IN the Gospel of St. Matthew it is related, that, as Christ sat upon the Mount o
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The American Sentinel
September 15, 1892
Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · September 15, 1892
IN the Gospel of St. Matthew it is related, that, as Christ sat upon the Mount of Olives, his disciples came privately to him and asked what would be the signs of his second coming, and of the end of the world. When he had given them the evidences of its near approach, and assured them that the day and hour was known, and would be known, to none, not even the angels, only the Father alone,—then he counseled them to be always in readiness for that great event, and spoke to them in beautiful parables, closing his discourse with a terse description of the final examination of the righteous and the unrighteous. He said to them, that, when he should come again in all his glory with the holy angels about him, all nations would be gathered before him, and he should divide the righteous from the unrighteous, and set the one on his right hand and the other on his left. The righteous he would call “blessed of my Father,” and say to them that they should come to their inheritance,—to the kingdom that had been prepared for them since before the foundations of the world were laid. But the unrighteous he would call, “cursed,” and order them from him into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. To the one,—the second death; to the other,—life eternal! With a directness to be understood by the simplest, he gave his reasons for making this distinction.
—o—
THE invitation has gone out; the multitudes have come from Europe, the East, the far East. They continue to come. Are they still welcome? If they are not still welcome, why is it that they are not? The Chinese exclusion act, and the extraordinary precautions of the Government for its enforcement, prove conclusively to the Oriental that he is no longer welcome.
The late statutory discriminations against alien labor, and the method of the application of the foreign contract labor law, are more than a hint to the European masses that they are no longer wanted here. What is the occasion of such a complete change in policy as this? This Nation has lately made a judicial profession of Christianity. Is the reason for this coincident change in foreign policy to be found in that?
—O—
To those to whom he gave the heritage of eternal life, he said that it was theirs because they had given him food when hungry, water to drink when athirst; had clothed him when naked and cold; visited him when sick and in prison; and, when a stranger they had received him gladly. But as for the others, when he had been hungry, they had not fed him; when he had thirsted, they had not given him drink; they had not clothed him when cold and naked; when he was in prison and sick they had not visited and comforted him; when he came a stranger among them, they had shut the door upon him.
When they both alike disclaimed having done, or having failed to do, all this to him personally, he said to them that as they had done this to the least of his282brethren they had done it to him; and as they had not done these kindly charities to his brethren, so they had failed to do them to him.
Those whom he addressed so tenderly, as the blessed of his Father, and to whom he gave the highest possible gift, had entertained an angel unawares. The others had entertained no angels except those who came to them well accredited, having the insignia of their rank, and carrying properly certified letters of credit showing their financial standing, and so introduced that there might be no mistake as to their social position. The one were the righteous and Christlike; the other were the unrighteous and unchristian.
If this is a Christian Nation,—if it can be a Christian Nation,—which must it be, Christlike, or un-Christlike? If a nation can be Christian, when did this Nation show the most Christlikeness? When it opened its doors to the stranger and received him gladly, offering him, with a full hand, all the good things of the earth? Or when it closed its doors to some and strove to make it more difficult to others to enter? Is it consistent to profess both Christianity and un-Christlikeness in the same testimony? Does not such inconsistency savor of hypocrisy? Is there that difference between the Christianity of Christ and “American Christianity?” Is there a new religion, and is the United States its prophet? Has it forsaken the religion of unselfishness, and does it now profess the religion of selfishness, and has it christened this “American Christianity” and established Sunday observance as its sign manual, obligatory upon the American citizen?
All this bewildering maze of intricate inconsistencies which arise about these questions are significant—of what? That this is not a Christian Nation. That there can be no such thing as a Christian Nation. That the whole idea as now taught is but the figment of a deluded imagination. There can be no such thing as corporate religion. Religion, pure and undefiled, can never be anything but an individual experience. In that representative government whose individual citizens have, in the greatest majority, a personal experience of the religion of Jesus Christ, there civil equity will most abound, and will more and more abound. But in these United States under the hypocritical pretensions of a judicial profession of religion it does, and will, less and less abound.
