The American Sentinel 13
January 20, 1898
“Editorial” American Sentinel 13, 3, p. 33.
NO individual can be compelled to walk in the pathway of righteousness. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.1
GOD cannot accept any service that is sought to be rendered to him through Cesar. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.2
THE preservation of individual rights is necessary to the formation of right character. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.3
HUMAN law fights crime by shutting up the criminal; the divine law fights sin by liberating the sinner. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.4
THERE is good conduct by law in the penitentiary; but this does not make a model community out of the inmates. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.5
A SUNDAY law never developed anybody’s moral courage, manliness, independence, honesty, or love of principle. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.6
“THE kingdom of Satan failed because it was founded upon the love of power. The kingdom of Christ succeeded because it was founded upon the power of love.” AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.7
THE effort to enforce Sunday upon the people by law is an effort to make one man’s liberty judged by another man’s conscience, which is directly contrary to Christianity. 1 Corinthians 10:29. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.8
IS it true that the church’s power and her opportunities to do her appointed work are provided her by the Lord? or are they contingent upon the popular ballot and the action of legislatures? AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.9
THE difference between a Christian and a “Christian nation” is that a Christian is phenomenally slow to take offense at an injury or insult, while a “Christian nation” is phenomenally quick to do just the opposite. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.10
THE theory that men can be compelled to be good by law, is the old pagan and carnal theory that a person must do good in order to be good. The truth, as embodied in the gospel, is that a person must be good in order to do good. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.11
“For Conscience’ Sake” American Sentinel 13, 3, pp. 33, 34.
THE Christian is in all things governed by the dictates of conscience. For conscience’ sake he is careful to render to Cesar that which is Cesar’s, as well as to give unto God that which is God’s. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.1
This is in accordance with the plain instructions of that Word which is the Christian’s rule of life. “Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men,” is the exhortation given in the epistle to the Colossians (chap. 3:23), and the apostle Paul makes a still more definite application of the principle in the thirteenth chapter of Romans. There the Christian is enjoined to be “subject unto the higher powers,” and it is said (v. 5), “Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.2
Only conscientiously, therefore, can the Christian be subject to the “powers that be,” in a scriptural way. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.3
When a law is made, therefore, which conflicts with conscience, it strikes at the very mainspring of the Christian’s action as regards his duty toward the state. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.4
If he yields his conscience in deference to the demands of the law, he cannot, “for conscience’ sake,” be subject unto the civil authority. AMS January 20, 1898, page 33.5
When the state wants a Sunday law, the Christian, believing it to be his duty to sanctify the seventh day and not the first, according to the fourth commandment, cannot, “for conscience’ sake,” render obedience to the state in it. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.1
For the very sake of the duty he owes to the state, which is to be conscientiously rendered, he must refuse to yield his conscience to the state. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.2
The Christian who parts with conscience can serve neither God nor the state. And no law can ever be in the interests of the state which brings any pressure to bear upon Christians in this direction. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.3
“Which Is the Better?” American Sentinel 13, 3, p. 34.
THE gospel of God aims to lead an individual to the highest plane of heroism,—so to develop personal independence, courage, and love of truth and justice that he would dare do right though all the world should do wrong, and though he should suffer death for doing it. It aims to make of him a Moses, an Elijah, a Daniel, a Paul, a Luther. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.1
The Sunday law (and all religious legislation) tends to make an individual move with the masses, to lean upon the crowd, to think that he cannot do right independently of others around him, or without a law to make it convenient and easy for him. It tends to make him go as all moral cowards go, to do as they do, and think as they think. It tends to make him more a moral coward than he is already. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.2
No individual ever rose to distinction in this world who followed such a plan of action. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.3
The one tends to elevate the individual to the highest plane of moral development, the other tends to sink him to the lowest level of moral cowardice. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.4
Which is the better of these two systems? Which of these two classes of individuals does the nation want? AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.5
“‘Sunday Slavery’” American Sentinel 13, 3, p. 34.
THE Constitution of the United States declares that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.1
This being so, the millions who are in the bondage of “Sunday slavery,” about which so much is now said by the advocates of Sunday laws, have a plain remedy for their situation in an appeal to the fundamental law of the land. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.2
Why, then, is not the Constitution invoked by somebody for this purpose? For that it never has been appealed to as a remedy for “Sunday slavery” is an evident fact, although the agitators for Sunday laws are not in ignorance of its provisions. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.3
The plain reason is that these agitators know very well that the Sunday work about which they are talking is not slavery at all. They know that there is not a court in the land that would for a moment sustain the idea that the anti-slavery provision of the Constitution had any application to such labor. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.4
This “slavery” is a myth. There is a great deal of moral slavery in the land, but only the gospel of God can deliver any person from that. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.5
“Hypocritical Laws and their Enforcement” American Sentinel 13, 3, p. 34.
