The American Sentinel 14
November 9, 1899
“Front Page” American Sentinel 14, 44, p. 689.
IN a very small and seemingly innocent act, one may indorse a very large and very evil principle. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.1
WHEN the secular power puts forth its hand to mold and regulate that which is religious, must not the latter necessarily become more secularized than it was before? AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.2
THERE is “manifest destiny” enough for the American Republic in Asia, amidst its gathering whirlwind of political and martial strife, if that is the kind of destiny the Republic wants. And since an evil destiny is so manifest for the Republic in such a place, it is strange that intelligent Americans should counsel such a step. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.3
LAWS are not designed to enforce rights upon the people, but only to protect people from molestation in enjoying their rights according to their own tastes and inclinations. Because every individual has a right to one day’s rest in seven, it does not follow that this right ought to be enforced upon anyone. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.4
NO HUMAN authority can rightfully undertake to say how any question which involves religious truth is settled, or whether it is settled or not. Every individual has an unalienable right to decide for myself what is the revealed will of God; and this right amounts to nothing if he cannot act in harmony with his belief. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.5
WE are told that men ought to rest one day in seven; and this is true enough. We are told that if one man rests while others do business, he will suffer financial loss; and we do not deny this. But there is something more than this involved in the question of Sabbath-keeping. There is always the additional fact that Sabbath-keeping is by command of God, and this question of what God has commanded is inseparable from the subject. It is of no use to settle the other questions while this one is left unsettled; and this one can be settled for each person only by his own conscience and the Word of God. And therefore, as no human authority can settle this question, and is all other questions in Sabbath-keeping hinge upon this one, it is clear that the whole matter of Sabbath-keeping is beyond the province of human authority, and must be left for each person to settle for himself. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.6
“Two Laws and Their Operation” American Sentinel 14, 44, pp. 689, 690.
THE apostle Paul, speaking as a Christian and for every Christian, to the Romans, said: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.1
Paul was a transgressor—a law-breaker; insomuch that he spoke of himself as the “chief of sinners.” This is what he was when this divine law took hold of him—the law of God against whom he had transgressed. And that law set him free. This is not the way human law deals with the transgressor. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.2
Human law, when it takes hold of the transgressor, shuts him up. It takes away his freedom. It restrains him, curtails his power. It puts a veto upon him. It is simply an acting negative, and is not meant to be anything more. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.3
But far otherwise with the law of God, under the provisions of the gospel. In Jesus Christ, the law of God is altogether a positive force, operating upon the transgressor not to curtail his power, not to put him under bonds or behind bars, but in the opposite direction. It is a law of liberty. AMS November 9, 1899, page 689.4
Human law contents against crime, and operates by shutting up the criminal; the divine law contents against sin, und [sic.] operates by liberating the sinner. AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.1
And under the present order of things, and so long as Jesus Christ remains the Saviour of sinners, the law of God is designed to operate only in this way. When finally that law takes effect upon the transgressor, merely as a law of condemnation, it will put him forever out of existence. AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.2
Is it not evident, then, that these two laws are altogether different in nature—different in their aims, in their operation, and in the spheres to which they belong? Is it not evident that these two systems will not blend into one, and that no human power can operate them both? AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.3
This being evident, as it must be, what only could be the outcome of an effort to incorporate the Bible into the civil law of the land, and so place “all Christian institutions, usages, and customs on an undeniable legal basis” in that law? This is what the National Reform party and its numerous and powerful allies are now aiming to do, and hope to do by their proposed “Christian Amendment” to the Constitution. Can anything else than a complete miscarriage of justice result from the attempt to blend two systems of law so essentially different in character? and must not the same result ensue from any act which embodies the principle of this unnatural and really impossible union? AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.4
This is why the SENTINEL stands opposed to every scheme which would make religion or a religious institution a subject of civil legislation. AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.5
“Let the Lord Decide It” American Sentinel 14, 44, p. 690.
