Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 27, 1893
Salvation Through Jesus Christ
THE only means of salvation is Jesus Christ. No works of men will avail. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight;" "for all have sinned."
God's law is the standard of God's righteousness. It comprehends, therefore, in the exceeding breadth of its spirituality, all righteousness, and condemns all sin. The fullness of its righteousness is the fullness of the righteousness of God's character. It also comprehends all love, for "God is love." As it is therefore impossible for finite man to comprehend infinite righteousness and infinite love, it is impossible for him to comprehend the requirements of God's law; and he therefore cannot intelligently do the law.
THIS would be true of man if he had never sinned. He could not of himself do God's will, or attain to God's righteousness. This lack in man God designed to supply through faith. If our first parents had believed God, he would have given them infinite enlightenment through his Holy Spirit, with power to do his will. Man would have been continually called out of himself, and would have gone on to all eternity with ever increasing though perfect love. That is, his love would be defective in its fullness of knowledge, but not in its intrinsic quality.
BUT man sinned, and ever more unfitted himself to obey God. He yielded to the devil and became the slave of sin. His very impulses to good are brought under bondage by the power of sin within him. He cannot rescue himself from his cruel master, because he has within himself only the power of self to do it, and self is the very one which brought him into bondage. He by himself cannot lift himself above himself, nor out of himself. His case, of himself, is utterly "without hope." He is "without strength."
BUT here God's love comes in; "for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." And he "died for all;" he "came to save sinners;" he "died for the ungodly." What does he ask on their part, that he may save them from sin?—Nothing but faith, simple faith. "Man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead."
SIMPLY faith! God asks no more. He does not say, "Wait till you are better, and then I will accept you." No, indeed; he says: "Come now, come just as you are, all laden with sin, all covered with filth, all filled with the leprosy of sin, deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; come, and I will undo the heavy burden; I will cleanse you from filth; I will heal you from disease; I will give you a new heart and new spirit; I will clothe you with my own spotless robe of righteousness; I will put upon you the garments of salvation. I have bought you just as you are, and I will take what I purchase and make it to the praise of the glory of my grace." This is Christ's message to you, sinner. Will you not believe him, and yield all to him? If not, why not?
"BUT what about the works?"—Never mind the works; God will care for them. It is true he requires good works; but the secret of performing them lies in the faith. Faith puts Christ in the heart (Eph. 3:17; Gal. 2:20), and Christ will do the work. You will be then working from life, not for life. As you believe God, you will daily, hourly, momentarily, yield all to him, to wait, to watch, to do, to suffer, and his strength will all be vouchsafed for every trial. But leave all that to him and the future. Come now and find him a Saviour from sin. He wants to help you. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?"
"THE DEATH KNELL OF POPULAR LIBERTY."
FOUR years ago this present month the Roman Catholic Congress of Laymen was held in Baltimore, Md. That congress was a great step in Roman Catholic progress in this country. Shortly after that a prominent paper of London, England, the Christian Commonwealth, published the following editorial, portions of which we have italicized:—
From across the Atlantic come many ominous warnings of a great struggle soon to come. The great republic is awaking to the prospect of a battle which can in no way be decided, for it is simply a fact of inevitable destiny that the people of America must pass through a conflict with Rome. Rome! Name of unspeakable portent! The very word calls up a whole panorama of lurid apocalyptic visions. Paganism and popery, the beast and Babylon. Antichrist and Armageddon spring up and cluster round that monosyllable, which seems to monopolize the history of the world, the flesh, and the devil, just as Jerusalem evermore suggests all that is associated with God, the truth, and the church.
For ages the wave of human energy has rolled westward. And in our day the battle field where the crowning struggle of liberty is to be fought, seems likely to be found in the western hemisphere. Extraordinary theories have been suggested by a pen given to benevolent but fantastic abstractions concerning the golden age of popery. How sweet fountains for universal healing are to be distilled from deadly chalice brewed at the Vatican, there is no attempt to explain. Dreams can never be explained, and editors who dream are not very valuable guides of public opinion. We are now being told, not only that Leo XIII. is a paragon among popes, as we were told by the same revealer of secrets that the czar is the most heavenly-minded despot that ever sent his subjects to rot in Siberia, but also that the great pasture ground is to be found in America, where the papal lion will lie down with the Protestant lamb. The great Catholic conference in America may well mark an era in transatlantic history.
