The American Sentinel 7
August 4, 1892
“Editorial” The American Sentinel 7, 30, pp. 233, 234.
THE AMERICAN SENTINEL is in the seventh year of its publication. From the first number that was ever issued, it has been telling the people that in the national Government, though forbidden by the Constitution, there would be established a national religion; and that there would be national Sunday legislation at the demand of the churches. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.1
ALL of this is now done by the United States Supreme Court decision of February 29, 1892, and by Congress, in the act closing the World’s Fair on Sunday. In these two governmental actions there lies wrapped up, and only waiting for swift development, all that THE SENTINEL has been telling about, and warning against, these seven years. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.2
WE knew it was coming. We knew it would be done. And this is why we so continuously and so earnestly protested, and warned the people, against it. We knew not exactly how this thing would be done; we only knew that it would be done; but we knew enough about the evil thing, to be able to recognize it when it should be done, by whatever way it might be done. We have protested against the doing of this great evil; and now we protest against the thing since it is done. We protest against the evil principle itself, and we protest and shall continue to protest against any and all the consequences of the principle. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.3
WE had the right to protest against the establishment of a national religion; and we have the right to protest this national religion now that it is established. We had the right to disagree with the ecclesiastical combination which was bending every effort to secure the establishment of a national religion; and now that they have secured exactly what they have been demanding, we still have the same right to disagree with them. We had the right to dissent from the propositions, the doctrines, and the dogmas of this ecclesiastical combination, before the United States Government took their side of the controversy and championed their cause; and we have the same right still. In other words, we have the divine and everlasting right to dissent from any and every religious organization on earth; and when the Government joins a religious organization, then we have the same right still, and the right extends now to that of refusal of obedience to the Government itself, in so far as it is joined to the religious organization. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.4
THE one great object of the grand movement to secure governmental recognition of religion was to secure legislation by which Sunday observance could be enforced throughout the Nation, backed up by national power and influence. We protested against their movement, and disputed their right, to use the governmental power for any such purpose. Now that they have secured it, we still dispute their right to use it. We had the right to dissent from their claim of right to use the Government for any such purpose; and we have still the right to dissent from their use of the governmental power for this purpose. We had the right to refuse to keep Sunday when it was required by the churches without the aid of the Government; and we have the same right to refuse to keep it when it is required by the churches with the aid of the Government. In other words, governmental aid of churches in enforcing their dogmas and ordinances can not take away any man’s right of dissent from those dogmas and ordinances. The Government does wrong in aiding the churches; and men do right in dissenting from both churches and Government in the things wherein they are allied. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.5
IT was lack of power to convince the people that they ought to keep Sunday as the Sabbath, that caused the churches to demand the governmental power to aid in compelling the people to do this. Lacking the power to persuade the people, the churches resorted to power to compel the people to observe the ordinance of the Church. The religious controversy, as to whether Sunday is a sacred day or not, has been going on in the United States longer than has the movement to secure the recognition or declaration of the national Government that it is. Those who demand that Sunday shall be observed have admitted over and over again that there is no divine command for it. And the effort of these churches to secure the alliance and aid of the Government was only an effort to get the national Government to take their side of this controversy. They now have the Government committed to this. In the effort to gain this they have been boastful, and arrogant, and insolent, enough, in all conscience, as has been abundantly shown by their own words all these years. If any one is inclined to think they will be any less so, now that they have their wish, then the writer only wishes that that one could have sat where he did, in the gallery of the House, when the final vote was taken by which Congress committed the Government to their side of the controversy, and could have seen and heard their exultation. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.6
