ATJ
RELIGIOUS intolerance is never slow to shield itself behind “the law.” Masked under legal forms, it can do its work with certainty, and with the appearance and air of a conservator of the public welfare. If its work is spoken of as persecution, it can reply that its victims have merely been punished for violating the law of the land. AMS April 2, 1896, page 107.1
The papal church claims that she never persecuted, since the millions put to death for conscience’ sake during the ages of her supremacy, suffered at the hands of the civil authority. “Heresy” was contrary to the “law” of the land; hence “heretics” were criminals, and were punished accordingly. The church points to the personality of civil government and exclaims, “I didn’t do it; the [sic.] did it.” And on the same grounds a prominent Hebrew recently addressed Christendom asking them to do justice to the Jews and exonerate them from the guilty of murdering Jesus Christ, since the record shows that he was put to death by the Roman, Pontius Pilate! AMS April 2, 1896, page 107.2
The Jews did not propose to put Christ to death because his teaching and example were contrary to their traditions,—not at all; but because he was making himself a king in the place of Cesar! This was the argument which prevailed with Pilate. They would not seize him and hurry him off to crucifixion with their own hands because they hated him; that would have been persecution. “We have a law,” said they, “and by that law he ought to die.” They were simply zealous for “the law”! They could also invoke the Roman law, for which, in this case, they were likewise zealous. So they brought Jesus before the high priest and he was tried “according to law,” and before Pontius Pilate as well, where also he was legally condemned. Surely this ought(?) to exonerate the Jews from the charge of being our Saviour’s persecutors in the events which terminated with his crucifixion. AMS April 2, 1896, page 107.3
But Peter, on the day of Pentecost, plainly told the Jews that they were Christ’s betrayers and murderers. The legal forms under which the Saviour was put to death did not in the least change the complexion of the part played in the drama by the Jews. It was persecution, and that alone. And no more did the sanction of the civil authority, given in accordance with the “law of the land,” exculpate the papal persecutors of the Christians in the Dark Ages. “Laws” which sanction injustice and constitute ready weapons for the hands of religious bigots, ought to have no place upon human statute books. God is a God of justice. He “hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all.” Justice is law; and only justice can properly be affirmed by the decisions of courts, or enforced by those invested with civil authority. AMS April 2, 1896, page 107.4
ATJ
IT is often asserted, in defense of Sunday “laws,” that in this country Christianity is a part of the common law. What Christianity? let us ask. Is it that Christianity which says that he who hates his brother without a cause is guilty of murder, and that the lustful look is adultery? Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28. Are these precepts a part of the common law? Is it that Christianity which commands us to love our enemies and forgive them as often as they injure us? Are these common law precepts? Is it that Christianity which directs us to love God supremely, and our neighbors as ourselves? Can we be haled before the courts of common law for failure to do either of these things? Is this the Christianity that is a “part of the common law”? If not, what Christiantiy is it? If it be not this Christianity, it is not Christ’s Christianity; and if it be not Christ’s Christianity, it is not Christianity at all, but a counterfeit and a fraud. AMS April 2, 1896, page 108.1
Christianity is not a part of the common law of this land, nor of any other land in this fallen earth. Nor is it a part of any human law whatever. It is as far above human law as God is above man. Only a low and altogether earthly conception of Christianity could think of it as on a level with the “common law.” And this is the conception of it from which Sunday “laws” derive their force. AMS April 2, 1896, page 108.2
Christianity is “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” which sets the sinner free from the “law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2. As well might legislators claim to have at their command all the agencies of divinity by which Christianity operates, as to claim that it is a part of the common law of the land. AMS April 2, 1896, page 108.3
ATJ
JESUS CHRIST was put to death as a criminal because his teach and example were contrary to the traditions of the Jews; and his followers are confined as criminals by the Pharisees of this day because their teaching and practice are contrary to popular tradition. AMS April 2, 1896, page 112.1
CIVIL government means force. The function of the civil power is not to persuade people, but to compel them. And therefore there cannot be on this earth a Christian civil government; for Christianity does not compel men, but persuades them. The State acting as a mere persuader of men would not be a State at all; it must act by compulsion, or cease to be that for which it is ordained. There is no Christian power in this world other than that which operates through the Holy Spirit. AMS April 2, 1896, page 112.2
But the statement that a civil government cannot be Christian in its nature, does not imply that it must be antichristian or that it cannot be administered by Christians. Civil government is not ordained to do that which is evil, but to conserve justice in the sphere of men’s natural rights. It does not pertain to the sphere of man’s relation to God; justice in that sphere cannot be conserved by any human power or wisdom. God will deal with every man according to his works in the day of final judgment, and this takes the matter entirely out of the hands of man. Man’s place here is to be a doer of the divine law, and not a judge. All justice is, of course, in harmony with Christianity. Hence civil government, as ordained by God, does not work at cross purposes with Christianity. It is non-Christian simply as being by nature incapable of doing the work that is being done among men by the gospel. AMS April 2, 1896, page 112.3
EVERY man has the right, so far as his fellowmen are concerned, to believe as he pleases; and that right he never can and never will surrender so long as he is a Christian, yea, so long as he is a man. AMS April 2, 1896, page 112.4
“CIVILIZATION” must not be mistaken for Christianity. A Christian is always civil and always ready to advance in the direction of physical, mental, and social well-being; but the power which uplifts him is the power of God working in his heart through faith in Christ. “Civilization” is largely made up of that which attracts by its glitter and outward show; but “all is not gold that glitters,” and a showy exterior is the common means of making attractive that which is evil. A nation may be most highly “civilized” at the very time that it is most wicked. AMS April 2, 1896, page 112.5