November 24, 1898
THE man-made Sabbath is upheld from beneath; the Lord’s Sabbath is sustained from above.
IT is no more sinful to openly work on the Sabbath than to obey the law in the letter, while hating the spirit of it. No Sabbath keeping is truly such which is not prompted by love to its Author.
CHURCH history is largely a warning to the church against going into politics.
THEOLOGICAL dogmas are not made any more truthful, stable, or valuable by being embodied in the law of the land.
IT is the business of Christians in this world to let their light shine by their good works, not to try to compel people to shine whose works are evil.
“IN union there is strength,” does not apply to a union of church and state. An unhappy marriage is a source of great weakness to both parties.
ALL immorality is sin; and the remedy for sin is not law, but the gospel.
PEOPLE who attend properly to their own morals will have all they can do without trying to supervise the morals of their neighbors.
SINNERS cannot be driven out of the pathway of sin. They must be led.
RELIGIOUS error is always frantically calling for a law to support it, since it has no strength in itself.
WHEN the church goes into politics, it is only politics, it is only to be expected that politicians will go into the church.
THE sanctity of any Christian institution cannot be lost because people disregard it, or preserved by arresting and punishing people who refuse to observe it.
THE political compass is altogether too changeable to be a safe instrument by which to steer the ship of Zion.
[Inset.] THE CHURCH IN POLITICS—AMS IT MUST RESULT TO THE CHURCH. THE church is seemingly bent upon entering into politics, thinking that thus she can most surely and quickly attain to the long-sought goal of her desires, where righteousness will be established in the earth, and those conditions of peace and prosperity prevail which in fancy she has associated with the setting up of the kingdom of God. But it is the old deception by which the church of former times was lured upon the rocks of worldliness and utterly wrecked; and only the same result can follow now. Union with the civil power means disunion from the spiritual power of her Lord, and the consequent paralysis of her spiritual strength. Once caught in the currents of worldliness which flow so strongly toward the goal of political ambition, she will find herself powerless to stem the tide, and spiritual shipwreck will be the inevitable result.