The American Sentinel 12
July 15, 1897
“Editorial” American Sentinel 12, 28, p. 433.
IN this day a person can believe almost anything except the Bible without being counted a heretic. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.1
ABOUT the gloomiest outlook in the world is that for the ushering in of the kingdom of Christ through the gateway of politics. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.2
A VERY poor way of making a man a good citizen is to teach him that he must educate his conscience by the laws of the State. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.3
THE lowest conception of the character and dignity of the law of God, is that which teaches that its effectiveness depends upon its being reinforced by State enactments. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.4
HE who insists that it is a Christian duty to vote, is not consistent if he fails to designate the party for which Christianity demands the vote should be cast. Is that party the Republican, or the Democratic party, or some other? AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.5
THE Christian patriot must be he who loves the Christian’s country. But that country is a heavenly country. Hebrews 11:14-16. The individual who says “my country” of any land on this earth, either does not mean what he says, or proclaims that he is not a Christian at all. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.6
LIBERTY, like every other valuable possession, is lost by not being put into use. “From him that hath not [or does not use what he has] shall be taken away even that which he hath.” This is a law of nature. He who does not prize a thing sufficiently to use it for its intended purpose, does not deserve to have it. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.7
“THE Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver; the Lord is our King; he will save us.” Isaiah 33:22. The Christian’s life is ordered by laws which are righteous and eternal, and judgments which are infallible and irrevocable. The government of heaven is as superior to the governments of earth as God is superior to man. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.8
“What Only Can Be the End?” American Sentinel 12, 28, pp. 433-435.
THE forces which worked in Greece and Rome wrought steadily and only to ruin as their end. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.1
Those same forces are steadily at work to-day among the nations, and to no other end than they wrought before. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.2
The forces that wrought in Greece and Rome are the chief forces at work in the great nations to-day: they are deliberately chosen to be the chief and all-guiding forces for to-day. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.3
All through Europe, and all over the United States, to-day, the leading and all controlling forces in education are Greek and Roman. And by compulsory-education laws it is sought to oblige all to surrender to these forces. But as originally these forces only ruined Greece and Rome, to compel people to surrender to these forces is only to compel them to the way of ruin. AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.4
Nor is it only the States schools that are so led; but private, denominational, and independent schools, academies, colleges, and universities, are all conducted after the same lead; so that Greek and Roman conceptions and ideals practically dominate the whole educational world of Europe and America to-day. Greek and Roman literature, ethics, philosophy, art, and mythology, are the supreme models, they are indeed the goal of all intel- [sic.] forces which have worked in Greece and Rome, are at work in our century; why should he say that to what end these forces are now working “we may not know”? AMS July 15, 1897, page 433.5
Why may we not know? Do we not know to what end these forces worked in Greece and Rome? There is no room for any possible question, that irretrievable and awful ruin was the only end to which these forces worked in Greece and Rome. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.1
That being beyond all question, and it being also perfectly true that the same forces are now at work in society and nations, how then can there be any possible question that to this same end and no other, these same forces are now working? AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.2
Human nature is the same now that it was in the former days: the same in Europe and America to-day that it was in Greece and Rome in ancient days. Human nature being the same, and the forces working being the same, the end can be nothing else than the same that it was before. The material being the same upon which the same forces act, only at different dates, the like causes must inevitably produce like results. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.3
In view of the plain and well-known facts of the history that records the ruin of Greece and Rome as the clear result of the same forces that are at work in the nations to-day, surely it is a willful shutting of the eyes to palpable truth to say that we may not know to what end those forces are working to-day. It will not pay to shut the eyes, even to unwelcome truth, for the dubious honor of being reckoned “an optimist.” No, no; let all open wide the eyes to the truth as it may be, and prepare to meet that which it portends, rather than for a moment to gloze it, and thus we and our fellow-men be unprepared for calamities which, though unwelcome, the truth shows must inevitably come. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.4