THE New York World, of the 12th inst., alludes to the operation of the excise and Sunday laws under the new Tammany administration, and says that “President York, of the Police Board, expressed the true idea in saying that the excise and Sunday laws should be ‘broadly construed and liberally enforced.’” AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.1
We want no laws that have to be construed and enforced in this way. We want laws that are plain in their meaning, that mean what they say, and that will be enforced in exact accordance with their working. Anything less than this can be only hypocrisy and fraud. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.2
“It Is a Union of Church and State” American Sentinel 13, 3, pp. 34, 35.
THE Christian Citizen complains of “unfriendly critics” who “misrepresent” the Christian Citizenship League, “by assuming that Christian citizenship means a union of church and state.” Then the Citizen sets up the following defense against that charge:— AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.1
“Now it ought to be so clear as not to require repetition that a separation of church and state does not separate the individual Christian from the state. Under the old absolute monarchies there was a difference between duties to the state and to God. Then the Christian only had to see that he ‘render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’ But in a republic like ours the individual is himself a part of the state, and becoming a Christian and a member of the church, which is separate from the state, does not make him any less a part of the state.” AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.2
Now, whether we shall be counted an unfriendly critic or not (we think we are friendly), this defense needs to be analyzed. From what we know is in it, it is possible that there may be something there that the Christian Citizen has not seen. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.3
First. “A separation of church and state does not separate the individual Christian from the state.” And “the individual is himself a part of the State, and becoming a Christian and a member of the church, which is separate from the state, does not make him any less a part of the state.” AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.4
The individual is originally a part of the state. He is originally not a Christian, and therefore has no connection, nor any part, with the church, because the church is separate from the state. Originally, then, the individual is wholly of the state alone. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.5
But now he chooses to be a Christian. He wants to unite with the church. In other words, he desires to form a union of himself and the church. He “is a part of the state;” and the church “is separate from the state.” Now the problem is, How can he remain “a part of the state” and form a union of himself and the church without at the same time and in that very act, so far as it is possible for him to do, forming a union of the church and the state? AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.6
The Christian Citizen says he can do it, but does not tell how. We say that he cannot do it, and tell how. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.7
The church is composed of individuals, and the state is composed of individuals. The church is composed of individual Christians: the state is composed of individual citizens. The individual citizen is first: he is born to that; he is a “part of the state”—there is a union of himself and the state. He chooses to form a union of himself and the church. He does so. The Christian Citizen says that when he does so, he is “not any less a part of the state;” and at the same time insist that the church is separate from the state. But in that individual citizen it is not separate from the state. In him the individual citizen and the individual Christian are the same identical person. And as he is still a part of the state, and has now become also a part of the church—it follows as certainly as that two and two make four, that in that individual there is a union of church and state. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.8
“The church is separate from the state.” The individual citizen is “a part of the state.” He forms a union of himself and the church, still remaining “a part of the state.” Then it is absolutely settled that in himself there is formed a union of church and state. It is therefore as impossible for an individual citizen to form a union of himself and the church and still remain a part of the state, without at the same time and in that very thing forming within himself a union of church and state, as it is for two bodies to occupy the same identical space at the same identical time, or for the same individual to be two distinct persons. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.9
The great difficulty with this whole National Reform Christian Citizenship people is that they set up outside of and away from individual men a figment that they call the church and another figment that they call the state. Then, as they conceive that these two figments can never be united in what they are doing, so they isist that they as individual men can go on and do all that they choose without forming any union of church and state. But it is in the individual man where the union of church and state is always first formed. No union of church and state was ever formed, or ever occurred, outside of individual men, until a union of church and state was first formed inside of individual men. And the union of church and state was never formed inside of individual men, in any other way than that which is set forth in this defense of the Christian Citizen. This defense itself is essentially the advocacy of a union of church and state. AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.10
Second. “Under the old absolute [obsolete?] monarchies there was difference between duties to the state and to God. Then the Christian only had to see that he ‘render to Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.’” AMS January 20, 1898, page 34.11
Now it was the Lord Jesus who first put this “difference between duties to the state and to God,” as announced in the words “Render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” And this difference was made by the Lord Jesus Christ for Christians, for church members, for those who believe in him, as certainly as for anybody else in the world, if not more so. This commandment—“Render unto Cesar,” etc.—was given for Christians, as well as for others, and for all time. It is a vital principle of the Word of God and of the religion of the Lord Jesus, and cannot be relegated to the old absolute (or obsolete) monarchies to pass away with them. AMS January 20, 1898, page 36.1
To say that this scripture relates only to the old absolute (or obsolete) monarchies, is only to say that the authority of God and the Lord Jesus Christ is that of an old absolute (or obsolete) monarchy. AMS January 20, 1898, page 36.2
The Christian Citizen allows that where this scripture applied, “under the old absolute [or obsolete] monarchies, there was a difference between duties to the state and to God.” And the only way in which the Citizen can save itself from that difference now is to fasten this scripture to “old absolute monarchies” and repudiate them both together. But any scheme that is compelled to repudiate the words of the Lord Jesus to save itself, is dangerous on the face of it. And any “Christians” or Christian citizens who are ready to repudiate the words of Jesus Christ to save their scheme, are not to be trusted in any pretensions that they may make in their efforts to make that scheme successful. AMS January 20, 1898, page 36.3