W. H. M.
It has always been the boast of the American citizen that this was the land of the free, and a refuge for the oppressed of all nations. The persecuted and downtrodden of the world have been encouraged to seek a haven here. The United States has made itself the apostle to the whole earth of equality before the law to all men. The people of the world have heard. They believed.
THE gospel of unalienable rights found many believers. The doctrine that the true purpose of government is to secure these rights to men found numerous upholders. The idea that it was from the consent of the governed that governments derived their just powers was like a vision of Paradise regained. It is not to be wondered at, that increasing millions sought to realize for themselves the blessings of this later Eden in the New World.
For a hundred years the United States preached these principles, and, in the cases of the immigrants who grasped the outstretched hand of brotherhood extended to them, it practiced the principles which it preached. Colonial ecclesiasticism was but a memory. Neither tolerance nor intolerance ruled, but equity and equality were the watchwords of the State. All were welcome, and equally welcome. The invitation was without reserve to all,—Come! They heard, they answered, they came.
—o—
THE conversion of the Nation to Christianity was accomplished through a decree of the Supreme Court. The decision, in which the Nation made its public profession of religion, also acknowledged the binding force and propriety of an alien labor law of which the purpose was to discriminate against foreign workingmen, and in favor of resident laborers. But the plea was made, that, because this was a Christian Nation, it must necessarily be contrary to its policy to exclude Christian ministerial or missionary laborers. In the very profession itself of our national religion there is found this serious anomaly. It has heretofore been the policy of this country, humane, generous, just, to discriminate against none, but gladly share with all the blessings of a free Government, and the wider opportunities for the pursuit of happiness which this country has afforded. If the religious professions, which this country has made, have been made in perfect candor and good faith, why is there this incongruity?
—o—
Are Sunday Laws a Civil Necessity.
“To substitute a weekly holiday for the Sabbath,” says the Examiner, of this city, “would be the most cruel wrong that could be done to the man who earns his daily bread by daily labor. The Sabbath is a necessity to him, and whoever attacks it directly, or indirectly undermines it, is the laboring man’s enemy, however he disguises himself.”
“To substitute a holiday for the Sabbath,” would be an impossibility with any man who really keeps a Sabbath; for he would accept no such substitution. But if the individual desires a holiday instead of a Sabbath nothing can prevent him from having it. This our contemporary admits when it says:—
There is a constant tendency towards the increase of unnecessary labor. This is due to the growing custom of making Sunday a holiday—a day for junketing and visiting and merry-making. So far as this concerns the merry-makers alone, the State has no cause to interfere; it is a moral question for each person to settle with his own conscience and with God. But when the Sunday holiday begins to nullify the Sunday rest day, the State may and should interfere. Its interference should be solely to protect all classes of citizens in their right to a day of rest.
The only question, especially in cities, is, whether Sunday, for that is the day that all the agitation is about, shall be a day of devotion and of refreshing rest, or of comparatively innocent pleasure and physical recreation, or one of vicious idleness. If, as our contemporary intimates ought to be the case, excursions to the country, and all other avenues of pleasure requiring the employment of labor should be closed, the day would be, for the most part, one of vicious idleness with all but the comparatively small minority who regard and keep it as a Sabbath. For if people who are confined to the office, the shop, or the factory, six days are compelled to remain in the city on Sunday, and are not inclined to go to church, they will resort to the saloons or to worse places; and if these are closed, as they never all are, people will resort to dissipation in their own homes; for idleness, unless sanctified by the influences of religion, inevitably breeds vice. Continuing, the Examiner says:—
Consider what would be the lot of vast classes of working people with fifty-two holidays a year and never a day of rest. That one part of the people may play another must work. To cater to the demands of the merry-makers, thousands must find Sunday the most laborious day of the seven, instead of the most restful. This is true already of employees of horse-car and railway and steamboat companies, of hotel and restaurant keepers, of policemen. How long will it be before Sunday labor becomes general if present legal restraints are ignored or repealed?
