THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PROTESTANTISM INVOLVED IN PRESENT ISSUES.

Protestants must Accept the Bible in Fact, as well as in Theory, or be Overthrown—The Bible must be Reinterpreted in the Light of “Higher Criticism” and Deeper Spiritual Life—The Present Tendencies in Bible Study Mark the Opening of the Second Stage of the Protestant Movement—Baptism must Cease to be the Foot-Ball of Denominational Polemics and be Raised to a Question of Obedience to the Example of Christ—Protestants must Return to the Sabbath, Christianized by Christ, and to True Sabbathism, Which is as Undenominational as Faith—Such Sabbathism, and God’s Sabbath, must be Restored to the Place from Which Pagan No-Sabbathism and the Pagan Sunday Drove Them—“Sabbath” Legislation is Unchristian—All Union of Christianity with the State must Yield before the Normal Development of True Protestantism.

The facts which have been set forth in the foregoing pages form the basis for certain important conclusions. Unconsciously perhaps, but not less certainly, the Protestant movement was the beginning of a definite reaction against paganism in Christianity. Since humanity must learn all higher truth through long and sometimes bitter experience, errors and evils must ripen before those who have once accepted them will let them go. All great upward movements illustrate this fact. Reformatory action begins when error reaches so low a point that the best interests involved are confronted with strangulation and destruction. When the slow-beating heart threatens the death of the sleeping patient, nature arouses all her forces in a final struggle for life. Thus truth, stifled and trodden under foot by the pagan elements in the Church, awoke for the final struggle as the morning began to dawn, after the ages of midnight.

(1) Reinstatement of the Bible.

As the first step in perverting Christianity was to set aside the authority of God’s book, and to teach error for truth through false exegesis, so the first step toward reformation was the unchaining of that Word. Paganized Christianity had placed itself between men and God, and His Word. Faith, hedged and crippled, trusted in human traditions, forms, and ceremonies, and in priestly absolution from sin. Help could not come, neither could hope arise, until the pagan elements should be so far removed that men could stand face to face with the Bible, with Christ, and with God. Hence the central points in the first stage of the reformatory work were an open Bible, an accessible Christ, and a Father whose law was the ultimate appeal, and whose love was the ultimate source of hope and the foundation of faith. The upward movement started on the same plane of fundamental truth on which the downward movement began. Hence the first struggle, under Luther, centred around personal faith.

But it was in the nature of things that men whose inheritance had come from the centuries made dark and religiously corrupt through pagan residuum, could not rise above all these influences at once.

Though the leaders in such movements build better than they know, their work is always comparatively imperfect. The intensity with which they must pursue a single truth in order to make any progress, prevents them from seeing all truth. This the more, since the public mind, at such times, cannot grasp and hold more than one great truth at a time. The reformers could not wholly free themselves from the idea that “tradition and custom” have authority. They did not actually accept the Bible as the only rule of faith and practice. Protestantism has never done this. As between Protestantism and Romanism, from which it revolted, there can be no middle or common ground. The Roman Catholic claims that the Church made the Bible, and formulated authoritative traditions, and hence that the Church, as law-maker and interpreter of the Bible, is the supreme authority. The Protestant begins by denying the authority of the Church, and appealing to the Bible as the ultimate authority. Logic and history combine to declare that Protestantism must make its theory good, or fail. Hence we draw

The years are ripe for decision. The backward drift toward Roman Catholicism and rationalism has well set in. The loss already sustained by Protestantism, though an incomplete movement, can be regained only by prompt and vigorous action.