Anyone who converses with intelligent American Protestants soon discovers that they all agree in one sentiment. They know well that the Catholic bishops and the Catholic clergy, who number in their ranks many of the godliest of citizens, are bound by the whole spirit of their creed to be Papists first and Americans afterwards. They know that their countrymen, who are of worldly mind, and care as little about religious consolation as Galileo, are decried, as many are in England. In America and in England Romanism is seen at its best, and the Catholic clergy are by necessity on their best behavior. But popery never sleeps, and its prelates are ever on the watchtower. The 8,000,000 of Papists in the United States are being drilled day and night to demand supremacy over the civil power in the all-important department of public education. Should the people of the United States yield the control of the schools to the Romish hierarchy, the death knell of popular liberty would be rung, for one demand yielded would be only a platform on which a greater clamor would be raised for other concessions to the most arrogant masters that ever put their feet on the necks of prostrate people.
The above is emphatically true, with the exception of "intelligent Protestants" agreeing in one sentiment—that is, if by the term the so-called Protestant clergy and press is meant. The great majority are as blind as the masses, and are responsible for the blindness and consequent indifference of the masses. It is a well-known fact that he who, from a solemn conviction of religious duty, cries out against the great system of the mystery of iniquity which finds its center in the Vatican, is at once condemned by pulpit and press, professedly Protestant.50The simple facts are these: The great bugbear in the eyes of professed Protestants for years has been the fear that the Roman Catholics would get control of the public schools.
Many have justified that church in this by demanding that Christianity or religion shall be taught in the schools supported by the public purse. Of course, to teach religion at all some particular religion must be taught, and the Roman Catholic, to be consistent, must demand that at least his children shall not be taught Protestantism and shall be taught in harmony with the principles of his church. And if the Protestant demand for religious instruction at public expense be correct, the claim of Roman Catholics is just. But at present it does not seem probable, from a modern Protestant view-point, that the Roman Catholic will obtain control of the public schools, and the Protestant apprehends no danger from another direction. (Of course we do not refer to the American Protective Association, and other kindred societies organized for the purpose of opposing papal advances. Roman Catholics call this class by the sweet name of "American Prejudiced Asses," and professed Protestants silently say, Amen.) And this blindness on the part of the great orthodox churches has permitted Rome to completely flank the Protestant Church in one great struggle, and Protestants have willingly, though perhaps unwittingly, surrendered in another.
1. Rome has surprised and beaten the Protestant sects in an open struggle with the government. The occasion was furnished for the first aggressive movement in 1885, the first year of President Cleveland's administration. Mr. Adkins, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, doubtless influenced by the "Bureau of Catholic Missions," established that very year in Washington, D. C., offered the opportunity in the following statement, which we take from the Congressional Record of July 25, 1890:—
"The government should be liberal in making contracts with religious denominations to teach Indian children in schools established by those denominations. It should throw open the door and say to all denominations: 'There should be no monopoly in good works.' Enter, all of you, and do whatever your hands find of good work to do, and in your efforts the government will give you encouragement out of its liberal purse." In other words, the government, without partiality, should encourage all the churches to work in this broad field of philanthropic endeavor.
Six or seven Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic entered the field. The first year (1886) the Catholic schools received $118,343 as against $109,916 for all others; in 1887 Catholic schools received $194,635 as against $168,679 for all others; in 1888, $221,169 for Catholic schools as against $155,095 for all others; in 1889, $347,672 for Catholic schools as against $183,000 for all others; in 1889-90, $356,967 for Catholic schools as against, for all other denominations and all other schools, $204,993.
When President Harrison took office in 1889, Gen. Thomas J. Morgan was made Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He saw how matters were going and determined to stop it; but, according to the statement of Senator Dawes, published in the Congressional Record of July 25, 1890, the government could not do it. He said:—
"The present management was in favor of divorcing the government absolutely from them all [the denominations], but found it impossible to do that. Perhaps it would have been better had the Indian education set out on this principle, but it had gone so far and got so interwoven with the whole system of Indian education, that it was utterly impossible to retrace the step, and to avoid the precipitation upon the country of such a discussion as that, which could do no good to anybody."