As a matter of fact there are comparatively few people who do not, or at least who may not, have regular days of rest if they so desire. Railroad and other employees who work on Sunday, are, with few exceptions, given some other day in the week for rest. And it is a rare thing to find a laboring man broken in health from having insufficient time for rest. Improper living, dissipation, unsanitary surroundings, etc., destroy thousands; and yet on the whole while “holidayism” has been supplanting in a measure, at least, the better form of Sunday observance in this country, the average of human life has increased instead of decreased as one would be led to expect that it would have been by the theories of those who assume that stated weekly rest is a physical necessity.
THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE REST.
The fact is that while real regard for sacred things is on the decrease, and while this naturally leads to holidayism instead of Sabbath keeping, the tendency of the times is toward fewer hours of labor and larger opportunities for rest and recreation than formerly, and Sunday laws are not needed to enable the mass of the people to secure the physical benefits to be derived from this state of affairs. And to force upon people the benefits of religion is both improper and impracticable. The people will take all the physical rest that they need and desire, but it is impossible to force upon them the spiritual rest which alone constitutes Sabbath observance.
California has no Sunday law, and for this reason is an excellent illustration of the ability and willingness of the people to regulate for themselves the matter of Sunday rest. The facts as stated by the friends of Sunday themselves show that Sunday observance has actually improved in that State since the repeal of the Sunday law.
In 1885 Rev. W. F. Crafts published his book, “The Sabbath for Man,” in which he relates that in order to obtain a world-wide view of Sabbath observance he corresponded with more than two hundred persons residing in nearly every nation of the world. One of the questions which he asked was:—
Where have you seen the best Sabbath observance?
To this, a San Francisco pastor responded:—
Among the Christian people of California.
Mr. Crafts’ question and the San Francisco pastor’s answer to it are found on page 95 of his book before referred to. On the preceding page occur these words:—
Both laymen and ministers say that even in California the Sabbath is, on the whole, better observed and Christian services better attended than five years ago.
“Five years ago,” from the standpoint of 1885, was three years before the repeal of the California Sunday law. Therefore, taking into consideration all that Mr. Crafts said upon this subject, we conclude that according to testimony published in his own book, California had in 1885, when the State had been without a Sunday law for two years, better and more general Sunday observance than it had under a Sunday law.
And that Mr. Crafts meant to convey the idea that there had been a general improvement in California, in the matter of Sunday keeping, is further evident from the fact that the quotations which we have made from his book, are prefaced with the following, set in italics:—
Another element of hope in the United States is that the West has improved in Sabbath observance (except in the largest cities), as the communities have changed from frontier Territories into settled States.
Then, after only four and one-half lines relative to Dakota and Wyoming, follows the statement quoted, that “both laymen and ministers say that even in California the Sabbath is, on the whole, better observed, and Christian services better attended, than five years ago.” This Mr. Crafts gives in his book as an encouraging fact. A residence of seven years in California, six years of which were spent in one of the largest cities of the State, justifies the writer in saying that the facts are about as “both laymen and ministers” have stated them. And with this agrees also “Holloway,” a correspondent of the New York Observer, who, in a letter in that paper, dated October 2, 1890, said of Sunday in San Francisco:—
True, there are some drawbacks here as there are in all the cities of our land. Attractive as the city is, and in its main features very desirable as a place of residence, yet the good people who have come from the East regret the absence of some things with which they have always been familiar. There are no Sabbath laws in California and no recognition of it on the statute books of the State. Labor of all kinds can be carried on without hindrance, stores may remain open for the transaction of business as on any other day of the week, places of amusement may be open without interference from the authorities, while noisy demonstrations can go on as usual. But while there is the absence of all Sunday laws we must not draw the conclusion that there is no respect paid to the Lord’s day. Truth compels us to state the fact that San Francisco is a Sabbath keeping city. The drift is plainly in that direction. The moral sentiment of the people is largely in its favor, and with very rare exceptions you will find as much order and quiet in the streets as in some of283our most favored Eastern cities. Those who knew California twenty years ago, now witness a far different order of things. The mass of the people respect and keep the Lord’s day. No merchant of any respectability keeps his store open on the Sabbath. The wharves are deserted. The Italian fruit dealers in many localities close up their places of business, and even in the Chinese quarter of the city there is some recognition of the fact that this one day calls for a regard to decency and order, if not for religious reverence.
Some Scraps of New England History.