These conclusions relative to the future of Protestantism, having been published in a magazine edited by the author of this book, The Sabbath Outlook, were commented upon by the Catholic Mirror, Baltimore, under date of March 19, 1892, as follows:

The issue is not one of mere name, or of denominationalism, or of “Church” against “sects.” It is, as said above, a question of the reinstatement of the Bible as the supreme rule of Protestant Christianity. The Protestant movement began in that issue. There can be no Protestantism outside of it. If it be not true, Protestantism is a failure. If it be true, Protestantism cannot remain where it is and survive. If it be not true, Romanism has the logical and historical right to the field. It is master of the situation, and its expectation that erring Protestants will return to “The Mother Church,” or wander hopelessly away from Christianity, will be realized in less time than Protestantism has already existed. These facts challenge the attention of all parties. They sound the same key as do the words of Professor Harnack, spoken in July, 1889. I said to him: “Will the Protestantism of the next century be more spiritual than now, or less?” He answered, “It will be more spiritual, or it will die.” I continued: “If it dies, what will be the next scene in church history?” He said: “Roman Catholicism will take possession of the world as a new form of paganism.” These are not the words of an alarmist, nor a sectarian polemist; they are the legitimate deductions made by a careful student of universal history. Will you ponder them?

(2) Biblical Interpretation; Higher Criticism.

Whoever has read the chapters on gnosticism, and the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible, and has traced the influence of these pagan elements upon the history of biblical interpretation, cannot fail to see God’s guiding hand in the movements of the last half of this century. The revival of Bible study, the development of the “International Lessons,” the call for something yet better, and the growth of exegetical literature form an epoch not less important, though less noisy, because less political, than the rise of Lutheranism, the development of Calvinism, or the birth of the English Reformation. The last half of this century has witnessed what no other century ever saw, the beginning of a systematic study of the Bible by the people. Such an epoch could not do less than create the “higher criticism.” That phase of this Bible-study epoch is as legitimate a result as the “Diet at Worms” was of Luther’s revolt, or as Puritanism was of the English Reformation. Therefore:

Luther and his coadjutors unchained the Bible and opened its pages. They did not, could not, eliminate traditional authority and influence from its exegesis. Traditionalism was largely pagan. It had held sway for centuries, and is yet regnant in many ways. All past exegesis needs retrial in the fires of a devout criticism. That criticism must introduce Christ’s norm,—“By their fruits ye shall know them.” Pour exegetical and theological traditionalism into that crucible. Heat it in the fires of the best and most devout scholarship. Let brave hearts and careful hands take away the dross, fearless as to consequences. The Bible and Protestantism are both on trial in the closing years of the nineteenth century. There need be no fear as to final results if Protestants are true and firm. If they are not, the closing years of the twentieth century will sit in sackcloth at the open grave of a Christianity which began the elimination of paganism well, but had not the bravery, and therefore the strength, to finish the work.

(3) Concerning Baptism.

The paramount question touching the residuum which came in from pagan water-worship does not lie primarily in the mode of baptism; although historically, logically, and symbolically there were no modes of baptism until they were brought in by paganism. Paganism immersed, affused, sprinkled. It immersed once, or three times. In the use of holy water it sprinkled repeatedly and indefinitely. According to the New Testament, baptism is submersion, as the symbol of death to sin and resurrection to righteousness. All beyond that was pagan-born.

The central point of the evil which came from pagan water-worship is found in “baptismal regeneration”; i.e., the idea that by virtue of the power and sacredness of water spiritual purity is produced, and the candidate is fitted for membership in the Church, and for heaven. In so far as this idea remains, paganism remains. The most prominent examples of this residuum which now survive are found in the use of “holy water,” in the theory that an unconscious infant to which water has been applied as a religious ceremony, is thereby made a member of the organic church, and its future salvation thus assured; in the idea, still held by some, that “regeneration” takes place only in connection with immersion; and in the general idea that baptism is a “saving ordinance.”

(4) Sabbathism.

The Sabbath question is not merely “one of days.” The fundamental conception centres around the fact that God must come to men in sacred time. Eternity is an attribute of God, and the measured portion we call “time” is the point where God and man come together as Creator and created. It is here that we “live in Him.” Scriptural and extra-scriptural history show that man has always felt the need of communion with God, through sacred time, and that God has always sought to meet this want. Physical rest is not the primary idea of the Sabbath. It is only a means to higher ends, namely, communion with God, religious culture, and spiritual development. But since time is also the essence of human existence, so far as activities and duties are concerned, and since the use men make of time determines the character of each human life, specific sacred time which shall represent God, and draw men to Him, becomes an essential part of God’s moral and religious government for man. The Sabbath finds its origin in God’s desire and purpose to aid and culture men in holiness, and in man’s need of God, and spiritual communion. Incidentally, and subordinately, the Sabbath is also a physical blessing to man. But its primal, central thought is religious, and the physical good depends largely on the motive for resting. The Fourth Commandment embodies these deeper principles, and is God’s law concerning the Sabbath. The authority of the law is found in the reasons and necessities which lie back of it.