IN this act of closing the World’s Fair on Sunday, Congress has distinctly taken sides in a religious controversy. Congress in this, and the Supreme Court in its decision, have committed the Government of the United States to the decision of a religious controversy. Neither the act of Congress nor the decision of the Supreme Court, will convince the Jew or the Christian who observes the seventh day, that Sunday should be observed. No more will the National Reformers be able to convince these with the aid of the power which these acts give, to inflict pains and penalties upon dissenters. We disagreed with the National Reformers before; we disagree with them now. We denied before that Sunday should be observed; we deny now that it should be observed. We refused before to keep Sunday; we refuse now to keep Sunday. We rejected before, the National Reform claim of right to use the governmental power to compel anybody to keep Sunday; and although they have secured the use of the power, we reject now their right to use it. AMS August 4, 1892, page 233.7
ALL these years we have denied the right of Congress to legislate in behalf of Sunday or any other religious rite or institution. We denied this wholly upon principle. We protested against Sunday legislation because it is religious legislation. We would have protested equally if it had been proposed to legislate in behalf of any other religious day. We can appeal to the life of THE SENTINEL as clear evidence that this has always been the one prominent feature and reason of our protest against Sunday legislation. And as long as the question had maintained this standing only, so long would this have still been the prominent feature of our protest. Now, however, the question has changed; and the prominent feature of our protest changes accordingly. Congress has now legislated upon the subject. congress has now decided and has committed the Government to the decision that Sunday is the Sabbath and shall be observed. And now we protest against it, not only because it is religious legislation, but above all, because it is not true. In this act Congress has committed itself and the Government to a falsehood. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.1
SUNDAY is not the Sabbath. Sunday is not the Lord’s day. Sunday is not in any sense a sacred day. As before stated, the chiefest advocates of this Sunday legislation admit in writing that there is no divine command for the observance of Sunday in any way. they know that the only authority for it is the authority of the church. And if they do not know, they, and everybody else who will look into the question, may learn that “the church” which is authority for Sunday sacredness is the Catholic Church, and that alone. And they may likewise know that professed Protestants who keep Sunday, are following the authority of the Catholic Church, and that alone, for there is no other authority for Sunday observance whether by church rulers or governmental statute. And Congress in requiring the observance of Sunday, is requiring of the Catholic Church, for there is no other authority for Sunday observance. It was therefore perfectly fitting that in the chief speech that was made in favor of the Sunday bill in the Senate (the speech of Senator Hawley of Connecticut), the chief place in the speech should be given to the views of Catholic archbishop upon the subject. But the authority of the Catholic Church is no authority at all; it is only usurpation and fraud, and its Sunday sacredness is a falsehood. Therefore it is that the Congress of the United States, in legislating in behalf of Sunday observance, has committed itself, and the Government of the United States, to a falsehood. And not only to a falsehood, but to a Papal falsehood. And we refuse to recognize it or yield any respect to it as either true or right. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.2
THE Seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, and Sunday is not the Sabbath. The seventh day is the Lord’s day, and Sunday is not. The seventh day is the sacred day and the only sacred day, and Sunday is not at all a sacred day. For thus saith the Lord:— AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.3
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.4
“And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” Genesis 2:3. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.5
This is the position and the protest of THE AMERICAN SENTINEL now and always. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.6
A. T. J.
“Some Scraps of New England History” 1 The American Sentinel 7, 30, pp. 234, 235.
THE act of 1631 making membership in the church a test of citizenship had involved the Massachusetts theocrats in another dilemma. There was a considerable number of people who were not members of the churches, and because of unfitness could not be admitted. Even more than this, they did not want to to be admitted. But as membership in the church was necessary to citizenship, and as they wanted to be, and deemed it their right to be, citizens, they took to organizing churches of their own. But the theocrats were not willing that power should slip through their fingers in any such way as this; they found not only a way to escape from the dilemma, but with that to make their power more absolute. In 1635 the following law was enacted:— AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.1
Forasmuch as it hath bene found by sad experience, that much trouble and disturbance hath happened both to the Church and civil State by the officers & members of some churches, wch which have bene gathered.... in an vndue manner, .... it is ... ordered that ... this court doeth not, nor will hereafter approue of any such companies of men as shall henceforth ioyne in any pretended way of church fellowshipp, without they shall first acquainte the magistrates, & the elders of the greatr of the churches in this jurisdicon, with their intencons, and have their approbacon herein. And ffurther, it is ordered, that noe peson, being a member of any churche which shall hereafter be gathered without the approbacon of the magistrates, & the greater pte of the said churches, shall be admitted to the freedom of this comonwealthe. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.2