THE SUFFERINGS OF THE QUAKERS.
NOTWITHSTANDING the laws and penalties, and the spirit to inflict the penalties in the severest way, the Quakers continued to come. In fact, wherever such laws were, that was the very place where the Quakers wished to be, because they were opposed to every kind of soul-oppression and every form of the union of Church and State. Not only in this, but in almost everything else their views made them objects of special hatred to the theocrats of Massachusetts. They recognized no such distinction among Christians as clergy and laity, and could neither be coerced nor forced to pay tithes. They refused to do military service, and would not take an oath. They would not take their hats off either in church or in court. “In doctrine their chief peculiarity was the assertion of an ‘inward light,’ by which every individual is to be guided in his conduct of life.” And “the doctrine of the ‘inward light,’ or of private inspiration, was something especially hateful to the Puritan.” Another thing no less hateful to the Puritan than this, was their refusal to keep Sunday in the Puritan way. They called “in question the propriety of Christians turning the Lord’s day into a Jewish Sabbath.” They were denounced as infidels, blasphemers, agents of the devil, and were counted as easily guilty of every heresy and every crime in the Puritan theological catalogue.
Admission to the confederacy of the New England colonies had been absolutely refused Rhode Island, on account of its principles of liberty of conscience; but hatred of the Quakers led Massachusetts colony in 1657 to ask Rhode Island to join the confederacy in the endeavor to save New England from the Quakers. “They sent a letter to the authorities of that colony, signing themselves their loving friends and neighbors, and beseeching them to preserve the whole body of colonists against ‘such a pest,’ by banishing and excluding all Quakers, a measure to which ‘the rule of charity did oblige them.’”
But Roger Williams was still president of Rhode Island, and, true to his principles, he replied: “We have no law amongst us whereby to punish any for only declaring by words their minds and understandings concerning things and ways of God as to salvation and our eternal condition. As for these Quakers, we find that where they are most of all suffered to declare themselves freely and only opposed by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come. Any breach of the civil law shall be punished, but the freedom of different consciences shall be respected.”
This reply enraged the whole confederacy. Massachusetts threatened to cut off the trade of Rhode Island. In this strait Rhode Island, by Roger Williams, appealed for protection to Cromwell, who now ruled England. The appeal presented the case as it was, but that which made it of everlasting importance, as the grandest and most touching appeal in all history, is the piteous plea, “But whatever fortune may befall, let us not be compelled to exercise any civil power over men’s consciences.”
In this year, October 14, another law was passed against Quakers, in which it was enacted that—
If any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall henceforth entertain and conceal any such Quaker or Quakers, or other blasphemous heretics, knowing them so to be, every such person shall forfeit to the country forty shillings for every such hour’s entertainment and concealment of any Quaker or Quakers, etc., as aforesaid, and shall be committed to prison as aforesaid, till forfeiture be fully satisfied and paid; and it is further ordered that if any Quaker or Quakers shall presume, after they have once suffered what the law requires, to come into this jurisdiction, every such male Quaker shall for the first offense have one of his ears cut off, and be kept at work in the house of correction till he can be sent away at his own charge, and for the second offense shall have his other ear cut off; and every woman Quaker that has fulfilled the law here that shall presume to come into this jurisdiction, shall be severely whipped, and kept at the house of correction at work, till she be sent away at their own charge, and so also for her coming again she shall be alike used as aforesaid; and for every Quaker, he or she, that shall presume a third time herein again to offend, they shall have their tongues burned through with a red-hot iron, and be kept at the house of correction close to work, till they be sent away at their own charge. And it is further ordered that all and every Quaker arising from among ourselves, shall be dealt with, and suffer the like punishments, as the law provides against foreign Quakers.