The Jews had never attained, or had lost sight of this higher law of the Sabbath, and had reduced its observance to unmeaning formalities and useless burdens. Christ brushed all these away, and glorified and established the Sabbath, enlarging and making it a blessing instead of a bondage. He taught His followers how to consider and observe it, by His example and His words.

Paganism, filled with anti-Jewish prejudices against the authority of the Old Testament, gave no heed to Christ’s teachings concerning the Sabbath, but proclaimed that it was a “Jewish institution with which Christians had nothing to do.” Borne on the waves of this false theory, Sunday, and its associate pagan days, gradually drove the Sabbath out. The Sunday of the Dark Ages, and the “Continental Sunday” of to-day, are the necessary results. So far as paganized Christianity could do it, sabbathism was slain and buried. A remnant, the denominational progenitors of the present Seventh-day Baptists, refused to accept the pagan theory, and remained true to the Sabbath through all the changes, from the Apostles to the English Reformation. They were not always organized, but they kept the light burning. In that Reformation the Seventh-day Baptists came to the front, demanding a recognition of the authority of the Fourth Commandment, and a return to the observance of the Sabbath. Opposed to them, Roman Catholics and Episcopalians continued to assert that the customs and traditions of the Church formed the highest authority in the matter of Sabbath keeping. Between these two the Puritan party sought a compromise, and invented the theory (first propounded by Nicholas Bownde, in 1595 A.D.) that the commandment, being yet binding, might be transferred to the Sunday. This Puritan compromise has been tested, its fictitious sacredness has gone, and much in the present state of the Sunday question is the fruitage of that baseless compromise.

Sunday legislation, which, as we have seen in a former chapter, was pagan in conception and form, has continued, being made a prominent feature of the Puritan theory. At the present writing (1892) strenuous efforts are being made in the United States to save the failing fortunes of Sunday by a revival of Sunday laws. If, by any combination of efforts, this can be done, no permanent good will ensue. The verdict of history and the genius of Christ’s kingdom combine to declare that men cannot be made good by act of Parliament, nor be induced to keep any day sacred by the civil law. If the “rest day” alone be exalted, the result is holidayism, rather than Sabbath keeping. If the enforcement of the Sunday laws is pressed it will result in their repeal.

The only alternative is a return to the observance of the Sabbath, the Seventh day, under the law of obedient love, such love as Christ had for the will of His Father; or to go down with the tide of No-Sabbathism, which, checked temporarily by the Puritan compromise, is now rushing on more wildly than before. The issue is at hand, Christian Sabbathism and the Sabbath, or Pagan holidayism and the Sunday. Culminating events demand that choice, and in the ultimate, universal Sabbathism.

(5) Christianity and the State.

Certain superficial investigators have claimed that the union of Christianity with the civil power was the outgrowth of the Hebrew theocratic idea. The claim is groundless. The theocracy was a State within the Church. The pagan theory, applied to Christianity under Constantine and his successors, gave a Church dominated by the State, and regulated, as to polity and faith, by civil law.