Mrs. Hutchinson was condemned, but happily escaped with her life. A few days after her condemnation, the governor sent her a warrant banishing her from the territory of Massachusetts. At the solicitation of Roger Williams, she and her friends went to Narragansett Bay. Miantonomoh made them a present of the island of Rhode Island, where they settled. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.3
In 1636 about a hundred people, under the leadership of Thomas Hooker, a minister second only to Cotton in the estimate of the colonists, removed from Massachusetts Colony to the valley of the Connecticut, and established there the towns of Springfield, Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield; and January 14, 1639, Springfield preferring to remain in the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, the three remaining towns established a form of government under eleven “fundamental orders,” the preamble of which is as follows:— AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.4
Forasmuch as it hath pleased the Almighty God by the wise disposition of his divine providence so to order and dispose of things that we, the inhabitants and residents of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield are now cohabiting and dwelling in and upon the river of Connecticut and the lands thereunto adjoining; and well knowing where a people are gathered together, the word of God requires that to maintain the peace and union of such a people there should be an orderly and decent government established according to God, to order and dispose of the affairs of the people at all seasons as occasion shall require; do therefore associate and conjoin ourselves to be as one public state or commonwealth; and do for ourselves and our successors and such as shall be adjoined to us at any time hereafter, enter into combination and confederation together, to maintain and pursue the liberty and purity of the gospel of our Lord Jesus which we now profess, as also the discipline of the churches which according to the truth of the said gospel is now practiced amongst us; as also in our civil affairs to be guided and governed according to such laws, rules, orders, and decrees as shall be made, ordered, and decreed. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.5
Order number four was to the effect that the governor should “be always a member of some approved congregation, and formerly of the magistracy within this jurisdiction.” The oath of office for the governor was as follows:— AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.6
I, ____ ____, being now chosen to be governor within this jurisdiction, for the year ensuing, and until a new be chosen, do swear by the great and dreadful name of the everliving God, to promote the public good and peace of the same, according to the best of my skill; as also will maintain all lawful privileges of this commonwealth; as also that all wholesome laws that are or shall be made by lawful authority here established, be duly executed; and will further the execution of justice according to the rule of God’s word; so help me God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.7
The oath of the magistrate was substantially the same. Unlike Massachusetts, church membership was not required in order to be a voter. Persons became citizens by vote of the major part of the town where they lived, or the major part of such as should be then present and taking the “oath of fidelity.” AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.8
In 1637 a colony of Puritan immigrants with John Davenport as their pastor, arrived in Boston, and remained until the spring of 1638, then founded the town and colony of New Haven. In 1639 a colony from New Haven settled the town of Milford, and another company from England settled the town of Guilford. In the same year a form of government was established, and “by the influence of Davenport it was resolved that the Scriptures are the perfect rule of the commonwealth; that the purity and peace of the ordinances to themselves and their posterity were the great end of civil order; and that church members only should be free burgesses.” A committee of twelve was appointed to nominate seven men to become magistrates. In August the seven met together to put into working order the forms of the new government. “Abrogating every previous executive trust, they admitted to the court all church members; the character of civil magistrates was next expounded ‘from the sacred oracles;’ and the election followed. Then Davenport, in the words of Moses to Israel in the wilderness, gave a charge to the governor to judge righteously; ‘The cause that is too hard for you,’ such was part of the minister’s text, ‘bring it to me, and I will hear it.’ Annual elections were ordered; and God’s word established as the only rule in public affairs.” The other towns followed this example, and thus “the power of the clergy reached its extreme point in New Haven, for each of the towns was governed by seven ecclesiastical officers known as ‘pillars of the church.’ These magistrates served as judges, and trial by jury was dispensed with, because no authority could be found for it in the laws of Moses. AMS August 4, 1892, page 234.9
“Back Page” The American Sentinel 7, 30, p. 240.