This was a confession that the government was powerless. It then determined that the appropriations should not increase; but the Roman Church went to Congress and obtained an increase of $44,000 for 1890. The Protestant churches then raised the cry of "raid on the treasury," and "perversion of public money to sectarian uses;" but this had no effect. They had fallen into the crime, and their condemnation of Rome availed nothing. The only difference between Rome and the Protestant denominations was that Rome obtained the most. Since 1891 the Methodist and Episcopal denominations have decided to accept no more public money, but Rome has gone right on. In 1892 she received $369,535 as against $156,346 for all others.
What then?—The Republican party was threatened. Mr. Harrison, to restore the confidence of Rome, induced the appointment as the chairman of the National Republican Committee a Roman Catholic, Mr. Thomas H. Carter. The corresponding office on the other side was also filled with a Catholic, Mr. William J. Harrity, of Pennsylvania. The Republicans were defeated, and the treasury doors still remain open. Roman Catholics hold the balance of power, and are able to force either great party to its terms or to defeat.
2. Protestants have willingly surrendered to Rome in the matter of an institution which is wholly Roman Catholic. They do not know that they have surrendered; but that does not alter the fact. For the last decade of years there has been a constantly growing clamor for Sunday laws, State and national. Protestants have said, "The time has come to make repeated advances, and gladly to accept coöperation [with Roman Catholics] in any form they may be willing to exhibit it."—Christian Statesman, August 31, 1884. "They [our pastors] ought to be in a position to co-operate with Roman prelates in the advocacy of such moral reforms as do not contradict Protestant principles."—Congregationalist, October 16, 1893. Many other utterances might be quoted. True it is that the Sunday Reform is wholly anti-Protestant in both the institution and methods employed, but it is one of the dearest things to the great mass of professed Protestants, and right upon the question of Sunday laws Rome, of course, will co-operate. It is hers, and she will gladly use Protestant labor to weave the snare in which she will eventually entangle them, as she has already done in the matter of the religious education of the nation's wards. The Baltimore Congress of Catholic Laymen declared that "we should seek an alliance with non-Catholics for proper Sunday observance."
The nation yielded to that Sunday clamor when she decided a religious controversy and voted that the World's Fair should be closed on Sunday.
The death knell of liberty is now sounding throughout the earth, but the Protestant churches and nations—so called—are so drunken with the wine of the apocalyptic harlot's fornication that they are unable to distinguish the solemn warning tones from the bells of a hilarious jubilee.
Reader, where do you stand? Sunday is a Roman Catholic institution, and nothing else. Every demand for legislation for its observance is papal in principle. God's word, God's Sabbath are against it. Where do you stand? Which will you choose—the sand of tradition or the rock of God's word?
TWO PRINCIPLES.
TWO RELIGIONS.
TWO METHODS.
In past numbers it has been shown from the Scriptures that God is love, that all that he has done and is doing for man is actuated by infinitely wise love, and that from man he demands love in return. Not only does God demand of man love to him first of all, and love to his neighbor as himself, but within every heart which will yield to God, his Holy Spirit will plant that love—love to God. And love to God means love to man; "for everyone that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him." 1 John 5: 1.
Love to God, love for mankind in general, and love for the brethren in particular, are great tests of the religion of the Bible. It is not a New Testament law that man shall love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, it is a law of the whole Bible. See Deut. 6: 5; 10: 12, 13; Matt. 22: 37. And this is likewise true of the love which a person should bear to his neighbor. See Lev. 19: 18; Matt. 22: 39. Neither was the term neighbor to be confined to friend, kindred, or race; it included the stranger and needy of all races. See Lev. 19: 34; Deut. 10: 19; Luke 10: 33–36. Neither does love stop here; it extends even to one's enemies. See Ex. 23: 4, 5; Prov. 25: 21, 22; Matt. 5: 44; Rom. 12: 20.
