February 17, 1904

“History of Government. Self-Government in Rome” The Signs of the Times 30, 7, pp. 4, 5.

SELF-GOVERNMENT IN ROME.

BY Nimrod and his imitators in Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, and earliest Rome, monarchy and imperialism had made themselves so obnoxious that mankind was completely tired of them, and, as a consequence, the people of Rome stood up and took the lead in behalf of all the people of the world in repudiating every principle of imperialism, monarchy, and kingship; and asserted, in behalf of the world, the principle of government of the people. They declared that the people were capable of governing themselves; they needed no man set over them to whom they must be in subjection, do obeisance, and pay tribute. The people of Rome did this in behalf of mankind. They espoused this principle for the good of themselves and the whole world. They stood as the conservators of liberty for mankind, and as the leaders of the nations to the blessings of liberty and true government.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.1

The principle of government of the people asserted by Rome was intended as the true and ultimate principle of government. But in truth it fell far short of this, for, as we have seen, the true principle of government is self-government under God, with God, and in God. But the principle of self-government announced by Rome was that of self-government without God; self-government altogether of self; self-government wholly on the human basis. Yet, tho it was only this, and tho it was far short of the true principle, the government of Rome was far better than any human government that had been since the first apostasy to idolatry and monarchy.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.2

In the first ages of their government of the people, the Romans understood the true principle of temperance, which literally is only self-control. And they practised accordingly, as we have seen illustrated in the instance of the ambassadors to the king of Egypt, who, at the royal banquet of all Egyptian luxury and dainties spread in their honor, chose only the plainest of what was before them, and partook of this in the most frugal manner, refusing all the rest as that which tended only to corrupt both mind and body, and to breed vicious humors in both. And because of adherence to these principles, it is deservedly recorded of the Romans that “they possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have historical knowledge,” with the sole exception of the Anglo-Saxons.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.3

Degeneracy and the Cause.

As a natural consequence, the government of Rome, being a government of the people, was the freest and the best human government of all ancient times, so long as they maintained the principle of self-government, even only on the human basis, but just as soon as they failed in the government of themselves, so soon the Roman government failed; because, of all forms of government, that form known as the government of the people or the republican form, depends most vitally upon the integrity of the individual in governing himself.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.4

Because of faithfulness to principle, the government of Rome prospered and grew into the mightiest nation of all ancient times. And so she could have continued had the Roman people, who were truly the government, individually continued to govern themselves. But the Roman people were not content to govern only themselves. They took it upon themselves to govern other people, and in this they abandoned the principles of self-government. And when the other people, to whom the senate and people of Rome had professed to extent the blessings of liberty and self-government, chose to act upon the principle, and assumed the prerogatives of governing themselves, the Roman people, having announced to the world and having espoused, in behalf of the world, the principle of self-government, government of the people, absolutely refused to allow any of those people to govern themselves. the Roman people, committed to the principle of self-government, denied it to other people, and insisted upon governing them in spite of themselves, upon the principle that “they were not capable of self-government.” The Roman people, who themselves were first governed by kings, and who had cast off kings and repudiated kingship, and had immediately established government of the people upon the principle that they were entirely capable of governing themselves, asserted dominion over other peoples, and refused even to allow them to attempt to govern themselves, when those other peoples, as the Roman people, and with the assistance of the Roman people, had cast off kings and repudiated kingships, upon Rome’s own principle of their capability to govern themselves.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.5

When the Roman people had thus completely repudiated the last essence of the principle of self-government, or government of the people, she was lost; there was absolutely nothing to hold her, nothing to keep her from following the identical course of all the imperial powers before her. For when Rome had spread her power over other peoples, and repudiated her own essential principle of government in refusing that principle to them, this was but to espouse and assert the same old imperialistic principle that had afflicted the world form Nimrod to her own day, and which she had repudiated in espousing the principle of self-government—government of the people.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.6

A Harvest of Greed and Corruption.

