful upon which to calculate upon security for our country.

God can do without this nation of ours, if he sees fit just as well as with it. He could reject and humiliate his own chosen people, "to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and service of God, and the promises," without detriment to his purposes in the earth. No nation, any more than any man, is necessary to him. And for like reasons for which he destroyed Jerusalem he may also cast us down from the eminence of which we have become so boastful and vain. And this idolatry of self and country; and substitution of human devices, agencies, and arrangements in the place of the proper Saviour, and building up of men in hopes not at all warranted in the revealed plan of God, so characteristic of nearly all our thinking and theology, must themselves go far to hasten the coming of judgments to sweep away the occasion and instrument of such mischievous delusion.

We do not suppose that other forms of human government are so much wiser and better than our own.

All human governments are defective, unreliable, and transient; and there is no basis in true theology, morals, or religion upon which to except ours, or upon which we can rightfully hope for that excellent and world-regenerating destiny which public men, in church and state, have been so loud and confident in claiming and proclaiming. Dr. Duffield once said, "I know no safe depositary of power among mortal men for the purposes of government. Tyranny and oppression, in church and state, under every form of government, social, civil, ecclesiastical, monarchical, aristocratical, or democratic, have, sooner or later, characterized the governments of earth, and done so from the beginning. . . . It is the sway of heaven alone that can redeem this fallen world." It was truth he uttered. There is but one rightful and competent governor of earth; and He is a King. He is absent now. And while He is absent, and the literal setting up of His kingdom is delayed, there will be nothing but disappointment, revolution, and trouble in all human calculations and affairs. The philosophy of Providence, as conducted throughout the whole period of his absence, is to prove to men, by the failure of all their multiform experiments, that they can neither save, nor happily govern, themselves. God has also plainly declared it to be his purpose to "overturn, overturn, overturn," until He comes to whom all judgment has been given, and in whose righteous reign alone the world for the first time since the fall, shall have peace. How, then, can it be otherwise than that our particular institutions are also among the things that shall perish and disappear?

Nor are we among those who see too much good, piety, prayer, faith, and Christian enterprise and devotion among our citizens, for God to mete to us a destiny of nearing affliction and dishonor. There is virtue and godliness in the land; but it is scarce, often much alloyed, and almost entirely neutralized. It has no ways of making itself felt effectively upon the body politic. It is vastly in the minority, where majorities rule with absolute sway. And, by a sort of common law, it is excluded from the scenes and sources whence the controlling powers in the working of our system issue. All that piety can do is, to preach and pray, lament and suffer; whilst wickedness lifts itself into high places, and even virtue is sought to be used as an instrument of selfishness and sin. And for men to count on the preserving power of that which they continually stifle, or seek to use as self and ambition dictate, only enacts a deeper complication of hypocrisy and guilt, which calls the louder for the very judgments which it is thought to avert. How poor is the hope of the salvation of our country furnished by the feeble saintship of the pious few whom our politicians scorn to listen to or to imitate!

There is also an alarming offset to this piety and faith, to which some trust so much for the stability and continued prosperity of our American institutions. That man must be blind indeed, or have radically erroneous ways of estimating political and national virtue, not to perceive what corruption and decay have been going on for the last twenty years in every department of our government, executive, judicial, and popular,—from the smallest municipality or corporation, to the highest State or general legislature, or supreme court. It is folly to talk of the rule of principle, reason, and right in the management of any of our public affairs. It is party, passion, and self-aggrandizement which hold the reins of umpire and control all our elections. There is not a single stability of virtue which our politicians, or their adherents, will not sacrifice, the moment they believe they can thereby secure their selfish ends unpunished. The most positive promises, the most unequivocal professions, and all the binding solemnities of an oath, are as nothing upon the consciences of the great mass of our public men.

Their highest aims are distinction, power and plunder. Even the Churches, and so-called Benevolent Societies themselves, are not free from the workings of the unholy spirit; and the activity of many of them has no other spring than that which animates the common demagogue. "We speak that we know, and testify that we have seen." The whole moral stamina of the nation, public and private, political, commercial, social, and ecclesiastical, is fearfully diseased and weakened. "Instead of the wisdom, the rectitude, the benignity, the self-denial, that are requisite to the high office of bringing the world back to allegiance to God, the people of the United States are showing that they have not enough even to prize and preserve the eminent blessings with which they themselves are intrusted, but are carelessly and wantonly dashing them from their hands. Vast crowds, at least, setting at defiance the laws alike of God and man, are plotting and perpetrating crimes and mischiefs of gigantic dimensions, drenching their hands in blood, and ready to plunge the nation into a fathomless gulf of sin, wretchedness, and ruin. The world never before beheld a spectacle more unsuitable to a people professing to be Protestant Christians." And where to look for the remedy, is a question which cannot fail to embarrass and disturb every thoughtful man who intelligently considers it. The fact is, that, in the present course of things, there is no remedy. The ministry and churches are powerless against the incoming tide of evil and defection: whilst too many, who should be serving as watchmen, are sleeping at their stations, eating and drinking with the drunken, or expending their energies in augmenting the ills which require to be expelled. Vain is the help of man in such a state of things as this. Nor have we any promise of a favorable change whilst the present dispensation lasts. On the contrary, inspiration assures us that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." 2 Tim. iii, 13. For what, then, can we hope but continued decay, judgment and ruin?

