“Neither the civil power as God’s ordinance, nor the civil ruler as God’s minister, within its special province, has any authority as such, to make void any of the ten commandments, whether by neglect in enforcing them or by indifference to their authority and claims. At this point, the party of civil policy protests and cries out that this is uniting Church and State. The Christian replies, it is indeed a union, but only so far as two separate jurisdictions—the one spiritual and primary, and the other secular and secondary—exercise each one its own appropriate authority, within its own individual province, to secure a two-fold good to the twofold life of man. This union, therefore, is like the union of the spiritual in man acting conjointly with the body of man, the body being brought under and kept in subjection to the spiritual.”AMS September 25, 1889, page 273.2

That is precisely such a union of Church and State as the Papacy advocates. The statement is almost word for word, as is the statement of the papal claims on the same point. The papal claim is, that the two powers in the world are the spiritual and the secular. That the spiritual is the church, and the temporal is the State. That the spiritual is superior to the temporal, and, as in the body man’s temporal concern must be subject to the spiritual, so in the world the temporal power must be subject to the spiritual. The State must be subject to the church; and the temporal power, the State, must be brought under and kept in subjection to the spiritual, the church. And therefore, the Pope as head of the spiritual power is superior to kings who are the heads of the temporal. Consequently, all civil rulers must be subject to the Pope.AMS September 25, 1889, page 273.3

There is not a shadow of difference between the papal theory and this so distinctly set forth by Mr. Tatlow. It is indeed a union. A union of the most vital sort, a union as close as is the union of the spiritual and the physical in man. And this is the deliberate view set forth in a written essay by a representative speaker in the Missouri State convention which was called to organize, and which did organize, a State Sabbath Union auxiliary to the American Sabbath Union, and at which the field secretary of the American Sabbath Union was present. Mr. Tatlow’s view of this relationship, however, is not at all distinct in principle from that stated by the American Sabbath Union himself. He puts it up under the illustration of the two arms of the body, the religious being the right arm and the civil being the left arm. Mr. Tallow only more clearly expresses how closely and intimately the two arms are expected to act together. And how the left arm is to be guided by the right arm, and kept in subordination to it. And then in the face of these plain statements of their own they will still put on an air of innocence injured almost to holy martyrdom, when we say to the people that the Sunday-law movement bears in itself a union of Church and State, with all that history shows that that term implies.AMS September 25, 1889, page 273.4

We have known all the time that it is indeed a union in which the spiritual is intended to be primary and the secular secondary. We have known all the time that it is indeed a union in which the secular authority is to be brought under and kept in subjection to the spiritual. This is what the SENTINEL has been telling the people for these four years. And now it comes forth plainly in their own words. And yet we doubt not that when we thus print it, and send it forth, that they will again deny that they intend to bring about a union of Church and State, or that their movement has any tendency whatever in that direction.AMS September 25, 1889, page 273.5

A. T. J.

“An Inadmissable Admission” The American Sentinel 4, 35, p. 274.

ATJ

The Cumberland Presbyterian Church, at its General Assembly in Kansas City, last May, amongst its resolutions passed the following on the subject of the liquor traffic:—AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.1

Resolved, That, admitting that it is a crime, it cannot be legalized without sin. It cannot be licensed without legalizing it. Therefore to vote for license is sin.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.2

This is a fair sample of the predicament into which men get when they undertake to create sins. It is probable that to their own satisfaction, that General Assembly has decided that to vote for license is sin. And, probably, that General Assembly is prepared to deal with the man who votes for a license as with a sinner, and to consign him to the place where all sinners are to go, except they repent.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.3

But, have they proved that to vote for license is sin? The conclusion in a syllogism is always as good as the premises, but it is never any better, and it can’t be any better. What then, is the premise in this one? Major: Admitting that it is a crime, it cannot be legalized without sin. Minor: It cannot be licensed without legalizing it. Therefore to vote for license is sin. The whole thing depends upon the major, “admitting that it is a crime.” But suppose that is not admitted, then what? Then neither the minor nor the conclusion follows. So that all that syllogism amounts to, and all that the resolution amounts to in fact is, that if it be admitted that to vote for license is sin, then it is sin. But even that doesn’t follow, because it may be admitted that a certain thing, because it may be admitted that a certain thing is sin when there may be no sin about it.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.4

More than this. A thing may be admitted to be a crime and yet it be not sin at all. It is a crime in nearly every State in this Union to work on Sunday, and a good many people are doing their best to make it a crime anywhere in all the Nation. But to work on Sunday is not sin. An act may be a crime and yet not in any way a sin. To be a Christian in the days of Paul, in the Roman Empire, was to be guilty of the highest crime—crimen majestatis. But there were multitudes of people who committed that crime and yet were sinless in it.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.5

Crime is a violation of human law—a law of the State. And human laws—laws of the State—may forbid that which is right, as the Roman Empire did when it prohibited the worship of any gods but such as were recognized by the Roman law; and as the different States of this Union do when they prohibit work on Sunday. For the Christians to worship God in the Roman Empire in the first two centuries was a crime, but it was not sin. For people to work on Sunday in nearly all the States is a crime, but it is not sin. Consequently, admitting a thing to be a crime does not at all admit it to be sin. It may be sin. But whether it is does not at all depend upon men’s admitting that it is, but upon whether God says it is. If God says a thing is sin, it is sin, whether it be admitted or not, and whether it be a crime or not. And what God does not say is sin is not sin, even though it be admitted to be a crime.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.6

We freely admit that the liquor traffic is sin, whether it is a crime or not depends upon what the State laws say. The liquor traffic is a crime in this country only in Iowa, Kansas, and Maine. In none of the other States is it a crime, because the State does not prohibit it.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.7

Again: This resolution says, “Admitting that it is a crime, it can’t be legalized without sin.” But whether it is a crime or not, depends upon whether it is legal or not. If it is legalized, it is not crime. If it is forbidden, it is crime. Consequently, the admission is not admissible unless the law declares the fact, and if the law declares it, then it is a crime whether it be admitted or not.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.8

This resolution illustrates the absurdities into which men run when they confound crime and sin, and religious with civil things, as the third party prohibition element does. It also shows what the SENTINEL has constantly affirmed, that, if prohibition were secured upon the basis upon which it is demanded by the third party prohibition element, the condition of affairs would actually be worse than they are now. Prohibition, on a civil basis, is right. But prohibition upon a religious basis,—the liquor traffic prohibited because it is irreligious or because it is immoral, or because it is a sin,—would introduce into the body politic such a confusion of elements as would, in a little while, prove the remedy to be ten thousand times worse than the disease.AMS September 25, 1889, page 274.9

A. T. J.

September 18, 1889

October 2, 1889