When the Roman people collectively repudiated their own essential principle of government, they lost from themselves, individually, the benefits of the restraining power of that principle. And when from her many conquests, through their native habits of thrift and economy in self-support, the first consequence of self-government, “money poured in upon them in rolling streams of gold,” the getting of money by any means, lawful or unlawful, became the universal passion. “Money was the one thought, from the highest senator to the poorest wretch who sold his vote in the Comitia.” And, with the restraint of self-control annihilated in the repudiation of the principle of self-government, all this abundance of wealth was spent only in the indulgence of luxury of every kind. “Wealth poured in more and more, and luxury grew more unbounded. Palaces sprang up in the city, castles in the country, villas at pleasant places by the sea, and parks, and fish-ponds, and game-preserves, and gardens, and vast retinues of servants,” everywhere.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.7

All this indulgence of luxury inevitably resulted in a vast sea of idleness, depravity, and debauchery. And that people, committed originally to the principle of self-government in the world, and who originally possessed the faculty of self-government beyond all other people of ancient times, became the most abandoned to every kind of depravity and vice, and was sunken in intemperance the farthest from any thought of self-government. “No language can describe the state of that capital after the civil wars. The accumulation of power and wealth gave rise to universal depravity. Law ceased to be of any value.... The social fabric was a festering mass of rottenness, the people had become a populace, the aristocracy was demoniac, the city was a hell. No crime that the annals of human wickedness can show was left unperpetrated. The higher classes on all sides exhibited a total extinction of moral principle; the lower were practical atheists.”SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.8

Past Reformation.

So complete and so universal was the depravity that the few who retained any sober thought on the subject “despairingly acknowledged that the system itself was utterly past cure.”SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.9

It was truly past cure, or even amelioration, from any earthly or human source. And when the corruption had reached such a depth of depravity that from it men could conclude only that if there were a God, He must surely let loose His judgments and end it all, just then—instead of letting loose His judgments in annihilating ruin, He opened full and free the fountain of His love, and “gave His only-begotten Son,” that whosoever would believe in Him, instead of deservedly perishing, should be saved from all his sins and from all evil, and should have eternal life. Jesus, the Son of God, came into the Roman world that was sunken in iniquity and corruption. He came into that Roman world which was dominated by that people who were so utterly apostate from their own original espousal of the principle of self-government. And He came to reveal to that people and to all mankind the true principle of self-government in very truth—self-government under God, with God, and in God.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.10

And He did reveal it. He sent His apostles into all the world to preach it “to every creature”; and when one day one of His apostles stood face to face with a representative Roman who had sent for that apostle, to hear him concerning the faith in Christ, that apostle, in preaching to that representative Roman the truth of the true faith in Christ, “reasoned of righteousness, self-government, and judgment to come.”SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.11

And as that apostle of Christ, talking to that representative Roman, to that man who was a chief representative of that government originally founded upon the principle of self-government, set forth in the spirit of truth the true principle of self-government, indeed, that representative Roman “trembled,” as he saw not only how far short had that people come in their original conception of the principle of self-government, but how infinitely farther short was that people now come. As that representative Roman saw the heavenly beauty and infinite value of the true principle of self-government as it is in truth, and that in all consistency he should espouse it, and that to do so meant the utter abandonment of all that Rome had soon become, this was also an element in his trembling.SITI February 17, 1904, page 4.12

And tho God so graciously sent, and Christ so kindly brought, and the apostles and early Christians so faithfully preached to the people of Rome the full reality and vital substance and the essential truth of the principle of government which the people of Rome had originally espoused, yet, instead of readily recognizing it and gladly accepting it, they absolutely repudiated it, and persecuted to the death the principle and all who espoused it.SITI February 17, 1904, page 117.1

But most deplorable of all was that there came an apostasy, “a falling away,” even amongst those who espoused in the name of Christ this true principle of self-government. These unfaithful ones also held the principle only in the mere profession, and upon only the human basis. These also, instead of governing themselves, naturally enough manifested the ambition to govern others, asserting in this “a kind of sovereignty for themselves,” and even beyond this, they extended their ambition to dominate the civil power.SITI February 17, 1904, page 117.2

They said, “Let the government, let the imperial power, espouse the Christian religion; let it ally itself with the church; let it receive through the church the true principle of government. Thus will it attain to true government indeed; and thus shall the kingdom of God come.”SITI February 17, 1904, page 117.3

Their words were accepted. Their scheme was adopted. By political means the empire was made “Christian.” The name, the forms, and the profession of Christianity were adopted as the way to salvation, and so became only a cloak to cover the original iniquity; so became only the form of godliness, under which to increase unto more ungodliness. Then and thus Roman apostasy and iniquity attained its ultimate; and the divine judgments of destruction did now fall in annihilating ruin “upon this nominally Christian, but essentially heathen world.” Wave after wave of a mighty flood of the barbarians of the north swept out of existence the empire and people of Rome.SITI February 17, 1904, page 117.4

“Self-government” on the human basis, “self-government” without God, had demonstrated itself a complete failure.SITI February 17, 1904, page 117.5