The Topeka Daily Capital, vol. 11
May 11, 1889
“The Camp Meeting” The Topeka Daily Capital 11, 112, p. 4.
A CLOUDY DAY BUT A VERY BUSY ONE AT FOREST PARK
Elder Farnsworth Not Coming—Mrs. White’s Afternoon Address—Much Interested in the Meetings Through Visits of Canvassers—Sermons and Lectures of a Day
Special Correspondence of the CAPITAL
FOREST PARK, OTTAWA, KAN., MAY 10—A heavy rain night before last makes walking disagreeable and somewhat lessoned the outside attendance, yet the afternoon discourse by Mrs. White was well attended, and the evening lecture of Elder Jones on the Evils of Religious Legislation called out many from the city. At the early 5 o’clock social meeting, Mrs. White gave an earnest exhortation that touched many hearts, and her discourse at 2:30 in the afternoon we give in full. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.1
Several new tents are being and have been erected since my last, and quite a field of canvass is now in sight. Mrs. E. W. Farnsworth came yesterday and reports that Elder Farnsworth is too mulch occupied with his duties at the College in Battle Creek to leave. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.2
Special printed lessons have been published for the coming Sabbath school, and it is believed a very successful one will be held. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.3
THE MORNING LECTURE
(A. T. JONES)
The apostles were sent forth to preach the gospel, and its intention was to gather a people from the world and save them from their sins, and bring them back into harmony with the government of God; so then the basis of the gospel is the recognition of God’s government, which is supreme. In Rome the supreme government was the Roman, and the highest idea was the preservation of the state, and this idea is the prominent one today that men cannot claim the right to worship God according to their own idea in violation of the laws of the state. Now we know that God has set limitations upon the scope of power of the state, briefly as man’s relation one to another. The Roman law forbid the worship of strange gods. “Worship the gods in all respects according to the laws of your country and compel all others to do the same,” so when men now-days try to compel men to do this they repeat the same pagan principle. This principle is largely in men now, and when a national religion is adopted it will be a pagan principle (although it is claimed to be Christian); so then we will have a Protestant faith amalgamated to a Catholic; hence an image to the papacy, a paganized Christianity. Anciently, prophecies were understood after their fulfillment, but the third angel’s message is understood in advance, because this warns against the worship of the beast and his image, which is to be a living image exactly like the present. If we will understand and meet it and show the wickedness in it we must understand it thoroughly. To understand a counterfeit it is necessary to study the original. If we study the counterfeit we lose time to comprehend the image we must study the papacy, the parent and original. Study the making of the papacy and then we will know what the outcome of it, because the people today have to be warned of their danger. Remember, however, that the people will see all this, but they are now taking the first steps that lead to it, but they do not see the danger. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.4
Now, God has given us the light on this message to warn the people and show them the evil to follow. Before, the church, covered the pagan and called it Christianity, so now the same is being done. Well, then, at that time Christians did not respect the established religion, and Rome declared it treason to profess or advocate any new religion, though the laws were framed before Christianity was in the world, so that the action of the Christians was high treason, punishable by death; for the lower classes, of whom the Christians mainly came, Paul saying they were the offscouring of the world. The Jews also being despised by the Romans, and the Christians were despised by the Jews, so for the despised of the despised to rebel was insolence in the eyes of the Romans. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.5
When arraigned, they refused to obey and upheld the law of God even unto death, denying that, “the voice of the people was the voice of God,” and so introducing a new religion. Only one thing was possible by the state to enforce the law. The state did not wish to persecute, it had to enforce the law. No Christian had any time to call himself safe and that his life was in danger from the emperors (only two of them up to the time of Decius having legislated in reference to Christians, but as every festival and jubilee observance was engaged in, to honor the gods, and as a Christian was forced to refrain from everything of the kind, they were constantly exposed to the malice of neighbors and friends who complained of them and forced them before tribunals. The best of the emperors, respecting the laws, had them enforced rigidly, but the tyrants caring nothing of law, left them unexecuted. The wickedness, then, was not in the men who governed, but in the system of laws that gave men the opportunity to persecute. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.6
The papal church claims that it never put any one to death, that the civil laws were enforced simply, but the laws were dictated by the church, and said to the civil power, execute the panalties or be excommunicated. A man placed above restraint is but one removed from Satan, no matter how good originally, but the glory of Christianity is that the Spirit of God is above all and this restraint, heeded, makes saints. Now if the papal system becomes a national one here, what will follow? Why the laws will be enforced. Take the cases in Arkansas as perfect examples. Let me quote from the argument of the supreme court; “The appellant’s argument, then is reduced to this: That because he conscientiously believe he is permitted by the law of God to labor on Sunday, he may violate with impunity the statute declaring it illegal to do so; but a man’s religious belief cannot be accepted as a justification for his committing an overt act made criminal by the law of the land.” TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.7