History has written some plain and pertinent verdicts concerning the relations which ought to exist between Christianity and the civil power. Every verdict emphasizes the truth of Christ’s words: “My kingdom is not of this world.” The relations between Christianity and the civil power which began under Constantine have worked incalculable harm to Christianity as a spiritual religion. Its political triumph was a most disastrous defeat which became a large factor in producing the subsequent centuries of decline and darkness. Better conceptions of civil government, and increasing civilization have improved the status of State Churches since the Reformation; but spiritual Christianity everywhere and always, is calling for “disestablishment.” It is a singular fact that in the United States, where there has been the nearest approach to religious liberty, we are confronted with two phases of religio-civil legislation which are now coalescing, and which, however well meant, partake more of the spirit of the ninth century than of the nineteenth, or of the New Testament. These movements are “National Reform,” which seeks to Christianize the nation by putting Christ’s name into the National Constitution; and the now popular Sunday-law movement. There are several points aimed at by the National Reform Association, such as divorce, gambling, etc., which are within the province of the civil law; but its primary aim, to secure legislation on all points covered by the Ten Commandments, is fundamentally pagan in concept and intent. The good men who are pressing the movement think that their theory of government is the true one, and that great good would come if it were adopted. But the verdict of every century since the pagan conception was introduced into Christianity, forbids belief in their scheme as a means of Christianizing the nation.

As to Sunday legislation we have seen that its origin was absolutely pagan, and that it has been destructive of true Sabbathism at all times. If the highest hopes of the present agitators could be realized; if the civil law should compel all citizens of the United States to rest on Sunday, every year of such a system would sink the people deeper into the slough of No-Sabbathism. The “Continental Sunday” is the product of a No-Sabbath theology, and civil Sunday-laws. The Sunday-law advocates seek the supremacy of an unscriptural Sabbathism, linked with Sunday by civil law. This has been fully tried, at a time when men had far more regard for Sunday as a sacred day than they have now. But with all things in its favor, the strength of youth, and the honest ignorance of the masses concerning its true character, the “Puritan Sunday” has returned to its original holidayism, in spite of Church and State combined. It could not do less, even if a fortuitous combination of influences should exalt it temporarily again. Religion and conscience are entitled to the protection of the civil law, without regard to creed or numbers. If immorality is practised in the name of religion, it may be suppressed as immorality. Beyond such protection the State may not go.

Last Words.

Whatever prepossessions or conceptions the reader may have brought to the perusal of these pages, he cannot finish them without seeing that much which has come down to us as “Christianity” is so tinctured with paganism that it does not fairly represent what Christ taught. The purity of the earliest Christianity was the source of its wondrous conquering power. After it was paganized, and united with the State, it continued to conquer, but by the sword rather than by the spirit of God. It is clear proof of the divine character of Christianity, that it was not wholly destroyed by its contact with paganism. It is surpassing proof of that same divine origin, that it could rise from the grave of the Dark Ages, with such vigor as produced the Reformation, and has carried that work to the point already gained. But in the crises that await it, in the solving of the problems which confront it, Protestant Christianity must realize that its specific mission is to complete the work of eliminating the pagan residuum, a work well begun by the Reformers, but which must be carried on to higher victories, or sink back to lower defeats. When the last stain of paganism is removed, the world will see a Christianity which will be primarily a life of purity, through love for God and truth and men, rather than a creed, embodying speculations about the unknowable and abstractions concerning the unsolvable. In such a Christianity, the Bible plainly interpreted, without allegory or assumption, and in the light of its own history, will hold the first place. The Sabbath, as God’s day, free from burdensome formalism, and filled with good works and spiritual culture, will be restored; and this recognition of it as God’s ever-recurring representative in human life will do much to bring in that universal Sabbathism towards which God is patiently leading his truth-loving children. The pagan Sunday, with its false claims, will be a thing of the past. Baptism as the symbol of entrance to Christ’s kingdom, through spiritual life and faith in Him, will be no longer the foot-ball of polemic strife, nor the many-formed image of pagan water-worship, nor the creator of a false standard of Church membership through “baptismal regeneration.” In that better day, the civil law will give all religion full protection and full freedom, without regard to majorities or creeds. It will neither oppose by persecution, nor control under the name of protection. The persecution of Jews in Russia, and useless efforts to make the world holy by act of Parliament, will pass away. To hasten that time, be it far or near, these pages go forth; and he who writes them will be thankful if they bear some part in freeing our holy religion from the poison of pagan residuum, and in giving that higher spiritual life, to the attainment of which all forms, ceremonies, times, and agencies ought to bring Christ-loving men.

[1] It was the next day.