However, while professor thinks that we may not know to what end these forces are working, he says that “God knows.” Very good. But shall it be said that God knows that which involves all the interests of whole nations of people, and yet will not let any of those people know?! Shall it be said, and even though said shall it be believed, that “God hath forsaken the earth”? Has he abandoned the nations to blind fate? No: with absolute certainty every person may say, No. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.5
This is certain by the indisputable fact that when these forces were working in Greece and Rome, God, knowing, did tell to all the people precisely to what end those forces were working. He did this then. And with him “there is no variableness neither shadow of turning“: he is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” Therefore, being ever the same, and have told Greece and Rome to what end the forces in them were working, it is certain that he has told and will continue to tell the nations to-day what the end is to which these same forces are now working. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.6
In ancient time God did by the scriptures of his prophets distinctly, and more than once, name the nation and kingdom of Greece. By the prophet Daniel, “in the third year of Cyrus,” the Lord told how that the fourth king of Persia from Cyrus should stir up all his dominion “against the realm of Grecia.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.7
He then also told how that the power of Grecia through her “first king” should overthrow and break in pieces the kingdom of Persia. And then how the dominion of Grecia would be “divided toward the four winds of heaven.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.8
He told also that in the latter times of these divisions “when the transgressors are come to the full,” another nation “of fierce countenance and understanding dark sentences should stand up,” and “break in pieces all kingdoms;” and how that it itself, in turn, should be broken in pieces. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.9
Such was the end to which worked the forces that were in Greece and Rome. God knew it, and told it to Greece and Rome. Such also is the end to which these same forces are now working; and God knows it, and also in the scriptures of the prophets tells it to the nations to-day. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.10
Thus doubly it will not do to say “We may not know” what is the end to which these forces are working in our century. It will not do, because the lesson of the history is plain enough to cause any one to know; and it will not do, because the Lord has told it as certainly to the people to-day as he did to those anciently. To hold that “we may now know,” is only to shut the eyes both to the plain lessons of the history and the plain instruction of the revelation of God given for the express purpose that we may certainly know. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.11
It is very likely that the most eminent scholars of Greece in the days of Alexander, observed that “The same forces which have worked in Babylon and Persia are at work also in our day, but to what end we may not know—God knows.” Yet they might have known, not only by the plain lessons of the history, but from the revelation of God. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.12
It is likely also that the most eminent scholars of Rome in the days of Theodosius and the Valentinians, observed that “The same forces which have worked in Persia and Greece are at work also in our century; to what end we may not know—God knows.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.13
Yet they ought to have known full well—both from all the history itself, and from the clear statements of the revelation of God. To say that they might now know, was but to shut their eyes to both sources of all-sufficient knowledge on the subject. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.14
Truly all through the history of Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, God did know to what end those forces were working, and he told all those nations just what that end was: and it was ruin only. He had this information written out for their instruction. But when, against this specific instruction, and ignoring the palpable lessons of the history, clear to every observer, the people of those times insisted that we may not know, and the ruin came upon them unawares and found them unprepared, that was their fault—their supreme, unmitigated fault. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.15
It is true that the same forces which worked in Greece and Rome are at work in our century. And to what end we may know, both because of the clear lessons of the history, and because God knows. These forces are working to the same end now that they worked before. God knew it before and told those nations. God knows it now, and has told, and will continue to tell, these nations. That end is ruin. If eminent scholars and other people will insist that we may not know, that is certainly their fault; for the information is abundant, both out of the Bible and in the Bible. AMS July 15, 1897, page 434.16
We sincerely admire and honor eminent scholarship. But we must be allowed to remark that it is not the most eminent mark of the most eminent scholarship to ignore or evade the plainest lessons in both history and Revelation, on a subject which most eminently and imminently concerns all the greatest nations of the century. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.1
The same forces which have worked in Greece and Rome are at work in our century, and to what end we may certainly know. We may know it both because the lessons of the history are so plain that none need to mistake; and because God knows, and he has told. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.2
“Note” American Sentinel 12, 28, p. 435.