Here it is distinctly stated that a man’s religious belief cannot be made an excuse for disobeying the law. Now this is the pagan principle of Rome, and Arkansas is not behind what other states will be if this system is adopted. This is only a pagan argument and that is all they will see in it. Now for years we have been warning the people this was coming, but they have laughed at us. Now it is being attempted, they will say “It will never become a law.” When it does become law, “it will not be enforced,” they will say, and when it is enforced they will argue, “it is right to enforce the law.” So then, as anciently Christians had to defend the law, even unto death, so will we have to do. They did not work simple for themselves, neither are we to do so. This message given to us is to go to every nation, kindred, people, and tongue. Eminent men will not come to our tent meetings and elsewhere, so they will have to hear these truths from us in prison and from the bench in court so we will have to tell the people the law is wrong. The Christians never before asked for an exemption clause, neither can we. It would be a sanction of the whole system. It is not our work to ask for exemption clauses, but to hold up the truth against the flood of evil coming. Soon everyone of us will be called blasphemers for saying that Sunday is not the Sabbath, and that the present movement is an image to the papacy, but God has given us the message to the world and that is our work and the power of God will sustain us. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.8
“The Camp Meeting. The Afternoon Meeting” The Topeka Daily Capital 11, 112, p. 4.
THE AFTERNOON SERMON
(BY A.T. JONES)
The subject this afternoon will be the gift the Saviour puts upon that several ability He gives every man. In several places Paul speaks of that body of Christ, and we as members of that body, it is always in connection with the gifts of God. I read first in Ephesians 4:3-16 in which the principle is laid down that, “to everyone is given grace according to every man’s several ability.” TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.9
There are the gifts which Christ gives for the perfecting of the saints, perfecting the ministry and the building up of the church. These gifts are not given until man comes into the unity of the faith, and so Paul says endeavor to keep in that unity until we come to the stature of the fullness of Christ, then when the church reaches that place the world will see Christ in the church, it representing all the graces and virtues and perfections of Christ—a perfect man completely represented. Then cannot Christ do all He has to do in the world? There is much to be done, and He wants us to come into that unity that the work can be done. “And if the knowledge of the Son of God,” that we be not tossed about and be deceived. Notice verse 15, dealing with, “speaking the truth in love.” The margin reads “sincere” which means in Latin “without wax.” The honey is squeezed out of the comb and strained and restrained until free from wax, so “sincere” being without flaw or stain. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.10
Now read Romans 12:3-8, the gifts differing according to the grace given to us—all these being gifts of Christ, to all of us. We must realize that each has an ability that Christ wants to use, and so each one should go to Him to find out his gift and place in the church, then Christ can do the work He has to do in that place through those of His servants who are there. Christ will increase the numbers as the work requires. To each one then has the ministry of reconciliation been given. Being reconciled, you are to tell others that they may become reconciled also. God does not call idlers, but all must be workers. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.11
Now 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to everyone. Do we believe it? What is it for? To profit withal. Have we so received it? Have we been cultivating it and trying to find out how we can use it to the glory of God and build up the church of God? The gifts, it says, are divided to every man according as the Lord wills, giving the gift and the manifestations of it as pleases Him. The no one of us is to try to conform our gift to some other man’s, each being given according to his several ability. We are brethren, Christ being the master, giving the gifts being the head, and His will is to move all. Then if Christ gives to you grace according to your ability, and you so exercise it, am to be envious of you in the exercise of that gift? When we realize that we are equal, and the gifts are given according to our several ability, there will be no place for envying or jealously. Paul shows here how these gifts are complements one of another, without being absorbed one within another, each complete by all being exercised for Christ, binding all to Christ, as members one of another. Verse 8 gives us wisdom and knowledge. There is a difference between the two. Wisdom is the faculty of using wisely the knowledge that is possessed. Now, if one has wisdom and another knowledge, they working together to do perfect work. Christ working through both puts His impress upon it, perfecting it. Verse 10 presents the two classes of tongues, one edifies the brethren if another brother arises and interprets it for the hearer, one being the complement of the other. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.12
“The Evening Lecture” The Topeka Daily Capital 11, 112, p. 4.