Such love led Christ to give himself for a guilty world. The same love, begotten by the same Spirit, led Moses to plead for rebellious, murmuring Israel: "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—" and then his heart becomes too full for utterance; he knows that God would be justified in their destruction, but he loves them, and he will give his own life—"if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." Ex. 32: 31, 32. It was the same love and same Spirit which breathed through Paul, as he saw blinded and contumacious Israel turned from Christ: "I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." Rom. 9: 3. This is the Spirit and mind of Christ; this is the spirit of his true followers in all ages.
It will be readily seen that those holding this Spirit in its fullness would never coerce, compel, or persecute; for love will not, cannot, persecute. It will persuade, beseech, entreat, implore, win, but it will not force. This is the gospel and religion of Christ. It has power, even the mighty power of the All-Creator, but its power is to the believer, to him who voluntarily yields to its omnipotent influence. Says the apostle: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the51power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth."
The power of the gospel is therefore exercised (1) only to him and through him who believes, and (2) to each one individually and not collectively, for it is impossible for men to believe as a company, a congregation, or as a nation. The rule forever is to each individual, "According to thy faith be it unto thee."
Faith reveals to man what he is, a poor, lost, undone sinner. It reveals Christ to him as his only and complete Saviour. It awakens love, inexpressible love, for Him who delivers from sin and death. It leads the soul thus delivered to abhor self and to give all the glory to God. It forms Christ within, the hope of glory, and holds him there by its constant exercise. All this faith in the gospel of Christ does. And the sinner, for whom all this work of God's wondrous grace in Christ has been wrought, knows that the same love, the same power, the same wisdom, and none other, can do the same work for every other soul, no matter how sinful or vile that soul may be, if that soul will but submit; and he also knows that no power in the universe can do this work if the soul will not submit. There is none greater than God, and God has made man sovereign over his own choice.
He, therefore, who knows the preciousness of the gospel of Christ will not compromise God's truth, will remain loyal to his Redeemer, and will proclaim by voice and pen and daily life the truth as it is in Jesus. At the same time he loves sinners and will labor for their salvation. He will set before them the better way, but will never seek to compel them to obey, because he knows that forced obedience is not obedience in God's sight, for God demands loving, willing service. Even if he could obtain power to compel outward acquiescence to religious ordinances or laws, he knows that it simply compels sinners to be hypocrites and not righteous men; for those who act religiously as they do not believe are hypocrites. God through his gospel does not make hypocrites, but righteous men, and he does this by the willing consent and coöperation of the man.
The child of God will not only therefore not ask for civil power to promote, advance, or compel religious ordinances, but he will utterly repudiate such power. He knows that civil power has its sphere appointed of God, and that sphere is to secure and maintain the rights of its citizens, and to restrain those who would invade those rights. It may restrain incivility, it may punish those who transgress, but it does all this, if acting in its proper sphere, solely to secure and maintain the equal rights of every one of its subjects. But the child of God through the gospel knows that the civil power cannot enforce morality or spirituality, and therefore, in the very nature of the case, has no right to interfere in matters of religion. And this Christ has forever set at rest in the following great principle: "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." With matters of religion, or duties which man owes to God, or man's personal relation to God, Cæsar, or civil government, has naught to do. The true Christian, therefore, will not seek to compel others to do as he thinks best, will not persecute; and he will do none of these things simply and solely because of his faith in God and love for souls. In this he has the example and teaching of his great Master, Jesus Christ. This we will show in a future article.
But with the religion of self a different spirit has been pursued. The great apostate religions of earth have all been connected with civil power. From the worship of the ancient sun god Baal to the most modern form of idolatry, human force, the lordship of self, the methods of coercion, compulsion, intolerance, and persecution have been shown. The spirit of persecution has been manifest in them all, from the decree of Nebuchadnezzar concerning the worship of the golden image to the last decree of persecution uttered by Russia. But more in our next.
"IS NOT THIS GREAT BABYLON THAT I HAVE BUILT?"
By Editor
THESE were the words of the proud emperor, Nebuchadnezzar, as he looked from his gorgeous palace over the city, which wealth and power had clothed in barbaric splendor. "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" Dan. 4:30.