THE trouble with a great many churches, spiritually, was unwittingly stated the other day in a funeral discourse, when the minister said: “Fourteen years ago to-day, this corpse joined this church.” When accessions of that nature have been going on for some time, it is but natural that the church should seek to be galvanized into a semblance of life by the power of the State. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.1
“What the Lord Wants” American Sentinel 12, 28, p. 435.
“I WANT to give my appetite to the Lord,” said a victim of intemperance recently, who had come forward for prayers at the close of the service in one of the missions of New York City. He thought that if the Lord would take his appetite for strong drink, and give him a simple, unperverted appetite, it would be just what he needed. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.1
“Why, my dear man,” came the reply from one better instructed in divine truth, “the Lord doesn’t want your appetite; he wants you.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.2
This reply states a vital truth of the Christian religion. The Lord wants the individual himself; and when an individual gives himself to God, the Lord takes along with the individual everything bad there is about him; not because the Lord wants these things in themselves or has any possible use for them, but because He must take them in order to make the individual what He wants him to be. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.3
The same truth bears with equal emphasis upon the question of giving the Government over to the Lord. The Government is very bad, say a large class of the church people to-day; it is godless, corrupt, perverted from the principles of right, and we must turn it over to the Lord, and have Him make it what it ought to be. When we have a government of God here, everything will be all right. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.4
Subtle delusion! The Lord doesn’t want the Government. He wants the individuals who are carrying on the Government. By the provisions of his grace he is reaching after each one of these to-day; and if they would but give themselves to him, the problem of government would disappear. All God wants is a chance to make each individual as good as it is in his divine power to make him. Then the problem of good government will take care of itself. Under such conditions there could not possibly be anything but good government. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.5
First, last, and always, the Lord wants the individual; and the idea that the Lord is going to save men by reforming the Government is a subtle scheme of the arch-enemy designed to cheat men out of the salvation of their souls. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.6
“Politics and Prosperity” American Sentinel 12, 28, pp. 435, 436.
THE non-appearance of that prosperity which was promised by the political party now in power is emphasized just now by the strike of some hundreds of thousands of miners in the middle States. Together they constitute a host which far outnumbers the combined United States army and States’ militia; and should they become turbulent, very serious consequences would certainly ensue. It is hoped that the controversy may be settled by arbitration, the miners themselves being so confident of the justice of their cause that they have already expressed their approval of this method of settlement. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.1
At this rate of prosperity, the question bids fair to arise whether the United States does not need a large standing army like those of Europe; not to ward off an invasion from without or to conquer some neighboring country, but to keep the peace within her own borders. While it is no doubt true, as has been often asserted, that the vast majority of the American people are lovers of peace and order, it must be admitted that a point is reached under the pressure of destitution where even the most peacefully inclined men will resort to violent measures for the relief of their suffering families. That the destitution of the striking miners is appalling, is admitted by all observers; and it is certainly no less true that the miners represent but a small part of the number whom the prevailing industrial conditions are driving to the point of desperation. Let the forces of discontent and despair be once called into action under one leadership and with a common purpose in view, and nothing short of the repressive power of a great standing army would suffice to prevent the horrors of revolution. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.2