THE EVENING LECTURE BY ELDER A. T. JONES
The subject is the making of the Papacy—the union of church and state as it was formed in the beginning and the working of affairs that brought it about. In Constantine’s time there were six emperors. Before that there were four, and before that only one was recognized. There were really two, with the others as assistants. Finally, by the death and abdication, it was reduced to two—Constantine and Maximin. From the beginning of the mutual reign of these six men. Each strove to become supreme, and each with a powerful army, warring with and killing each other, so that finally Constantine killed the last and reigned alone, but the military power was so equally divided that it became policy together all outside power possible. Now Constantine saw the Christian Church just emerging from the persecution of Diocletian, which was not particularly against any denomination (for there were some ninety different forms of Christianity). This persecution, which was the last pagan effort, had united these denominations in self-defense against the common enemy. At this time there was a grasping for power among the bishops of the Churches, and the emperor knew it. Maximin, the emperor with Constantine, made them an offer, but the bishops feared him, but Constantine, being such a consummate hypocrite, he won them. In 311 A. D. a party of these bishops visited Constantine and the bargain of support was concluded, they promising him the united support of the church in return for place and power. When after-wards he found how divided the church was, he was extremely disappointed and practically as soon as religion became an imperial attribute, it became the aim of every bishop to curry favor and seek for power from the emperor, so that he never knew again a peaceful day, exclaiming once, “O, give me back my quiet days and peaceful nights.” TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.13
Now that being the reason of his conversion from paganism to Christianity, for all the conversion he ever had was a political one. We want to see what the idea of the bishops was in seeking this union. In the church had arisen a false theory of a theocracy, which was the prevailing one in the time of Constantine, and they were determined to turn the Roman empire into a kingdom of God, and so they made themselves dependent on the emperor to gain the power of the secular arm of the government. Now there was originally a true theocracy upon the earth when God led the children of Israel out of Egypt. We all know how the Israelites went down to the Red Sea, Pharaoh tried to follow and was drowned and sunk to the bottom of the sea. Then the Israelites sang the song of Moses and afterwards in the wilderness Moses erected a tabernacle and in it communed with God. This form of theocracy continued until the days of Samuel, when the people asked for a king like another nation, and the Lord chose Saul and afterwards David, and when Solomon reigned in his place, the record is he sat on the throne of the Lord as his father before him, the line being established in David’s house by direct promise of God that David’s throne would last forever. Zedekiah was the last of the line on earth, being removed by the Lord because of wickedness, and was to remain vacant “until He came, whose right it is.” TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.14
The next place the throne is mentioned is in Luke when Christ is born, when he is punished “the throne of His father David.” But he was not a king on the earth, “My kingdom is not of this world,” “although born to be a king, so until the next world there can never be a theocracy again. When he died, the people were scattered and the end of the theocracy had come. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.15
Now when these bishops attempted to set up a theocracy, they turned away from the truth and prevented the purpose of God. Daniel 7 tells that God will not be given His throne until the judgement, so then, any kingdom or form of government of God on earth until Christ comes is treason against God. Now mark what those bishops did in Rome. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.16