The Quakers, however, not only continued to come, and to come again when imprisoned, whipped, and banished; but their preachings, and much more their persecutions, raised up others in the colonies. This result followed so promptly that May 20, 1658, the following statute was enacted:—
That Quakers and such accursed heretics, arising among ourselves, may be dealt with according to their deserts, and that their pestilent errors and practices may be speedily prevented, it is hereby ordered, as an addition to the former laws against Quakers, that every such person or persons, professing any of their pernicious ways by speaking, writing, or by meeting on the Lord’s day, or at any other time, to strengthen themselves, or seduce others to their diabolical doctrines, shall, after due means of conviction, incur the penalty ensuing; that is, every person so meeting, shall pay to the country for every time ten shillings; and every one speaking in such meeting, shall pay five pounds apiece; and in case any such person, after having been punished by scourging or whipping for such, according to the former law, shall be still kept at work in the house of correction, till they put in security with two sufficient men, that they shall not any more vent their hateful errors, nor use their sinful practices, or else shall depart this jurisdiction at their own charges, and if any of them return again, then each such person shall incur the penalty of the law formerly made for strangers.
In 1658 “Rev.” John Norton, supported by the rest of the clergy, circulated a petition praying that the penalty of death should be visited upon all Quakers who should return after having been banished. The Board of Commissioners of the United Colonies met in Boston in September. The petition was presented to the Board, which in response advised the general court of each colony to enact such a law. Accordingly, October 16, the general court of Massachusetts enacted the following law:—
Whereas there is a pernicious sect, commonly called Quakers, lately risen up, who by word and writing have published and maintained many dangerous and horrid tenets, and do take upon them to change and alter the received and laudable customs of our nation, not giving civil respects to equals, or reverence to superiors; whose actions tend to undermine civil government, and to destroy the order of the churches, by denying all established forms of worship, and by withdrawing from orderly church fellowship, allowed and proved by all orthodox professors of truth, and instead thereof, and in opposition thereto, frequently meet by themselves, insinuating themselves into the minds of the simple, or such as are least affected to the order and government of the church and commonwealth, whereby diverse particular inhabitants have been infected, notwithstanding all former laws made, have been upon the experience of their arrogant and bold determinations, to disseminate their practice amongst us, prohibiting their coming into this jurisdiction, they have not been deterred from their impious attempts to undermine our peace and hazard our ruin.
For prevention thereof, this court doth order and enact that every person or persons, of the accused sect of Quakers, who is not an inhabitant of, but is found within, this jurisdiction, shall be apprehended without warrant, where no magistrate is at hand, by any constable, commissioner, or selectman, and conveyed from constable to constable, to the next magistrate, who shall commit the said person to close prison, there to remain (without bail) till the next court of assistants, where they shall have a legal trial; and being convicted [Note:—“For which conviction, it was counted sufficient that they appeared with their hats on and said ‘thee’ and ‘thou’], to be of the sect of the Quakers, shall be sentenced to be banished upon pain of death; and that every inhabitant of this jurisdiction being convicted to be284of the aforesaid sect, either by taking up, publishing, or defending the horrid opinion of the Quakers, or stirring up of mutiny, sedition, or rebellion against the government, or by taking up their abusive and destructive practices, viz., denying civil respect to equals and superiors, and withdrawing from the church assemblies, and instead thereof frequenting meetings of their own in opposition to our church order, or by adhering to, or approving of, any known Quaker, and the tenets practiced, that are opposite to the orthodox received opinions of the godly, and endeavoring to disaffect others to civil government and church order, or condemning the practice and proceedings of this court against the Quakers, manifesting thereby their plotting with those whose design is to overthrow the order established in Church and State, every such person convicted before the said court of assistants, in manner aforesaid, shall be committed to close prison for one month, and then, unless they choose voluntarily to depart this jurisdiction, shall give bond for their good behavior, and appear at the next court, where continuing obstinate, and refusing to retract and reform their aforesaid opinions, they shall be sentenced to banishment upon pain of death; and any one magistrate upon information given him of any such person, shall cause him to be apprehended, and shall commit any such person, according to his discretion, till he comes to trial as aforesaid.
Nor were any of these laws in any sense a dead letter. They were enforced in the regular Puritan way.
CIVIL LAW NOT NECESSARY.
By C. P. B.
“Holloway” has stated the facts just as we know them to exist in California. Truth, he says, compels him to say that “San Francisco is a Sabbath-keeping city.” Sunday work and Sunday business instead of being on the increase in that State are on the decrease even in the cities. The drift is in the direction of more general rest upon that day. We do not say that this is due to a growing regard for the day; indeed we incline to the opinion that it is right in line with the general tendency of the times, which is toward shorter hours and more holidays; but that does not alter the case.