The doctrine that national prosperity depends upon the kind of politics by which the country is dominated, is a fallacy. The causes of prosperity and of “hard times” lie deeper down than the agitated surface of politics. Not the organizations, but the people themselves, as such, are the arbiters of national prosperity. As it lies with each individual to determine, by the exercise of individual virtues, the degree of his own prosperity in this life, so it lies with the people as a whole to determine their prosperity as a united body. But that which greatly darkens the outlook for prosperity is the fact that individualism as a guiding principle of life is fast losing its hold upon the minds of the people. They are being taught to depend not upon their own individual virtues, but upon the power of organizations, in which their own individuality must be submerged and lost. This can never bring permanent prosperity, for it is contrary to nature and to the institutions and purposes of the Creator. AMS July 15, 1897, page 435.3
In the present condition of things, such a regimé seems an absolute necessity, it is true. And it seems such from the popular point of view. What can one individual do against a thousand? But it is the purpose of God in the gospel to answer just this question, and to show to people that the individuality He has given to each need not be sacrificed to opposing numbers. He will join the individual to Himself, so that, in this alliance, it is impossible he should ever be outnumbered. “One shall chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 436.1
While the people are seeking to vote prosperity into existence by turning “the rascals” who “have not fulfilled their pledges” out of office, let it be remembered that the service of God—the exercise of those virtues which are conserved by the power of God in the individual life, through faith in Jesus Christ—assures to each person the enjoyment of a prosperity sufficient for every temporal need, and a certainty of success with respect to that which is the true purpose of existence amid the vicissitudes and inequalities of this life. AMS July 15, 1897, page 436.2
“The Protestant Pilgrimage to Rome” American Sentinel 12, 28, pp. 438, 439.
THE Protestant world is on a pilgrimage to Rome,—not a pilgrimage by railway and steamship, but one no less real; though with this difference from the ordinary pilgrimage, that it contemplates no return voyage to the place whence it started. It is a spiritual pilgrimage; and the waymarks of the journey are to be noted in the changed aspects in which the travelers view the Word of the Lord. Upon this point we give three quotations from Francis de Pressensé, a well-known member of the Protestant society of France, and a writer for several Paris journals:— AMS July 15, 1897, page 438.1
“In old times a Protestant would take his Bible, and, reading it, or simply turning over its leaves, every word shone before his eyes as a divine Word. To-day, when he opens the sacred Book, he must begin by asking himself: “This part, is it really authentical? Is that Word so? Was it said by our Lord himself, or is it merely the conception of John that I read? Is it from an eye-witness, or is it not more likely a statement to be looked on as a compromise opinion between Hebrews and Christians of that remote period?” AMS July 15, 1897, page 438.2
Of the work of modern theology of which this “higher criticism” forms a part, M. de Pressensé says:— AMS July 15, 1897, page 438.3
“Modern Theology gives us a Bible of which the disintegrated parts would require, indeed, to be printed in various colors—according to the various times and different writers—and a Bible that savants alone, after innumerable efforts, will be able to read with discernment.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 438.4
“Modern theology gives a Christ impalpable, intangible, something like a crepuscular phantom, with neither divinity nor humanity, without historical reality in the past, without heavenly divinity in the present.” AMS July 15, 1897, page 438.5
And all this is only a repetition, with some variation in form, of what was done in the first centuries by the so-called Christian church, and which led to the establishment of the papacy. In other words, it is but traveling over again the road by which the early Christian church went from Zion to Rome, where she became established upon the throne of the Cesars. Then, as now, the first step was taken in an attack upon the Word of God,—not openly, but by the setting up of a system of mystical interpretations, by which the Word was robbed of its meaning, and consequently of its life giving power. This opened the way for the doctrine that the common people could not understand the Word anyway, but must depend upon the pronouncements of the church prelates, and finally of the bishop of Rome,—the pope. In this day “higher criticism” is doing the same thing, and modern theology is leading the seeker after truth to look upon the Word as a barren field for his own personal exploration, and to depend more and more upon the opinions and traditions of men. AMS July 15, 1897, page 439.1
“Notes” American Sentinel 12, 28, p. 439.
“STAND fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” is the admonition that comes to us from the Apostle Paul. Christ hath made us all free, but there are very many who do not know that they have been set at liberty, and refuse to accept their freedom. They are letting slip the greatest blessing it is possible for them to realize. Is it so with you? AMS July 15, 1897, page 439.1