The speaker read from Eusibius’ Life of Constantine to show how those bishops tried to exalt Constantine into a royal selection of God’s, a second Moses, to lead the church out of the strange land into the promise land. They claimed that, when Maximin fell off the bridge and sank as a stone was a second drowning of Pharaoh, and that Constantine was a second Moses to deliver the people and church from oppression. Constantine himself followed out this idea to such an extent that he had a tabernacle erected and in it he would go before a battle, and claiming then to have had a vision from God, he would rush out and give orders of the battle, by divine inspiration. So then claiming Constantine to be called by divine appointment, they take the first step in the forming of the theocracy. The next step was to put in a Sabbath to imitate the steps in the true theocracy. This was a natural result, because Constantine wrote them: “Let us have nothing in common with the Jews.” TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.17
Under Diocletian, many Churches had been destroyed. Constantine ordered them to be rebuilt and the property restored to them. At that time there was a sect of Donatists who petitioned the emperor to restore their Churches, but Constantine said only the “Catholic” Churches were to be rebuilt. This brought a series of councils to decide between the Donatists, Arians, and Trinitarians to decide which was Catholic, and so fierce were the disputes and so disgraceful that the theatres parodied the quarrels for the amusement of the populace. Constantine finally placed, in the declaration of principles, the word “Homoousian” and that decided the fate of all Rome and the Catholic world ever since—becoming the Catholic creed for ever after, so that Constantine prepared the doctrine for this church. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.18
After the death of Constantine various emperors added additional matter to the creed according to the side of faith they held, causing council after council to obtain unity of belief among the Churches, the emperors keeping the bishops prisoners, when the council would be held, until they agreed to sign the creed prepared for them. At the council of Nice, Eusibius declared that Constantine, when he entered appeared as a god before them, and says: “One might easily believed that one beheld the type of Christ’s kingdom,” and in another place that Constantine’s palace was the New Jerusalem described in Revelation by John. Now Eusebius is declared to be one of the best of the bishops. Now if he could see the kingdom of Christ as come in Constantine and his palace, what might the others discover? Constantine’s mother sent two of the nails of the cross (claimed to be found) to her son to put one of them in his helmet to protect him, and the other was made into a bit for his horse; and then the bishops claimed this to be a fulfillment of Zechariah 14:20, and that the kingdom of Christ had come. This was the work, and the political scheming, between the church and Constantine. TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.19
Now about his conversion. He was never converted unless on his deathbed. The only conversion was a political one. In 312 he told Eusibius he saw the vision of the cross in the air, of which we have only his own words. In 314 he made a decree that the church donations, and the record is that he could not have given more if he had given to Romans provinces. In about 318 he made the decision of the bishops as fixed as though Christ had done so, provided the person went to them voluntarily. In March, 321, he made the decree to examine the entrails of an animal to decide the cause of public calamities. In 323 he murdered his wife’s father. In 326 he murdered his own son, wife and his nephew, and many relatives. In 328 he laid the foundations of Constantinople, “according to the ritual of paganism.” In 330 it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and when finished the states of pagan deities were all placed in the city; the statue of Apollo was erected in the most conspicuous place. Apollo was the god of the sun worshipping, and was Constantine’s favorite god. If, then, anyone can prove he was a Christian it is more than I can do. Constantine caused twelve pillars to be erected, with a vacant space in the center, in honor of the apostles, and also twelve coffins separated as the pillars, for the same purpose, and after his death a new pillar was added and a new coffin for himself, and he shared the worship and honor given to the departed apostles. Can anyone wonder that Paul calls all this “the mystery of iniquity?” TDC May 11, 1889, page 4.20