IN the correspondence columns of The Defender, organ of the New England Sabbath Protective League, we note this from a friend of that journal:— AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.1
“My heart weeps in agony of spirit many, many times, and groans with anguish, it seems to me like is Jesus felt. The time is short and the work is great. O Lord! fight thou by thy mighty Spirit working in the hearts of the people. Make them to see, hear and understand the Word and then repent and obey, for thy name’s sake and thine own honor and glory.” AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.2
We are glad to find in The Defender that to which we can heartily say, Amen! as we do to this. Here is a word from someone who is genuinely and deeply distressed at the sight of the immorality and wickedness that is evident on all sides, which is a feeling that does him honor, no matter if some of it is caused by what he sees of the desecration of Sunday. He honestly believes Sunday to be a sacred day and its desecration a sin, and we have no fault to find with a man for being honest in anything. And he prays that God may counteract the abounding wickedness by his “mighty Spirit working in the hearts of the people.” This is the right kind of prayer, an addressed to the right place. Friends, address your prayers to God and not to the legislatures. God is not dead. He has vastly more power than have the legislatures, and is much more likely hear than they are; indeed, he is certain to hear every prayer made according to his will. And his will is plainly stated in his Word. AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.3
Why not let the Sunday issue be decided by an appeal to God, to whom the Sabbath day belongs? Let him settle it by working through his Spirit upon the people. The SENTINEL is in full sympathy with every prayer addressed to him to this effect. AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.4
“Sabbath Keeping and Moral Courage” American Sentinel 14, 44, p. 690.
“A DAY of rest and worship,” says the Ram’s Horn, “has always been conceded not as a privilege, but as a right, to be enjoyed by every individual. But the time has come when it takes moral courage to insist upon this right for one’s self, and to secure it for others.” AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.1
Yes; it does require moral courage to exercise the right to Sabbath rest these days; but it has always required moral courage to obey a command of the Lord, in the face of the opposition of the vast confederacy of evil that is against God. But God supplies every believer in his Word with moral courage—courage not only to keep the Sabbath, but to go to the stake, if need be. And this is why Sabbath keeping does not need to be made a matter of legislation. All anybody needs to enable him to secure his right to Sabbath observance—to his rest on the seventh day—is simple belief in the Word of the Lord; in other words, faith. No human law is needed in the matter, save such as will prevent his being molested in the enjoyment of his right. When Sabbath observance is made a subject of legislation, it is taken out of the domain of faith, of conscience and moral courage, where it belongs, and transferred to the domain of forced action, where it does not belong at all. AMS November 9, 1899, page 690.2
“Back Page” American Sentinel 14, 44, p. 704.
AMS BETWEEN Sunday work and Sunday idleness, is there any question as to which will be the more productive of crime? AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.1
THE man who cannot get to church because a Sunday newspaper is thrown in his direction, will certainly never get far in the direction of heaven until he becomes better fitted to overcome spiritual obstacles. But a Sunday law will not qualify him in this respect. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.2
WAMSHINGTON warned the nation against foreign entanglements; Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal and have the same unalienable rights; Abraham Lincoln said that no man was good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent, and that the doing of such a thing was despotism. It is not strange therefore that the advocates of foreign conquest, in their efforts to justify the same, never quote from these American authorities. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.3
THE command to keep the Sabbath is a command to sanctify one day of the week, and cannot therefore be kept by sanctifying two days of the week. Conscience tells an individual that he should sanctify—or set apart—a certain day of the week, by resting from his work, and the law, perchance, says that he must rest on a different day. Either, then, he must disregard the Sabbath command by sanctifying two days of the week, or he must disregard his conscience by sanctifying a day he believes to be the wrong one, or must disregard the law of the land. Which shall he do? AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.4
AMS the SENTINEL has much to say against reform ideas of certain religious or semi-religious societies, large and small, which have now become quite numerous in the land, we wish to say also that its columns are open to representatives of these organizations for the presentation of their side of the questions discuss, and we shall be pleased if any of them will avail themselves of this offer, in the interests of truth, stipulating only that they be able to state their views clearly and concisely, and within the limits of space which the SENTINEL can afford to give. And we will be governed by the same rules in replying. We challenge no one, but we wish to be fair with all whose ideas we condemn, and to show that we are contending now for our own advantage, but for the truth. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.5
WE are told that “a degradation of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath day.” One would get the idea from this that the profanation of the Sabbath is the cause of the degradation of morals, instead of being as it really is, an effect of that degradation. There must first be a degradation of morals before there can be an immoral act; and therefore the profanation of the Sabbath, which is an immoral act, is not the source of the evil; and to reach that source the reformer must go back of Sabbath desecration. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.6
THE effect of religious legislation upon the sinner is to force him either to give up his own religion, or to practice two religions at once. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.7
RELIGIOUS legislation and religious liberty may be likened to a lion and the lamb,—they cannot lie down together. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.8
THE law of God operates upon the heart through love; the law man operates through fear. AMS November 9, 1899, page 704.9