But even "while the word was in the king's mouth," a voice from heaven said, "The kingdom is departed from thee," and Nebuchadnezzar was driven out among the beasts of the field.
To us there is a striking parallel to this in the last days of the World's Fair and the death of Mayor Harrison. We indulge in no vituperation of the dead mayor. He was doubtless like the majority of public men and politicians, and a good type of the character of the city over which he was mayor, and of this present selfish, over-boastful age. Sabbath day, October 28, he had welcomed the mayors of fifty other cities, and made a very brilliant speech. He said that he expected to live "more than half a century," and at that time London would be trembling for fear that Chicago would surpass her, while New York would say, "Let us go to the metropolis of America." In his closing remarks he said:—
"In the name of Chicago I welcome you all here to see this dying effort of Chicago—Chicago that never could conceive what it would not attempt, and yet has found nothing that it could not conceive."
Almost while the words were in his mouth—that very evening—he was shot. He died almost with the Great Babylon of the World's Fair. It is well for men now to remember that the "Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." But to remember this does not mean, as some of our National Reformers seem to think, for the government or governors to assume God's authority, or to rule as his agents in things religious. The spirit of the world is, as of yore, the spirit of boastful self-exaltation. And this is the spirit of "Christian" America and "Christian" Chicago, but it is not the Spirit of Christ.
FOR CHURCH AND STATE UNION.
By William N. Glenn
THE W. C. T. U. indorses the work of the National Reform Association, and vice versa. An official of the National Reform Association, as far back as 1888, thus emphatically expressed the unity of these organizations:—
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition party have become so entirely National Reform organizations that the regular National Reform organizers have ceased to organize local National Reform clubs as such, but work through these to spread the National Reform ideas.
That both these organizations are aiming for Church and State union, a brief fundamental utterance from each will conclusively show. One object of the National Reform Association, as stated in its constitution, is:—
To secure such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States as will declare the nation's allegiance to Jesus Christ, and its acceptance of the moral laws of the Christian religion, and so indicate that this is a Christian nation, and place all the Christian laws, institutions, and usages of our government on an undeniable legal basis in the fundamental law of the land.
The W. C. T. U. position is thus stated in the utterance of its president in a national convention, which utterance has passed into a party slogan, and is warmly commended by the organ of the National Reformers:—
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union, local, State, national, and world wide, has one vital, organic thought, one all-absorbing purpose, one undying enthusiasm, and that is that Christ shall be this world's king. Yea, verily, this world's king, in its realm of cause and effect; king of its courts, its camps, its commerce; king of its colleges and cloister; king of its customs and its constitutions.
If these sentiments do not demonstrate a settled purpose to have the State use its machinery for the furtherance of church interests, and to give the church an advantage in the conduct of the State, what do they show? If the consummation of the design expressed in the foregoing quotations would not effect a union of Church and State, what could bring about such a union? It would be well for the people to look to the culminating object of such organizations before giving aid and comfort to them.
W. N. G.
NATIONAL REFORM CONSISTENCY.
By W. N. G.
THE Christian Statesman of the 28th ult. notes the fact that its proposition to celebrate the 1900th birthday of Christ with a "round the world series of Christian conventions," has been indorsed by the W. C. T. U. It is proposed that the celebration "begin with a two weeks' series of congresses on Christian reforms," in which "liberals, Catholics, and evangelicals could unite without embarrassment." In the adjoining column are these comments on the Papacy: "The most powerful organized enemy civil liberty has ever contended against is the Papacy. . . . The Papacy has not changed. She cannot change. The fundamental doctrines of her system forbid it. She is so constructed that she must insist on absolute supremacy over men and nations. . . . We do not fear that the Papacy will ever overthrow our institutions, but it may give us an immense amount of trouble if permitted to get a stronger hold upon our affairs."
What an institution this picture presents for professed Christians and professed lovers of civil liberty to unite with "without embarrassment"! And this is the so-called National Reform, as expounded by its own organ. When such Reformers shall have united with the Papacy "without embarrassment," we may indeed look for "an immense amount of trouble." W. N. G.