We tremble, therefore, for our country, and are filled with sorrow in the convictions which force themselves upon us and cry for utterance. It is no joy to us to contemplate the end to which this land, in which our fathers lived and died, is inevitably drifting. But we are persuaded, and this we would have all our people ponder well, that it is not in the nature of our government, nor in accordance with the established movements of God's administrations among men, nor agreeable to the true philosophy of Providence, nor conformable to the plainly revealed nature and course of the present pregnant times, for our country to have the outcome from the disturbances, depressions, and moral defections that have seized upon it, which our leaders and misguided divines so fondly predict. God help us! We can hear no other testimony.

Still, we are not comfortless. We have hopes and consolations far higher than any which seem to lie in the path of mere human progress and development. They are not built upon our country, the excellence of its Constitution, the integrity of its Union, the strength of its resources, the piety of its people, the reform of its administrations, or upon anything that can come out of it. "The governments and kingdoms of this world are but the organized dominion of human apostasy from God;" and nothing fit to be reposed in is to be expected from them. God will overrule them, and so shape their course as not to be without important effects in filling out the great plans of his providence and the ultimate glories of his elect; but they that put their trust in them shall be utterly confounded. Our fondest anticipations all connect with a course of things in the affairs of this world, the very idea of which many would refuse to dwell on, even, though compelled to admit its truth. Our hope is in Christ Jesus, and his speedy coming to set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed or left, but which shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and shall stand forever. Dan. ii, 44.

We, accordingly, submit a few suggestions by way of practical direction for these critical times:

1. Let it be the profound concern of every one, above all things, to secure for himself a firm foothold in the spiritual world, and an unrelaxing grasp of the immutable promises of God in Christ Jesus; for there certainly will be need of them. When all earthly hopes and stays are stricken down, as they must be, there will remain no other source of consolation; but the Lord will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is thus anchored and stayed. Heb. vi, 19, 20.

2. Let every one be assured, that all the storms and tribulations yet to come, with all their bearings and issues, are under the perfect control of Almighty God; and that, whatever intensities they may reach, or results they may bring forth, every thing considered, it will be the best. With whatever severity they shall break upon the rebellious, proud, and faithless, those who so watch and pray as to be accounted worthy "to stand before the Son of man" shall not only be saved from their fury, but find in them that very hand which is to crown them forever. It is the gracious Father, after all, who is at the helm of all things, and steering right for a glorious consummation, whatever sense of ill or suffering may have to be passed. The wicked, and the enemies of Christ and his reign, must be brought low; and every plant which the Lord has not planted must be rooted up; but, with all the wrecks and desolations which yet may strew the shores of time, the ship of God's salvation cannot founder. He will bring it to its destined shores amid shoutings of joy, with all its precious freight safe forever. 2 Tim. i, 12.

3. Let every one be fully awake to the stirring fact, that the coming of the Lord Jesus is now near at hand, watch, and work, and pray continually with reference to it, lest coming suddenly there should be unreadiness to meet him. There is not another event in the coming time concerning which so much is said in Scripture, upon which so much depends, or with reference to which we are so frequently and urgently warned and exhorted by the inspired writers. Christ himself, as well as his inspired apostles, again and again admonishes us to watch for his return, to pray for it, patiently to await it, to expect it, to look continually for it, to love it, to anticipate it with cheerful and fond desire, and to keep ourselves in constant readiness for it. Nor have we any promise of being kept from that dread hour of "trial" which shall come upon all the world, but that which connects with a posture of continual waiting and prayerful anticipation of our Saviour's speedy return. Let each, then, imitate the first Christians in looking for the Lord from heaven, and "be diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless." 2 Pet. iii, 14; Luke xxi, 34–36.

Thus, then, do thy duty, oh man, as a brave and faithful Christian, and confidently leave the whole issue of things with thy overruling Lord and God.—Sel.