CIRCUIT JUDGE SWIGGART, of Tennessee, in ordering the Seventh-day Adventists to prison, also ordered that they, “educate their consciences by the laws of Tennessee.” And this in the face of the Constitution of Tennessee which plainly declares that “no human authority can in any case whatever interfere with or control the rights of conscience”! And thus again, he who sits to judge man “according to the law,” commands these same men “contrary to the law.” See the original instance in Acts 23:1-3. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.1
ARE the civil laws of Tennessee the moral enactments of God, that men shall educate their consciences by them? Does God judge of the righteousness of the citizens of Tennessee by the measure of their subjection to Tennessee statutes, and that alone? IF the Tennessee statutes are the educational standards for the consciences of the citizens of that State, who made the laws of Tennessee? The State, or the citizens of the State, or Jehovah? If the State made the laws, and the citizens are the State, then the citizens have established the standard for their own consciences, and are a law unto themselves,—their own God. If the State, which is a corporate body of their creation, can make laws to which their consciences must be educated, then the State is their God, and they are themselves above it, for they have made it. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.2
THE difference then between the idolaters of India and of Tennessee is that the one worship the works of their hands and the other the creations of their minds. It is as true of the one as it is of the other that they neither know nor understand the true God and the all-reaching justice of his eternal law. Their eyes are shut that they can not see the difference between sin and righteousness, legalized injustice and divine equity. Their hearts are hardened against their fellow-citizens who do not bow down and worship the god which they have made, the image which they have set up. The image which the King of Babylon made, on the plain of Dura, was no more an idol than is this self-made fiction of pseudo-sacredness which the State of Tennessee puts in its statute books, and to which it requires that men shall bow. The bowing to the image of brass was idolatry; the bowing to the fiction of law would be no less idolatry. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.3
NOW that Congress has committed itself and the Government to the fallacy and the falsehood of Sunday sacredness, the next thing in order will be for it to commit itself to that other widespread fallacy and falsehood—the immortality of the soul. Nor need we expect it to stop there. And, indeed, why should we? Having entered the field of religious controversy, and taken sides in one point of dogma, why not go the whole course? Nor is it sufficient to ask, Why shall it not do it? the real question is now, How can it possibly keep from doing it? AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.4
IN the two leading speeches in the United States Senate (those by Hawley and Hiscock), in favor of Sunday closing of the World’s Fair, the chief of all the arguments used was that the churches demanded it and it should be granted, because it was “not wise statesmanship” to disregard the demands of so large a number of religious people. This is precisely the doctrine enunciated by United States District Judge Hammond. It may, therefore, now be considered as the established doctrine of the Government of the United States. Consequently, all that now remains, is for the churches to demand a thing, and they will surely get it; for they are officially notified that it is “not wise statesmanship” to disregard their demands. Thus, in this Sunday legislation, there is fully established the doctrine of Church domination of the civil power, and using it for whatever purpose she chooses. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.5
This is but the establishment of a religious despotism. This is precisely what THE AMERICAN SENTINEL has always been saying was in this question of Sunday legislation. And nothing but the most tyrannical and unmitigated despotism will or can ever come out of it. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.6
UNITED STATES senators have declared it to be “not wise statesmanship” to disregard the demands of the churches for legislation deciding a religious controversy as to whether Sunday is the Sabbath or not. Now why shall not this principle apply in other cases? Why shall not the Spiritualists now work up some issue by which they can demand legislation which will decide the question as to whether or not people are alive when they are dead? There are as many Spiritualists as there are church members; and, of course, it would not be “wise statesmanship” to disregard their demands. Besides this, they would have the unanimous and hearty support of all “the evangelical churches” in the country. And as Congress has granted the demands of the churches alone on this Sunday-Sabbath question, how much more would the same body grant the demands of the same ones over again with largely increased numbers with them. For such would only be “wise statesmanship,” according to the latest definition of the term. What queer ideas these gentlemen have of what statesmanship is! The truth is that it is not statesmanship at all. It is sheer demagogism; and that of the worst sort. These gentlemen should be told that statesmanship does not pander to the selfish and arbitrary demands of classes; it creates sound and healthy public opinion. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.7
THE influence of this religious demagogism in the Congress of the United States has been shown during this session in the passage of the proviso for the Sunday closing of the World’s Fair; in the confirmation of an ordinance for the punishment of profanity in the District of Columbia; and by a favorable decision upon the Sunday ice bill for the District by the House and District Committee of the Senate. The Supreme Court has decreed this to be a Christian Nation. Will the citizens of the United States be invested with natural immorality by decree of the Court or by act of Congress. AMS August 4, 1892, page 240.8