The facts show that civil law is not necessary to secure to the working people a weekly rest day. And that this conclusion is correct even the Examiner inadvertently admitted something over two years ago, when of the Saturday half holiday in this city it said:—
For several years, by a concerted action, some few large firms in the same lines of business adopted a system of early closing during the summer, but the practice was by no means general, and it had no sure basis until a statute made Saturday afternoon a legal holiday. When all banks and public offices closed at noon on Saturday, it was found not only practicable to close private offices and shops, but of little use to keep them open, and so the half-holiday became assured as a summer institution, and is more and more generally observed with every year.
This was said in an effort to show that Sunday laws are necessary; but instead of proving the necessity of Sunday laws, it proves conclusively that no such laws are required further than to make Sunday a legal holiday. There is no law forbidding work upon Saturday afternoon; the law simply makes Saturday afternoon a legal holiday, and banks, courts, etc., must of necessity suspend business, because business done at that time would not be legal. But to make Sunday dies non would not satisfy Sunday-law advocates. This is exactly the case with Sunday in California. It is a legal holiday, no public business is done and would not be legal if it were done, and yet, Sunday advocates say that California has no Sunday law, and they are demanding that a Sunday law be enacted in that State. The truth is, that that which they want is a statutory recognition of Sunday as a sacred day. And that, they say, would not be religious legislation! C. P. B.
The Gospel; What It Is, and Its Work As Opposed to the Mystery of Iniquity.
(Concluded.)
The National Reform Association, the American Sabbath Union, and this whole ecclesiastical combination has been working for this for these twenty-nine years. Will they stand silent and do nothing? Is there not here to-day an ecclesiastical organization anxious to assert the Government as a kind of sovereignty for itself, just as there was then to raise a like dispute?
Then can any one doubt, or fail to see, that under the circumstances and in the condition of the times, in view of the position the Church occupied at that time, just as certainly as that edict of Constantine in favor of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire brought the Papacy, and out of that came all that the Papacy ever was, just so certainly under the like circumstances and the like conditions of church ambition, out of this Supreme Court decision making Christianity the religion of this Nation—just so certainly in this is the image of the beast, and out of it will come everything that the prophecy tells about.
We are not the only ones able to see these things. That was one of the things that was held in mind when this Government was made. Before making the national Constitution, there was a movement in Virginia to establish the Christian religion—not the Catholic nor the Protestant, but “the Christian religion;” that is all. Let me read to you what James Madison saw in that:—
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects?
Constantine favored Christianity at the first, just as a whole—“the whole body of Christians.” And then he established a particular sect, the “Catholic Church of the Christians,” just as easily as he did the first. Just so certainly as the Supreme Court of the United States has established Christianity as the religion of this nation, in exclusion of all other religions, just so certainly will it, or some other power, have to establish one particular sect in exclusion of all other sects. The Supreme Court hints at Protestantism; but if that is it, somebody will have to decide which sect of Protestantism it is. I do not know who will decide it; whether the Supreme Court, or Congress, or by national election campaign, I can not say; but it will be decided in some way. It is bound to come.
Madison and those of his time knew just as certainly as they knew anything, that if Christianity was established as the State religion of Virginia, there must be a particular sect established, and everybody else be oppressed. Not only that, but he saw this:—
Instead of holding forth an asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution.
Now mark; they held this position; they had experienced this in their day. We have had some of it too in our day. They saw in the mere proposition to make Christianity the established religion of Virginia “a signal of persecution.” Just as certainly as the proposition to make Christianity the established religion of the State of Virginia was the signal of persecution in that State, just so certainly this Supreme Court decision making Christianity the religion of this Nation is a signal of persecution through all the Nation. But I read again from Madison’s remonstrance against that:—
Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree.
In that proposition to establish “the Christian religion” in Virginia, they saw the Inquisition. What do we see in the actual establishment of the same religion by the Supreme Court of the United States? Again I read:—
The one is the first step, the other is the last, in the career of intolerance.
That is what they saw, the founders of this Republic, when an attempt was made to establish “the Christian religion” as the State religion. What does this people see in this decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which establishes “the Christian religion” as the national religion? Just as certainly as that back there was a signal of persecution, and persecution throughout the State, just so certainly is this a signal of persecution, and persecution through all the Nation. Just so certainly as that had in it the Inquisition, just so certainly this has in it the same thing.
And just as certainly as that edict of Constantine back there had in it the Papacy, just so certainly this has in it all that the image of the Papacy is or will be. Controversies arose back there as to what was Christianity, and this brought the establishment of the Catholic Church and persecution of all kinds. Soon the next step was made, compelling them all to become Catholics—heretics to join the Catholic Church and hand over their property to the Catholic Church.
There arose still another difficulty and dispute as to what was the true Catholic doctrine, and this brought the Council of Nice, which established Trinitarianism as the true Catholic doctrine. This was soon followed by an emperor who, by a council, established Arianism as the true Catholic doctrine. This was soon followed by another emperor who, by a council, re-established Trinitarianism as the true Catholic doctrine. Thus one ruler and council decided one way, and another decided another way, as to what was the true Catholic religion. And thus it went on, controversy after controversy of all kinds, until the bishop of Rome was made the fountain of faith by earthly governments and human power instead of the word of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, the power of God. Thus the mystery of iniquity hid and supplanted for ages the mystery of God.
Now, then, old controversies will be revived. Some of these controversies will rise right up again as to what is the real true Christianity, Catholicism or Protestantism, Trinitarianism or Unitarianism, Calvinism or Arianism. These old controversies will be revived, which have apparently been hushed for a long time. These disputes will arise over hair-splitting theories that have no truth in them. They will dispute over these things. Atoms will be worlds, and worlds will be atoms; and these atoms that they will turn into worlds will be simply senseless disputes by which they can obtain control of the civil power, to force those who oppose them, and do not believe as they do, to act as they think or believe. “Old controversies will spring up,” and here are new controversies: revelations of false science, evolution, probation after death, etc. “New and old will commingle, and THIS WILL TAKE PLACE RIGHT EARLY.” Do you not believe it? Do you believe it? Is it not time to believe it? Is it not time to believe it, brethren? Well, then, I hope you will.
The Sabbath a Memorial.
APROPOS of our notes in last week’s paper upon the nature and design of the Sabbath, are the following paragraphs from “The Abiding Sabbath,” published by the American Tract Society:—
Not to a single race, but to man; not to man alone, but to the whole creation; not to the created things alone, but to the Creator himself, came the benediction of the first Sabbath. Its significance extends beyond the narrow limits of Judaism, to all races, and perhaps to all worlds. It is a law spoken not simply through the lawgiver of a chosen people, but declared in the presence of a finished heaven and earth. The declaration in Genesis furnishes the best commentary on the saying of Jesus: “The Sabbath was made for man.” For man, universal humanity, it was given with its benediction.
The reason of the institution of the Sabbath is one which possesses an unchanging interest and importance to all mankind. The theme of the creation is not peculiar to Israel, nor is worship of the Creator confined to the children of Abraham. The primary article of every religious creed, and the foundation of all true religion is faith in one God as the Maker of all things. Against atheism, which denies the existence of a personal God; against materialism, which denies that this visible universe has its roots in the unseen; and against secularism, which denies the need of worship, the Sabbath is therefore an eternal witness. It symbolically commemorates that creative power which spoke all things into being, the wisdom which ordered their adaptations and harmony, and the love which made, as well as pronounced, all “very good.” It is set as the perpetual guardian of man against that spiritual infirmity which has everywhere led him to a denial of the God who made him, or to the degradation of that God into a creature made with his own hands.
The words which we have italicized express truth which, if rightly understood and accepted in its fullness, would forever put an end to the “civil Sabbath” plea for Sunday laws. The Sabbath was primarily made for man, not that he might rest but that he might worship his Creator in the beauty of holiness. It was to be to man a memorial of God’s finished work, a monument erected at the end of each week to remind man of the time285"when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," because "God saw everything that he had made and, behold, it was very good." Physical rest is an incident, not the object, of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment.