Part II

The Fourth Kingdom and the "Little Horn"

It was the fourth great monarchy, Imperial Rome, and the events to

follow it, that engaged the anxious inquiry of the prophet. He says:

"Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from

all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his

nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue

with his feet; and of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the

other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that

had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more

stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the

saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of days came, and

judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came

that the saints possessed the kingdom."

The prophet wanted to know the truth about it; and the angel told him

the truth. First, the angel said:

"The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be

diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall

tread it down, and break it in pieces."

The fourth kingdom, as we have seen, was Rome. As Cardinal Manning said

of the empire, "It was 'exceeding terrible,' according to the prophecies

of Daniel; it was as it were of iron, breaking down and subduing the

nations."

Of the ten horns that arose out of this fourth great empire, the angel

said:

"The ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and

another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first,

and he shall subdue three kings."

We look to the history of the Roman Empire, and what do we see?--Just

the picture of the prophecy. We see the original Roman Empire of the

West divided into lesser kingdoms. We see the barbarian peoples of the

North sweeping down upon the empire, breaking it up, and establishing

within its boundaries the various kingdoms that are to this day

represented by the kingdoms of western Europe.

And as we watch the history at this point, we surely see "another little

horn," another land of power, rising among the horns representing the

kingdoms of divided Rome--a kingdom, yet a kingdom "diverse" from the

others. The work of this power riveted the attention of the prophet; and

it is of the greatest importance that we also should watch closely to

catch the lesson of the divine prophecy.

Prophetic and Historic Pictures of the "Little Horn"

This is plainly the picture presented by the prophet, as we look again,

observing details more closely.

The prophet beheld the division of the Roman Empire into lesser

kingdoms. Then, springing up among these kingdoms, he saw the

little-horn power subduing three of the ten kingdoms, speaking great

words, and making war with the saints of God. It was to be a religious

power, then, ruling among the kings of the earth, and asserting

religious dominion over the faith and consciences of men. "The same horn

made war with the saints, and prevailed against them."

[Illustration: THE INVASION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE BY THE HUNS

"We see the barbarian peoples of the North sweeping down upon the

empire, breaking it up, and establishing within its boundaries the

various kingdoms that are to this day represented by the kingdoms of

Western Europe."--_Page 127._]

We look to history, and this is what plainly appears:

We see, as described in the prophecy, a time when ten contemporaneous

kingdoms filled the territory of the original Western Empire. Just there

we see an ecclesiastical kingly power rise to religious supremacy--the

Roman Papacy. We see, through its influence, three of the ten kingdoms

overthrown, "plucked up by the roots"--three Arian or heretical

kingdoms. And as we watch the history, we find this power making "war

with the saints" and prevailing against them through long ages.

A Roman Catholic writer describes it in a paragraph:

"Long ages ago, when Rome through the neglect of the Western

emperors was left to the mercy of the barbarous hordes, the

Romans turned to one figure for aid and protection, and asked

him to rule them; and thus, in this simple manner, the best

title of all to kingly right, commenced the temporal

sovereignty of the popes. And meekly stepping to the throne of

Cæsar, the vicar of Christ took up the scepter to which the

emperors and kings of Europe were to bow in reverence through

so many ages."--_Rev. James P. Conroy, in American Catholic

Quarterly Review, April, 1911._

Yet again we look at the picture presented in prophecy. Then we turn to

history; and precisely where and when the prophet saw the "little horn"

coming up, we see the Roman Papacy rising to supremacy. We see this

ecclesiastical power wielding a kingly scepter among the kingdoms of

divided Rome, exalting itself above them, with a look "more stout than

his fellows." We hear it speaking great words, and we see it carrying on

warfare against the saints.

Clearly, there was no other power in history, rising at that time and in

that place, which suggests the slightest correspondence to the prophecy.

In every detail the Roman Papacy does correspond to it.

The prophetic outline has brought us to the rise of the great apostasy,

so fully dealt with in the New Testament prophecy; but there are further

specifications in this prophecy of the seventh of Daniel which demand

brief study.

[Illustration: RAISING THE SIEGE OF ROME, A.D. 538

The crushing defeat of the Goths by the armies of Justinian, who placed

Vigilius in the papal chair under the military protection of his famous

general, Belisarius.]

[Illustration: ST. PETER'S AND THE VATICAN

The magnificent headquarters of the papal system.]

THE 1260 YEARS OF DANIEL'S PROPHECY

Compressed into forty-four words, the age-long story of the workings of

the Roman Papacy is thus told by the angel who interpreted Daniel's

vision of the little horn:

"He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out

the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and

they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the

dividing of time." Dan. 7:25.

The spirit of this apostasy was abroad in apostolic days. "The mystery

of iniquity doth already work," said the apostle Paul. 2 Thess. 2:7. And

this power is to continue to work until the end, when it will be

destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming. Verse 8.

A Prophetic Period

But according to the word of the angel to Daniel, there was to be a

period during which, in a special sense, the Papacy was to hold

supremacy over the saints and the times and the laws of the Most High.

"They shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the

dividing of time." In the Scriptures the word "time," used in this

manner, means a year: "at the end of times, even years." Dan. 11:13,

margin. Therefore a time (one year) and times (two years) and the

dividing of time (half a year) means three years and a half. The same

period is mentioned twice in the twelfth chapter of Revelation, once

(verse 14) as "a time, and times, and half a time," and again (verse 6)

as "a thousand two hundred and threescore days."

[Illustration]

But in the symbolic representations of time in prophecy, a day stands

for a year (see Eze. 4:5, 6, and other scriptures). Thus the prophecy

foretold a long period of 1260 years during which papal supremacy would

continue.

Now we may ask, When was this supremacy to begin? what would mark the

rise of the Papacy to acknowledged supremacy? and what events mark the

ending of the 1260 years?

A Pivotal Point in History

The answer of history to the voice of prophecy is clear.

The sixth century was a pivotal period in the history of the world. The

bishops of Rome had been asserting the claims of that seat (or "see")

above all others. Justinian was emperor of the East. Of Justinian and

his time Bury says:

"He may be likened to a colossal Janus bestriding the way of

passage between the ancient and medieval worlds.... His

military achievements decided the course of the history of

Italy, and affected the development of Western Europe;... and

his ecclesiastical authority influenced the distant future of

Christendom."--_"History of the Later Roman Empire," Vol. I,

pp. 351-353._

Of this turning point in the world's history, Finlay says:

"The changes of centuries passed in rapid succession before the

eyes of one generation."--_"Greece under the Romans," p. 231._

Just here we find the Papacy lifted definitely into acknowledged

supremacy. Imperial Rome had already left its ancient seat to the

Papacy, the imperial throne being no longer maintained at Rome. The

Bishop of Rome was left the chief figure in the ancient seat of the

Cæsars. The prophecy of Rev. 13:2 had said of the relation of the old

imperial power to the Papacy, "The dragon gave him his power, and his

seat, and great authority." The seat was given, and now imperial Rome

was to give to papal Rome the definite recognition of its supreme power

and "great authority."

Papal Supremacy Officially Recognized

In A.D. 533 the emperor Justinian promulgated a letter, having

the force of an imperial decree, recognizing the absolute headship of

the Bishop of Rome over the churches. It declared:

"We have been sedulous to subject and unite all the priests of

the Orient throughout its whole extent to the see of Your

Holiness.... For we do not suffer that anything which is

mooted, however clear and unquestionable, pertaining to the

state of the churches, should fail to be made known to Your

Holiness, as being the head of all the churches. For, as we

have said before, we are zealous for the increase of the honor

and authority of your see in all respects."--_Cod. Justin.,

lib. 1, title 1, Baronii "Annales Ecclesiastici," Tom. VII, an.

533, sec. 12 (Translation as given in "The Petrine Claims," by

R.F. Littledale, p. 293)._

From this decree (for such it really was) the Roman authorities date the

official recognition of the supremacy of the Papacy. Some have taken a

later decree by Emperor Phocas (A.D. 606) as a starting point.

But Dr. Croly says:

"The highest authorities among the civilians and annalists of

Rome spurn the idea that Phocas was the founder of the

supremacy of Rome; they ascend to Justinian as the only

legitimate source, and rightly date the title from the

memorable year 533."--_"The Apocalypse of St. John," pp. 172,

173._

The Sword of Empire Cleaves the Way

The "great authority" had been recognized. But at this time heretical

Arian powers compassed the papal seat about. The Arian Vandals were

persecuting Catholics in Africa, Corsica, and Sardinia, and an Arian

Gothic king ruled Italy from Ravenna, his capital. The imperial arms,

however, were at the service of orthodoxy. In 533-534 Justinian's

famous general, Belisarius, uprooted the Vandals. The war for the faith

and the empire was carried into Italy also, against the Arian Goths. In

536 Belisarius, unopposed, entered Rome at the invitation of the Pope.

But the next year the Goths rallied all their forces to retake the city.

It was a crisis in the struggle for Italy. "If a single post had given

way," says Gibbon, "the Romans, and Rome itself, were irrecoverably

lost." The Goths withdrew, defeated, in 538; and this defeat, says

Hodgkin, dug "the grave of the Gothic monarchy in Italy."

[Illustration: THE POPE ENTERING ST. PETER'S FROM THE VATICAN

The famous statue of St. Peter may be seen on the right.]

Though the conflict went on for years before the Goths were rooted up,

this defeat of 538 was a crucial hour in their history. Finlay says:

"With the conquest of Rome by Belisarius, the history of the

ancient city may be considered as terminating; and with his

defense against Witiges [538] commences the history of the

Middle Ages."--_"Greece under the Romans," p 295._

Roughly speaking, the Middle Ages and the age of papal supremacy and

power were the same.

A New Order of Popes

[Illustration: THE VATICAN

A bird's-eye view from the dome of St. Peter's. COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD &

UNDERWOOD, N.Y.]

Not only was there this telling stroke by the imperial sword in 538,

helping to clear the way before the Papacy, but at this same time the

first of a new order of popes was placed upon the papal throne by the

imperial arms. Pope Silverius, accused of sympathy with the Goths, was

deposed by Belisarius in 537. The emperor intervened, and the question

of the validity of his deposition was held up by the emperor until 538.

In that year, as Schaff says:

"Vigilius, a pliant creature of Theodora, ascended the papal

chair under the military protection of Belisarius

(538-554)."--_"History of the Christian Church," Vol. III, p.

327._

[Illustration: THE FAMOUS SACRED STAIRWAY IN ROME

Here Luther, climbing the stairway on his knees, heard the message, "The

just shall live by faith."]

With him begins a new order. Though personally he was humiliated by the

emperor's demands, and the Papacy itself was brought into a state of

subjection that it had not known even under heretical Gothic kings, yet

this very arbitrary use of the papal prerogative by Justinian,

strengthened the idea that the Pope of Rome was the supreme authority

in religion, to speak for the universal church. In Bemont and Monod's

textbook on "Medieval Europe," page 120, we read:

"Down to the sixth century all popes are declared saints in the

martyrologies. Vigilius (537[E]-555) is the first of a series

of popes who no longer bear this title, which is henceforth

sparingly conferred. From this time on the popes, more and more

involved in worldly events, no longer belong solely to the

church; they are men of the state, and then rulers of the

state."

A Persecuting Power

Following Vigilius came Pelagius I (556-560), who ascended the throne by

"the military aid of Narses," then the imperial general in Italy. And

Pelagius, who had been set in the papal see by imperial power, began to

demand that the sword of the empire should be used against bishops or

members in the church who did not give way to the authority of the Pope.

His letters on this subject "are an unqualified defense of the

principles of persecution." (See "Dictionary of Christian Biography," by

Smith and Wace, art. "Pope Pelagius.")

The prophecy declared that the Papacy would be given special supremacy

during a period of 1260 years.

In A.D. 533 came the memorable imperial declaration recognizing

that supremacy, and in A.D. 538 came the stroke with the sword

of Rome, cleaving the way; and there began the new order of popes--"men

of the state, and then rulers of the state."

Thus decisive events clearly mark the beginning of the prophetic period

of the 1260 years. And just 1260 years from the decree of 533, in

recognition of the papal supremacy, came a decree, in 1793, aimed

against that supremacy; and just 1260 years from that stroke with the

sword at Rome in behalf of the Papacy, came a stroke with the sword at

Rome against the Papacy.

[Illustration: STORMING OF THE BASTILLE PRISON IN PARIS

An event in the French Revolution which marked the ending of the old

autocratic order.]

FOOTNOTES:

[E] The exact date should be 538, as given in the quotation from

Schaff's history. "From the death of Silverius [June, 538] the Roman

Catholic writers date the episcopacy of Vigilius."--_Bower, "History of

the Popes," under year 538._

[Illustration: TAKING THE POPE PRISONER

This was accomplished by Berthier, the French general, in 1798.]

THE DAWN OF A NEW ERA

THE END OF THE 1260 YEARS

As the generation in which the papal power rose to supremacy was a

turning-point in the history of the world, so, too, was the generation

in which the 1260 years of its supremacy came to an end.

This measuring line of prophecy does more than run from date to date. It

connects two great crises in human history, the events of the first

tending to establish the papal rule over men, the events of the second

signalizing a breaking of those bands.

A Crisis in History

Papal supremacy came at that time of which Finlay says, "The changes of

centuries passed in rapid succession before the eyes of one generation."

The measuring line of 1260 years runs on through the centuries till, lo,

its end touches another time of crisis,--Europe in the convulsions of

the French Revolution, when again changes, ordinarily requiring

centuries, were wrought out before the eyes of men within the space of a

few years. Lamartine wrote of that time:

"These five years are five centuries for France."--_"History of

the Girondists," book 61, sec. 16 (Vol. III), p. 544._

And the events of these times proclaimed the prophetic period of papal

supremacy ended at last.

Thus, in A.D. 533 came the notable decree of the Papacy's

powerful supporter, recognizing its supremacy; and then the decisive

stroke by the sword at Rome in A.D. 538, cleaving the way for

the new order of popes--the rulers of state.

Exactly 1260 years later, in 1793, came the notable decree of the

Papacy's once powerful supporter, France,--"the eldest son of the

church,"--aiming to abolish church and religion, followed by a decisive

stroke with the sword at Rome against the Papacy, in 1798.

Significant Events of the French Revolution

Of the decree of 1793, W.H. Hutton says:--

"On Nov. 26, 1793, the Convention, of which seventeen bishops

and some clergy were members, decreed the abolition of all

religion."--_"Age of Revolution," p. 156._

The frenzy of the days of the Terror presented the spectacle of outraged

humanity, goaded to desperation by centuries of oppression in the name

of religion and divine right, rising up and madly breaking every

restraint. Because in the minds of the people the Papacy stood for

religion, they blindly struck at religion itself, and at God, in whose

name the papal church had done its cruel work through the centuries.

In the prophecy of Rev. 11:3-13 these events of the wild days of the

French Revolution are specifically referred to as coming at the close of

the prophetic period of the 1260 years. The prophetic picture was so

clear that over a hundred years before the time, Jurieu, an eminent

French student of prophecy, wrote that he could "not doubt that 'tis

France," the chief supporter of the Papacy, that would give the shock

as of an earthquake to the great spiritual Babylonian city. He wrote of

France, one of the ten parts of divided Rome:

"This tenth part of the city shall fall, with respect to the

Papacy; it shall break with Rome, and the Roman

religion."--_"The Accomplishment of the Prophecies" (London,

1687), part 2, p. 265._

And so it came to pass. Far beyond France the movement reached. Canon

Trevor says of the wave of revolt against absolutism that passed over

Europe:

"It is worthy of observation that only those nations which

eschewed popery were able to resist the tide. Every throne and

every church, without exception, that owned the supremacy of

Rome, was prostrated in the dust."--_"Rome and Its Papal

Rulers," p. 436._

The decree of the French Convention in 1793 was followed by the stroke

with the sword at Rome in 1798. The full history is told in fewest words

by a Roman Catholic writer, Rev. Joseph Rickaby, of the Jesuit Society:

"When, in 1797, Pope Pius VI fell grievously ill, Napoleon gave

orders that in the event of his death no successor should be

elected to his office, and that the Papacy should be

discontinued.

"But the Pope recovered. The peace was soon broken; Berthier

entered Rome on the tenth of February, 1798, and proclaimed a

republic. The aged pontiff refused to violate his oath by

recognizing it, and was hurried from prison to prison in

France. Broken with fatigue and sorrows, he died on the

nineteenth of August, 1799, in the French fortress of Valence,

aged eighty-two years. No wonder that half Europe thought

Napoleon's veto would be obeyed, and that with the Pope the

Papacy was dead."--_"The Modern Papacy," p. 1 (Catholic Truth

Society, London)._

These events of the French Revolution marked the ending of the prophetic

period of papal supremacy. A "deadly wound" had been given the Papacy.

And the blow with the sword at Rome was struck in 1798, just 1260 years

from the year 538, when the sword of empire struck that decisive blow

against the Goths at Rome, and prepared the way for the new order of

popes, the kingly rulers of church and state.

Of the condition of the Papacy at this time Canon Trevor says:

"The Papacy was extinct: not a vestige of its existence

remained; and among all the Roman Catholic powers not a finger

was stirred in its defense. The Eternal City had no longer

prince or pontiff; its bishop was a dying captive in foreign

lands; and the decree was already announced that no successor

would be allowed in his place."--_"Rome and Its Papal Rulers,"

p. 440._

"No wonder that half Europe," the Jesuit writer says, "thought

Napoleon's veto would be obeyed, and that with the Pope the Papacy was

dead." But he adds that "since then the Papacy has been lifted to a

pinnacle of spiritual power" unreached before.

The stroke dealt the Papacy by the French Revolution was not to be the

ending of it, by any means, according to the prophecy. These events

proclaimed the ending of the prophetic period of special supremacy.

Another prophecy distinctly indicates that following the deadly blow

there would come a revival of the Papacy's influence, just as the

Catholic writer describes it. The prophet John, speaking of this same

power, says:

"I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly

wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.... And

they worshiped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is

able to make war with him?" Rev. 13:3, 4.

We see the healing process still going on, with evidences multiplying

that the world is more and more wondering after the papal power.

A New Era of Liberty and Enlightenment

With the ending of the 1260 years of papal supremacy, a new order was

ushered in. The Papacy had stood for absolutism in state as well as

church. Now the power of absolutism was broken. "Absolute monarchy,"

Edmund Burke said at the time, "breathed its last without a struggle."

There came the dawn of an era of greater religious liberty and

enlightenment, that has spread blessings over all lands.

The prophecy had said of the Papacy, that the saints and the times and

laws of the Most High were to be "given into his hand" for 1260 years.

As foretold in Christ's prophecy (Matt. 24:22), these days of the

tribulation of God's saints were "shortened." The power of the

Reformation weakened the oppressing hand, even before the prophetic

period ran out. And when the full 1260 years closed, the world saw the

grip of that papal hand yet further loosened, and God's providence at

work preparing the way for a world-wide proclamation of His gospel,

bearing witness against the perversions of the papal apostasy, and

restoring to men the Word and laws of the Most High.

The record of history witnesses that this time prophecy of the 1260

years of papal supremacy was exactly fulfilled. The Lord speaks in

prophecy that men may know that He is the living God. In these time

prophecies of His Word, He gives assurance not only that this troubled

world has not escaped from the hand of its Maker, but that its times are

in His hand also; and that when the time of His divine purpose fully

comes, He will surely cut His work short in righteousness, and end the

reign of sin on earth.

As the prophetic period of Dan. 7:25 meets its fulfilment in the history

of the Papacy, even so, we shall see, the work of the Roman Church

answers to the further specifications regarding the doings of this

"little horn" of Daniel's prophecy.

[Illustration: THE TRIPLE CROWN

The Pope's Tiara, from a photograph taken in the Vatican at Rome.]

[Illustration: HUGUENOTS IN PRISON FOR THEIR FAITH

"Others had trial ... of bonds and imprisonment." Heb. 11:36.]

THE WORK OF THE "LITTLE HORN" POWER

The prophetic picture of the rise and work of the "little horn" finds

its exact counterpart in the history of the Roman Papacy:

_The Place._--The little horn was seen by the prophet rising in the

field of the Roman Empire. That was the very place where the great

kingdom of the Papacy appeared, taking the name of Roman.

_The Time._--The rise of the ecclesiastical kingdom of the little-horn

power in the prophecy followed the breaking up of the Roman Empire into

the ten kingdoms. Just so the ecclesiastical kingdom of the Roman Papacy

rises to view in history immediately following the division of the

empire.

_The Period of Supremacy._--The prophecy allotted 1260 years to the full

supremacy of this power. History responds that from the beginning of the

papal supremacy, in the days of Justinian, a period of 1260 years brings

us into the stirring events of the last decade of the eighteenth

century, that gave to the Papacy a deadly wound.

[Illustration: THE LOVE OF POWER

"He shall speak great words against the Most High." Dan. 7:25.

THE POWER OF LOVE]

One further set of specifications remains for study:

_The Work._--Of the nature and work of the power represented by the

little horn, the prophecy declares:

"He shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out

the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and

they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the

dividing of time." Dan. 7:25.

Do we find in the record that the Church of Rome has fulfilled these

specifications also? The Scripture prophecy is absolutely a

word-photograph of the workings of the papal church. Look at the main

features:

1. Speaking great words against the Most High.

2. Wearing out the saints of the Most High.

3. Thinking to change the times and the laws of the Most High.

Every count in the indictment may be clearly proved, and that by

testimony from Roman Catholic sources

"He Shall Speak Great Words Against the Most High"

As Daniel observed the little-horn power, he heard it speaking "very

great things." The angel declared that these great swelling words were

really against the Most High. And what could be more against the honor

of the Most High than that to mortal man should be ascribed the titles

and attributes of divinity? Here are some of the "great words:"

"All the names which are attributed to Christ in Scripture,

implying His supremacy over the church, are also attributed to

the Pope."--_Bellarmine, "On the Authority of Councils," book

2, chap. 17._

This ruling has been actually applied through the ages. Says Elliott:

"Look at the Sicilian ambassadors prostrated before him [Pope

Martin IV] with the cry, 'Lamb of God! that takest away the

sins of the world!'"--_"Horæ Apocalypticæ," part 4, chap. 5,

sec. 2._

[Illustration: CHRISTIANS IN PRISON BENEATH THE COLOSSEUM AWAITING

MARTYRDOM

"And shall wear out the saints of the Most High." Dan. 7:25.]

"The Pope is of so great dignity and excellence, that he is not

merely man, but as if God, and the vicar of God (_non sit

simplex homo, sed quasi Deus, et Dei vicarius_). The Pope alone

is called most holy,... divine monarch, and supreme emperor,

and king of kings.... The Pope is of so great dignity and power

that he constitutes one and the same tribunal with Christ

(_faciat unum et idem tribunal cum Christo_), so that

whatsoever the Pope does seems to proceed from the mouth of God

(_abore Dei_)."--_"Prompta Bibliotheca" (Ferraris), art.

"Papa;" Ferraris's Ecclesiastical Dictionary (Roman Catholic),

art. "The Pope." Quoted in Guinness's "Romanism and the

Reformation," p. 16._

These are no merely extravagant adulations of the Dark Ages, to be

repudiated by the moderns; these terms express the unchanging doctrinal

claims of the Roman Church, that put man in the place of God. The modern

Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical letter dated June 20, 1894, repeated the

claim:

"We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty."--_"The

Great Encyclical Letters of Leo XIII" (New York, Benziger

Brothers), p. 304._

Thus does the Papacy "speak great words against the Most High."

"And Shall Wear Out the Saints of the Most High"

All through the Dark Ages we catch glimpses of the ruthless hand of Rome

laid upon simple believers in God's Holy Word; but plans for wholesale

wearing out of the saints of God were devised as the Waldenses and

others rose to a widespread work of witnessing, heralds of the dawn of

the coming Reformation,--

"These who gave earliest notice,

As the lark

Springs from the ground the morn to gratulate;

Who, rather, rose the day to antedate,

By striking out a solitary spark,

When all the world with midnight gloom was dark--

The harbingers of good whom bitter hate

In vain endeavored to exterminate."

--_Wordsworth._

Pope Innocent III gave orders concerning them as follows:

"Therefore by this present apostolical writing, we give you a

strict command that, by whatever means you can, you destroy all

these heresies and expel from your diocese all who are polluted

with them. You shall exercise the rigor of ecclesiastical power

against them and all those who have made themselves suspected

by associating with them. They may not appeal from your

judgments, and, if necessary, you may cause the princes and

people to suppress them with the sword."--_Quoted from Migne,

214, col. 71, in Thatcher and McNeal's "Source Book for

Medieval History," p. 210._

As the truth spread, so also the papal church redoubled its efforts by

sword and flame. The historian Lecky says:

"That the Church of Rome has shed more innocent blood than any

other institution that has ever existed among mankind, will be

questioned by no Protestant who has a competent knowledge of

history. The memorials, indeed, of many of her persecutions are

now so scanty that it is impossible to form a complete

conception of the multitude of her victims, and it is quite

certain that no powers of imagination can adequately realize

their sufferings."--_"History of the Rise and Influence of the

Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," Vol. II, p. 32._

Motley, in his "Rise of the Dutch Republic" (part 3, chap. 2), tells how

Philip II of Spain--who declared that he would "never consent to be the

sovereign of heretics"--sent the Duke of Alva to take over the

Netherlands:

"Early in the year the most sublime sentence of death was

promulgated which has ever been pronounced since the creation

of the world. The Roman tyrant [Nero] wished that his enemies'

heads were all upon a single neck, that he might strike them

off at a blow; the Inquisition assisted Philip to place the

heads of all his Netherlands subjects upon a single neck for

the same fell purpose. Upon February 16, 1568, a sentence of

the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the

Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only

a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation

of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the

Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant

execution, without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is

probably the most concise death warrant that was ever framed.

Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were

sentenced to the scaffold in three lines."

Roman Catholic writers admit that the papal church has sought to

exterminate what it calls heresy, by the power of the sword.

The _Western Watchman_ (St. Louis), Dec. 24, 1908, says:

"The church has persecuted.... Protestants were persecuted in

France and Spain with the full approval of the church

authorities. We have always defended the persecution of the

Huguenots, and the Spanish Inquisition. Wherever and whenever

there is honest Catholicity, there will be a clear distinction

drawn between truth and error, and Catholicity and all forms of

error. When she thinks it good to use physical force, she will

use it."

Prof. Alfred Baudrillart, rector of the Catholic Institute of Paris,

says:

"The Catholic Church is a respecter of conscience and of

liberty.... She has, and she loudly proclaims that she has, a

'horror of blood.' Nevertheless, when confronted by heresy, she

does not content herself with persuasion; arguments of an

intellectual and moral order appear to her insufficient, and

she has recourse to force, to corporal punishment, to torture.

She creates tribunals like those of the Inquisition, she calls

the laws of the state to her aid, if necessary she encourages a

crusade, or a religious war, and all her 'horror of blood'

practically culminates into urging the secular power to shed

it, which proceeding is almost more odious--for it is less

frank--than shedding it herself. Especially did she act thus in

the sixteenth century with regard to Protestants. Not content

to reform morally, to preach by example, to convert people by

eloquent and holy missionaries, she lit in Italy, in the Low

Countries, and above all in Spain, the funeral piles of the

Inquisition. In France under Francis I and Henry II, in England

under Mary Tudor, she tortured the heretics, whilst both in

France and Germany during the second half of the sixteenth and

the first half of the seventeenth century if she did not

actually begin, at any rate she encouraged and actively aided,

the religious wars."--_"The Catholic Church, the Renaissance

and Protestantism" (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.,

Ltd., 1908), pp. 182, 183._

She has done it--the Church of Rome has worn out the saints of the Most

High. The prophet in vision saw an ecclesiastical kingly power rise

among the kingdoms of the divided Roman Empire. Its look was more stout

than its fellows, and the prophet heard it speaking "very great things,"

and saw it wearing out the saints of the Most High through the long

centuries.

[Illustration: THE SHAME OF RELIGIOUS WARS

Christ viewing the battle fields of history, where millions of His

followers have been slain in His name.]

"Guilty!" is the clear verdict of history, against the Church of Rome on

these two counts of the prophetic indictment.

"And Think to Change Times and Laws"

The power that was to speak great words against the Most High, and to

wear out the saints of the Most High, was further--in its self-exalting

opposition to God--to assume to lay hands upon times and laws, evidently

the times and the laws of the Most High; for to say that such a power

would lay hands on the laws of men, changing or setting aside human

legislation, would signify less than the preceding counts. This third

specification states a climax in the indictment--the self-exalting,

persecuting power was to lay hands upon the very law of the Most High.

It is clearly the same power that the apostle Paul said would rise to

dominion after his time: "Then shall be revealed the lawless one." 2

Thess. 2:8, A.R.V.

God's Law Unchangeable

Just as the laws of a government express its character, so the law of

God is a reflection of the divine character. "The law of the Lord is

perfect." Ps. 19:7. "Wherefore the law is holy," said the apostle, "and

the commandment holy, and just, and good." Rom. 7:12.

Jesus declared, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is

within My heart." Ps. 40:8. And He maintained the unchangeable, enduring

integrity of that law: "Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth

pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all

be fulfilled." Matt. 5:18.

But in Daniel's prophecy is foretold the rise of this power that was to

_think_ to change the times and the laws of the Most High.

Here, again, the evidence points straight to the Church of Rome; for it

is a fact that the Papacy has laid violent hands on the law of God--upon

the precept, too, that deals with sacred time--and has _thought_ to

change it.

In a volume to be seen in the British Museum, dated 1545, the following

comment on Dan. 7:25 is attributed to Philipp Melanchthon, the Reformer,

associate of Luther (reproduced with the old English spelling):

"He changeth the tymes and lawes that any of the sixe worke

dayes commanded of God will make them unholy and idle dayes

when he lyste, or of their owne holy dayes abolished make worke

dayes agen, or when they changed ye Saterday into Sondaye....

They have changed God's lawes and turned them into their owne

tradicions to be kept above God's precepts."--_"Exposition of

Daniel the Prophete," Gathered out of Philipp Melanchthon,

Johan Ecolampadius, etc., by George Joye, 1545, p. 119._

This is exactly what the power represented by the little horn was to

assume to do. The commandment of God is plain:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor,

and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy

God: in it thou shalt not do any work.... For in six days the Lord made

heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the

seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed

it." Ex. 20:8-11.

A Change in Practice

But in general practice there has been a change--the first day is

commonly observed instead of the seventh day, which the Lord declares he

blessed and made holy. The Roman Catholic Church points exultingly to

the fact that this change, so universally allowed today, has come about

solely through church tradition without Scriptural authority. For

instance, one Catholic writer says:

"You will tell me that Saturday was the _Jewish_ Sabbath, but

that the _Christian_ Sabbath has been changed to Sunday.

Changed! but by whom? Who has authority to change an express

commandment of Almighty God? When God has spoken and said,

Thou shalt keep holy the seventh day, who shall dare to say,

Nay, thou mayest work and do all manner of worldly business on

the seventh day; but thou shalt keep holy the first day in its

stead? This is a most important question, which I know not how

you can answer.

"You are a Protestant, and you profess to go by the Bible and

the Bible only; and yet in so important a matter as the

observance of one day in seven as a holy day, you go against

the plain letter of the Bible, and put another day in the place

of that day which the Bible has commanded. The command to keep

holy the seventh day is one of the ten commandments; you

believe that the other nine are still binding; who gave you

authority to tamper with the fourth? If you are consistent with

your own principles, if you really follow the Bible and the

Bible only, you ought to be able to produce some portion of the

New Testament in which this fourth commandment is expressly

altered."--_"Library of Christian Doctrine: Why Don't You Keep

the Holy Sabbath Day?" (Burns and Oates London), p. 3._

Every one who studies the question must recognize the fact that there is

no change authorized in Scripture. As Canon Eyton, of the Church of

England, says:

"There is no word, no hint, in the New Testament about

abstaining from work on Sunday.... Into the rest of Sunday no

divine law enters."--_"The Ten Commandments" (Trübner & Co.),

London._

Dr. Heylyn, of the Church of England, wrote:

"Take which you will, either the Fathers or the moderns, and we

shall find no Lord's day instituted by any apostolical mandate;

no Sabbath set on foot by them upon the first day of the

week."--_"History of the Sabbath," part 2, chap. 1._

Authorities, both Protestant and Catholic, freely acknowledge that there

is no divine authority for Sunday keeping. There has been a change in

practice and teaching, but with no Scriptural authority.

What the Papacy Claims

The prophecy of Daniel 7 forewarned all that the ecclesiastical power

that was to rise upon the division of the Roman Empire would _think_ to

change the times and the laws of the Most High. The Papacy steps forward

and claims boldly that the church has power to set aside Scripture, to

institute holy times, and even to change the day made holy and

commanded by the Almighty as the day of rest for His people.

In a Catholic work, "An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine," by Dr.

Henry Turberville, page 61, we read:

"_Question._--By whom was the change [of the Sabbath] made?

"_Answer._--By the rulers of the church, the apostles who kept

the Lord's day....

"_Ques._--How do you prove that the church hath power to

establish feasts and holy days?

"_Ans._--By the very fact of changing the Sabbath to Sunday;

this change Protestants allow; and therefore they contradict

themselves by keeping Sunday strictly and breaking most other

feasts commanded by the same church.

"_Ques._--How prove you that?

"_Ans._--Because by keeping Sunday they acknowledge the

church's power to ordain feasts and to command them under sin;

and by not keeping the rest commanded by her, they deny that

she has power."

It is the doctrine taught in the standard catechisms of the Roman

Church:

"_Question._--Have you any other way of proving that the church

has power to institute festivals of precept?

"_Answer._--Had she not such power, she could not have done

that in which all modern religionists agree with her,--she

could not have substituted the observance of Sunday the first

day of the week, for the observance of Saturday the seventh

day, a change for which there is no Scriptural

authority."--_Keenan's "Doctrinal Catechism," p. 174._

Thus the Papacy proclaims itself the power that has _thought_ to change

the precepts of the Most High.

On every count, the Roman Church is the counterpart of the little horn

of Daniel 7. Before our eyes--in the common practice of Christendom--the

commandment of God regarding sacred time is made void by the traditions

of men.

The prophecy indicated that there would come a call for a reformation in

this matter. Speaking of the warfare against the saints and the times

and laws of the Most High, to be waged by the little-horn power, the

angel said:

"They shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the

dividing of time." Dan. 7:25.

In other words, when the 1260 years should expire, we should expect,

according to the prophecy, to see a breaking of the Papacy's persecuting

power over believers, a spreading abroad of the Holy Scriptures, and a

work of reformation that would lift up the truths of God's Word, and

call believers to keep once again the holy time and the holy law of the

Most High.

The prophecy of Daniel 7 is one of God's special messages for all men in

these last days, picturing the rise and history of the Papacy, and

warning all against accepting its perversions of God's truth or

recognizing its attempted change in the law of the Most High. Thank God

for the "sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed,

as unto a light that shineth in a dark place." We are to follow the Lord

and obey him, not this power that has risen up in opposition to him.

The angel's interpretation in this chapter does not leave the apostasy

triumphant:

"The judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to

consume and to destroy it unto the end."

Then the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of the Most

High, "and all dominions shall serve and obey Him."

"O, how shall we stand that moment of searching,

When all our sins those books reveal?

When from that court, each case decided,

Shall be granted no appeal?"

[Illustration: CHRIST AND THE SCRIBES

"In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of

men." Matt. 15:9.]

[Illustration: CREATION

"In six days the Lord made heaven and earth,... and rested the seventh

day." Ex. 20:11.]

THE BIBLE SABBATH

"He answered and said, Every plant, which My heavenly Father hath not

planted, shall be rooted up." Matt. 15:13.

The scribes had come to Jesus with the complaint, "Why do Thy disciples

transgress the tradition of the elders?" Jesus answered them with

another question, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by

your tradition?"

They had thought that Christ was introducing novelties, preaching new

things, contrary to established church custom and practice. He showed

them that He really stood for the old and established things of God's

Word, and that their own religious customs, however old, were really the

novelties, without divine authority. He said,

"In vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of

men." And finally He added the words quoted above, "Every plant, which

My heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up."

Let the principles be applied to the question of Sabbath observance.

Sometimes in our day those who preach the word of God regarding the

abiding holiness of the seventh-day Sabbath are accused of preaching new

doctrines, contrary to the traditions and customs of the church. But

really, the observance of Sunday, the first day, is the innovation; the

seventh-day Sabbath is of ancient foundation.

Is the Seventh-day Sabbath a Plant of Our Heavenly Father's Planting?

Which of these two institutions has our heavenly Father planted? It is

possible to ascertain to a surety; for every plant of His planting,

every doctrine of His truth, will be found rooted in the Holy

Scriptures. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17.

The Old Testament Record

_From the Beginning._--When the Creator made the earth and man upon it,

He made the seventh day of the weekly cycle His holy Sabbath.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of

them.... And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because

that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made."

Gen. 2:1-3.

To sanctify is "to set apart," and so the day made holy and blessed by

God was set apart for man. Then it was, as Jesus said, that "the Sabbath

was made for man." Mark 2:27. Here the Sabbath institution was planted

at the beginning of the world.

_At the Exodus._--The people of Israel, in their bondage in Egypt, had

fallen away from the knowledge of God and become corrupted by the

idolatrous worship of Egypt, Hence, as the Lord called them out to be

His people, He tested their loyalty to His law by observing how they

regarded His holy Sabbath:

"Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven

for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every

day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no."

Ex. 16:4.

So through the forty years the Lord sent the manna for them to gather on

the six working days, withholding it on the Sabbath. (This scripture

shows also that the Sabbath was a part of God's law before He spoke it

from Sinai.)

[Illustration: HOREB, THE SACRED MOUNT

A modern view of the summit of Mt. Sinai.]

_At Sinai._--When the time came that the Lord would speak His holy law

from heaven, the eternal foundation of His moral government, the Sabbath

precept was enshrined in the heart of it:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor,

and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy

God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy

daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy

stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven

and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:

wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it." Ex.

20:8-11.

_Through Israel's History._--Sabbath keeping was the great mark of

loyalty to God. When Israel fell into idolatry, they "observed times"

(see 2 Kings 21:6),--doubtless such heathen festivals to the sun god and

other deities as were common among the idolatrous nations. These

observances of other days meant Sabbath breaking. "Neither shall ye ...

observe times.... Ye shall keep My Sabbaths." Lev. 19:26-30. The Lord

had promised concerning Jerusalem:

"If ye diligently hearken unto Me, saith the Lord, to bring in no burden

through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, but hallow the

Sabbath day, to do no work therein; then shall there enter into the

gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David,...

and this city shall remain forever." Jer. 17:24, 25.

The divine pleading was slighted, and Jerusalem's fall and the

Babylonian captivity came as the result of the Israelites' disregard of

God's holy day.

Thus throughout the inspired record of the Old Testament the seventh-day

Sabbath appears as a plant of the heavenly Father's own planting.

The New Testament Record

_The Example and Teaching of Jesus._--It was Christ's "custom" to

worship on the seventh day. Luke 4:16.

Jesus, who Himself made the Sabbath at creation (John 1:3), taught that

it was "made for man,"--for the human race,--and declared, "The Son of

man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:27, 28. It is, therefore, "the

Lord's day." Rev. 1:10.

He did on the Sabbath only that which was "lawful," or according to the

law of God's holy day. Matt. 12:12.

He kept His Father's commandments throughout His earthly life. John

15:10.

And giving instruction regarding events to take place many years after

His ascension, He showed that He recognized the continued existence of

the Sabbath in the command, "Pray ye that your flight be not in the

winter, neither on the Sabbath day." Matt. 24:20.

[Illustration: CHRIST HEALING THE MAN WITH A WITHERED HAND

"It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days." Matt. 12:12.]

_Among New Testament Disciples._--The women, after the crucifixion,

"rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Luke 23:56.

Inspiration says that the apostle Paul's custom was to preach the gospel

publicly Sabbath after Sabbath. Acts 13:14; 16:13; 17:1, 2; 18:4. When

the Gentiles of Antioch heard the gospel preached by the apostle one

Sabbath, they "besought that these words might be preached to them the

next Sabbath." Acts 13:42.

Throughout the New Testament, written years after Christ's ascension,

the Holy Spirit, speaking of the seventh day, calls it "the Sabbath"

upwards of fifty times. "Sabbath" means rest; therefore when the Holy

Spirit, in the Christian age, calls the seventh day the rest day, it

must infallibly be the day of rest for Christians, the Christian

Sabbath.

In the Levitical or sacrificial ordinances of the sanctuary services

there were annual sabbaths and feasts, associated with meats and drinks

and ceremonial observances. But in appointing these the Lord

specifically distinguished between them and the one and only weekly

Sabbath, which was from the beginning. "These are the feasts of the

Lord," He said, "beside the Sabbaths of the Lord." Lev. 23:37, 38.

The annual festivals and sabbaths, like all the ordinances of the

Levitical service, were shadows of things to come, and found their

fulfilment in the great sacrifice of Calvary. Col. 2:16, 17.

But the Sabbath of the Lord was made blessed and holy by God at the

creation, before sin had entered the world, before any sacrificial or

shadowy service was instituted to point to a coming Redeemer. It is a

fundamental and primary institution, a part of the moral order of God's

government for man, the same as the obligations set forth in each of the

other commandments.

And Inspiration declares the eternal perpetuity of the blessed Sabbath

day in the future home of the saved, when the prophet describes the

felicity of the redeemed, as from month to month, and "from one Sabbath

to another," all flesh shall come to worship before the Lord. Isa.

66:23.

Thus we find the seventh-day Sabbath a plant of the heavenly Father's

planting, rooted deep in all Holy Scripture, and abiding eternally in

the world to come.

Is the First-day Rest an Institution of God's Planting?

In the beginning, the first day was employed by God in the work of

creation. Gen. 1:1-5.

Throughout all the Old Testament history it was one of "the six working

days." Eze. 46:1.

It was the day of Christ's resurrection; but Inspiration says

specifically that "the Sabbath was past" when that "first day of the

week" came. Mark 16:1, 2. Inspiration called this first day merely by

the ordinary secular name in common business use, with never a

suggestion of attaching any sacredness to the day. For some of the

disciples it was a day of journeying, in which the risen Christ joined

them. Luke 24:13-29. Later He appeared to the other disciples in

Jerusalem, gathered not in meeting, but at supper in their common

dwelling house. Mark 16:14.

The only religious meeting recorded as occurring on the first day of the

week was that held at Troas. (See Acts 20:6-13.) The context shows that

it was an evening meeting, after the Sabbath,--Saturday night, as we

would call it, for the Bible reckoning is from evening to evening. It

was the last time the believers were ever to see the apostle's face, and

as they lingered after the close of the Sabbath, he held an all-night

farewell meeting, breaking bread with the believers, and leaving at

daybreak Sunday morning for the eighteen- or twenty-mile journey afoot,

across country to Assos. And while he spent the first day traveling

afoot, his companions were journeying by boat.

Conybeare and Howson (of the Church of England), in that standard work,

"Life and Epistles of St. Paul," tell the plain fact of the inspired

record, save that manifestly they should not have applied the title

"Jewish" to God's Sabbath; for it was not the Sabbath of the Jews, but

"the Sabbath of the Lord thy God:"

"It was the evening which succeeded the Jewish Sabbath. On the

Sunday morning the vessel was about to sail."--_Chapter 20, p.

520._

Describing the road between Troas and Assos, they add:

"Strength and peace were surely sought and obtained by the

apostle from the Redeemer as he pursued his lonely road that

Sunday afternoon in spring among the oak woods and the streams

of Ida."--_Id., p. 522._

Once again the "first day of the week" is mentioned, in 1 Cor. 16:2. But

that scripture says no word of any sacredness of the day or of any

religious observance of it. The apostle was gathering a fund for the

poor at Jerusalem, and asked every believer to "lay by" something every

first day of the week, so that the money would be ready when he came. As

Dean Stanley (Church of England) comments:

"There is nothing to prove public assemblies, inasmuch as the

phrase [Greek: par heautô] ('by himself, at his own house')

implies that the collection was to be made individually and in

private."

And Neander's Church History says:

"All mentioned here is easily explained, if one simply thinks

of the ordinary beginning of the week in secular life."--_Vol.

I, p. 339 (German ed.)._

To meet the emergency of need in Judea, these believers were asked to

look over their business affairs at the beginning of each week, until

Paul should come, laying aside a gift as God had prospered them.

No Sunday Sacredness in the New Testament

This is the record--not one suggestion in all the New Testament of

Sunday sacredness, to say nothing of precept or commandment of the Lord.

The late R.W. Dale, D.D., a leading Congregationalist of England, wrote:

"It is quite clear that, however rigidly or devotedly we may

spend Sunday, we are not keeping the Sabbath.... The Sabbath

was founded on a specific, divine command. We can plead no such

command for the observance of Sunday.... There is not a single

line in the New Testament to suggest that we incur any penalty

by violating the supposed sanctity of Sunday."--_"The Ten

Commandments," pp. 106, 107._

That religious classic, Smith and Cheetham's "Dictionary of Christian

Antiquities," says that the "notion of a formal substitution" of the

first day for the seventh,

"and the transference to it, perhaps in a spiritualized form,

of the Sabbatical obligation established by the promulgation of

the fourth commandment, has no basis whatever, either in Holy

Scripture or in Christian antiquity."--_Article "Sabbath."_

Dr. E.F. Hiscox, author of "The Baptist Manual," says:

"There was and is a commandment to 'keep holy the Sabbath day,'

but that Sabbath was not Sunday. It will, however, be readily

said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was

transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week....

Where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the

New Testament--absolutely not."--_The New York Examiner, Nov.

16, 1893._

Such declarations by well-known scholars might be multiplied, but it is

not necessary. The record is open--any one may see it. There is not a

word in the Holy Scripture of any first-day sacredness. The Sunday

institution is not a plant of our heavenly Father's planting.

How the Change Came About

There has been no change of the Sabbath by divine authority. Men may

choose to rest on any other day, but that cannot make such a day God's

rest day, His holy Sabbath. One cannot change one's birthday by

celebrating another day as such. It is a fact of history that on a

certain day of the month one was born. That fact cannot be changed by

choosing to celebrate another day as the birthday. Just so it is a fact

of divine history that God rested on a given day of the week, and on no

other. That made the seventh day His rest day.

It is different from other days in character also, for He blessed it and

made it holy. To deny the difference between common days and the holy

day is to say that when the great Creator blesses and makes holy, it is

a vain performance. That cannot be. It would take away all hope of

holiness or salvation for men. The blessing is upon the day, as every

soul finds who keeps it by faith.

When men choose to set apart another day than that blessed and

sanctified of God, it is plainly a setting up of the humanly appointed

time against the divinely appointed time. It is exalting man's sabbath

against God's Sabbath. It is man exalting himself "above all that is

called God." 2 Thess. 2:4.

This was what made the Roman Papacy. The apostle Paul wrote that in his

day the spirit of lawlessness was already working. He said it would lead

to a "falling away" from the truth of God, and the full exaltation of

the man of sin. 2 Thessalonians 2. The falling away came. As Dr. Killen

(Presbyterian), of Ireland, says in the preface to his "Ancient

Church:"

[Illustration: THE SABBATH FROM EDEN TO EDEN

Blessed and sanctified in Eden. Gen. 2:3. Christ the Lord of the

Sabbath. Mark 2:28.

Written by God in His law. Ex. 20:8-11. To be observed in the new earth.

Isa. 66:23.]

"In the interval between the days of the apostles and the

conversion of Constantine, the Christian commonwealth changed

its aspect.... Rites and ceremonies, of which neither Paul nor

Peter ever heard, crept into use, and then claimed the rank of

divine institutions."

In his "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," Cardinal Newman

(Roman Catholic) tells how rites and ceremonies were borrowed from

paganism:

"Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the

infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments and

appendages of demon worship to an evangelical use,... the

rulers of the church from early times were prepared, should the

occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing

rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of

the educated class."--_Pages 371, 372._

Thus along with other adaptations came "the venerable day of the sun"

(Sunday). It was by gradual process that it supplanted the Sabbath. Sir

William Domville wrote:

"Centuries of the Christian era passed away before Sunday was

observed by the Christian church as a Sabbath. History does not

furnish us with a single proof or indication that it was at any

time so observed previous to the Sabbatical edict of

Constantine in A.D. 321."--_"Examination of Six

Texts," p. 291._

This law of Constantine's was as follows:

"On the venerable day of the sun let the magistrates and people

residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In

the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely

and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens

that another day is not so suitable for grain sowing or for

vine planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such

operations, the bounty of heaven should be lost. (Given the 7th

day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of

them for the second time.)"--_Schaff, "History of the Christian

Church," Vol. III, chap. 5, sec. 75._

Commenting on this law, Prof. Hutton Webster, of the University of

Nebraska, says:

"This legislation by Constantine probably bore no relation to

Christianity; it appears, on the contrary, that the emperor, in

his capacity of Pontifex Maximus, was only adding the day of

the sun, the worship of which was then firmly established in

the Roman Empire, to the other ferial days of the sacred

calendar."

"What began, however, as a pagan ordinance, ended as a

Christian regulation; and a long series of imperial decrees,

during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, enjoined with

increasing stringency abstinence from labor on Sunday."--_"Rest

Days," pp. 122, 270._

Dean Stanley (Church of England) writes:

"The retention of the old pagan name _Dies Solis_, or Sunday,

for the weekly Christian festival, is, in a great measure,

owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which

the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his

subjects, pagan and Christian alike, as the 'venerable day of

the sun.'"--_"History of the Eastern Church," lecture 6, par.

15._

Thus the Sunday institution comes in, marked by its pagan origin, and

adapted to ecclesiastical purposes by the church of the "falling away"

that grew into the Roman Papacy. To quote again from the Baptist author,

Dr. Hiscox:

"Of course, I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in

early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from

the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that

it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with

the name of the sun god, when adopted and sanctioned by the

papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to

Protestantism."--_New York Examiner, Nov. 16, 1893._

No wonder that with the coming of the latter days, and the proclamation

of the message of preparation for Christ's second coming, there should

come a call to Christians to follow Christ and Holy Scripture in keeping

God's holy Sabbath.

Again the voice of Jesus is heard in protest against traditions that

make void the commandment of God.

"Every plant," He says, "which My heavenly Father hath not planted,

shall be rooted up." Matt. 15:13.

Made for Man

The God that made the earth,

And all the worlds on high,

Who gave all creatures birth,

In earth, and sea, and sky,

After six days in work employed,

Upon the seventh a rest enjoyed.

The Sabbath day was blessed,

Hallowed, and sanctified;

It was Jehovah's rest,

And so it must abide;

'Twas set apart before the fall,

'Twas made for man, 'twas made for all.

And when from Sinai's mount,

Amidst the fire and smoke,

Jehovah did recount,

And all His precepts spoke,

He claimed the rest day as His own,

And wrote it with His law on stone.

The Son of God appeared

With tidings of great joy;

God's precepts He revered,

He came not to destroy;

None of the law was set aside,

But every tittle ratified.

Our Saviour did not die

To render null and void

The law of the Most High,

Which cannot be destroyed;

But, bruised for us, our stripes He bore,--

We'll go in peace and sin no more.

--_R.F. Cottrell._

[Illustration: CHRIST AND HIS DISCIPLES IN THE CORN-FIELDS

"The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Matt. 12:8.]

[Illustration: RETURNING FROM THE SAVIOUR'S TOMB

"They returned,... and rested the Sabbath day according to the

commandment." Luke 23:56.]

GLIMPSES OF SABBATH KEEPING AFTER NEW TESTAMENT TIMES

Not at once did the innovation of Sunday observance set aside the

Sabbath of the Lord in the practice of even the general church. And

through history, when the general church had fallen away, we catch

glimpses here and there of faithful witnesses to God's holy Sabbath

truth.

First Centuries

An old English writer, Professor Brerewood, of Gresham College, London,

put in shortest phrase what many writers say:

"They know little who do not know that the ancient Sabbath did

remain and was observed by the Eastern churches three hundred

years after our Saviour's passion."--_"Treatise on the

Sabbath," p. 77._

Fourth Century

Canon 29, of the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 364), shows that the

ecclesiastical system was laboring to put an end to Sabbath keeping:

"Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [the

Sabbath], but shall work on that day; but the Lord's day [as

they called Sunday] they shall especially honor, and, as being

Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If,

however, they be found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from

Christ."--_Hefele, "History of the Councils of the Church,"

Vol. II, book 6, sec. 93, canon 29._

Fifth Century

Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History shows Rome evidently leading in the

effort to abolish any recognition whatever of the Sabbath:

"The people of Constantinople, and of several other cities,

assemble together on the Sabbath, as well as on the next day;

which custom is never observed at Rome, or at

Alexandria."--_Book 7, chap. 19._

Seventh Century

There were true Sabbath keepers in Rome itself, teaching the truth of

God among the people, and bringing upon themselves the denunciation of

Pope Gregory the Great, who wrote "to his most beloved sons the Roman

citizens:"

"It has come to my ears that certain men of perverse spirit

have sown among you some things that are wrong and opposed to

the holy faith, so as to forbid any work being done on the

Sabbath day. What else can I call these but preachers of

Antichrist?"--_"History of the Councils" (Labbe and Cossart),

Vol. V, col. 1511; see also "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,"

Vol. XIII, book 13, epistle 1._

Eleventh Century

The Pope's legates at Constantinople (A.D. 1054) were called to

discuss with Nicetas, "one of the most learned men at that time in the

East," says Bower, whose position was "that the Sabbath ought to be kept

holy, and that priests should be allowed to marry."--_"History of the

Popes," Vol. II, p. 358._

The people of north Scotland, the ancient Culdee church founded by

Columba and his followers, far removed from direct papal influence, was

still keeping the seventh-day Sabbath in the eleventh century. Of this

church Andrew Lang says in his "History of Scotland:"

"They worked on Sunday, but kept Saturday in a Sabbatical

manner."--_Volume I, p. 96._

Skene, in his classic work, "Celtic Scotland," says of these Sabbath

keepers:

"They seemed to have followed a custom of which we find traces

in the early monastic church of Ireland, by which they held

Saturday to be the Sabbath, on which they rested from all their

labors."--_Book 2, chap. 8._

Margaret, of England, married Malcolm the Great, the Scottish king, in

1069. An ardent Catholic, Queen Margaret at once set about Romanizing

the Celtic church. She called in the church leaders, and held long

discussions with them. At last, with the help and authority of her royal

husband, and quoting the instructions of "the blessed Pope Gregory," she

succeeded in turning the ancient Culdee church in Scotland away from the

Sabbath. (See "Life of St. Margaret," by Turgot, her confessor.)

Twelfth to Fourteenth Century

Among the numerous sects of southern Europe and the Alpine valleys, that

were pursued and persecuted by Rome, were at least some who saw and

obeyed the Sabbath truth. Thus, of one of these bodies, the historian

Goldastus says:

"They were called Insabbatati, not because they were

circumcised, but because they kept the Sabbath according to the

Jewish law."--_"Deutsche Biographie," Vol. IX, art. "Goldast.,"

p. 327._

Fifteenth Century

Sabbath keepers in Norway drew the condemnation of a church council held

in 1435:

"The archbishop and the clergy assembled in this provincial

council at Bergen do decide that the keeping of Saturday must

never be permitted to exist, except as granted in the church

law."--_Keyser's "Norske Kirkes Historie," Vol. II, p. 488._

Sixteenth Century

With the setting free of the Word of God by the Reformation, and the

protest against the doctrine of papal tradition, multitudes saw that the

Sunday institution was not of divine origin; while not a few went

farther, recognizing the claims of God's Sabbath. Moravia was a refuge,

in those early Reformation days, for many believers in the Reformed

doctrines, and among these were Sabbath-keeping Christians:

[Illustration: WALDENSES HUNTED BY THE ARMIES OF ROME

"Destitute, afflicted, tormented;... they wandered in deserts, and in

mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth." Heb. 11:37, 38.]

"Even most prominent men, as the princes of Lichtenstein, held

to the observance of the true Sabbath. When persecution finally

scattered them, the seeds of truth must have been sown by them

in the different portions of the Continent which they

visited.... We have found them [Sabbath keepers] in Bohemia.

They were also known in Silesia and Poland. Likewise they were

in Holland and northern Germany.... There were at this time

Sabbath keepers in France,... 'among whom were M. de la Roque,

who wrote in defense of the Sabbath against Bossuet, Catholic

bishop of Meaux.' That Sabbatarians again appeared in England

by the time of the Reformation, during the reign of Queen

Elizabeth (A.D. 1533-1603), Dr. Chambers testifies in

his Cyclopedia [art. 'Sabbath']."--_Andrews and Conradi,

"History of the Sabbath," pp. 649, 650._

In this century also, Sabbath keepers appeared in Norway, Sweden, and

Finland. In 1554 King Gustavus Vasa, of Sweden, addressed a letter of

remonstrance "to the common people in Finland," because so many were

turning to keep the seventh day.

Seventeenth Century

There was much discussion in England over the authority for Sunday

observance. When other church festivals were ignored, as Easter, King

Charles I wanted to know why Sunday should be kept. He wrote:

"It will not be found in Scripture where Saturday is discharged

to be kept, or turned into the Sunday; wherefore it must be the

church's authority that changed the one and instituted the

other; therefore my opinion is that those who will not keep

this feast [Easter] may as well return to the observation of

Saturday, and refuse the weekly Sunday."--_Cox, "Sabbath Laws,"

p. 333._

It was during this time that the idea first obtained of enforcing Sunday

obligation by the fourth commandment and calling it the Sabbath. It was

argued that any "one day in seven" was what the commandment meant. Of

this argument, John Milton, the statesman-poet, wrote:

"It is impossible to extort such a sense from the words of the

commandment; seeing that the reason for which the command

itself was originally given, namely, as a memorial of God's

having rested from the creation of the world, cannot be

transferred from the seventh day to the first; nor can any new

motive be substituted in its place, whether the resurrection of

our Lord or any other, without the sanction of a divine

commandment."--_"Prose Works" (Bohn), pp. 70, 71._

Again Milton wrote, in a manuscript which his publishers at the time

feared to print:

"If we under the gospel are to regulate the time of our public

worship by the prescriptions of the decalogue, it will surely

be far safer to observe the seventh day, according to the

express commandment of God, than on the authority of mere human

conjecture to adopt the first."--_Cox, "Sabbath Literature,"

Vol. II, p. 54._

While kings and poets and ecclesiastics discussed, here and there

believers began to follow the plain Word of God and Christ's example in

Sabbath keeping.

"Loved Not Their Lives unto the Death"

In 1618 John Traske and his wife, of London, were condemned for keeping

the Sabbath of the Lord, the man being whipped from Westminster to the

old Fleet Prison, near Ludgate Circus. Both were imprisoned. Mr. Traske

recanted under the pressure, after a year, but Mrs. Traske, a gifted

school-teacher, was given grace to hold out for sixteen years,--for a

time in Maiden Lane prison, and then in the Gate House, by

Westminster,--dying in prison for the word of the Lord. An estimable

woman she was, says one old chronicler, save for this "whimsy" of hers,

that she would keep the seventh day. All that she asked of men, on her

prison deathbed, was that she might be buried "in the fields."

By 1661 Sabbath keepers in London had further increased. In that year

John James was minister to a considerable congregation, meeting in East

London, off the Whitechapel Road. As part of the stern proceedings

against dissenting sects after the restoration of the monarchy, he was

arrested and condemned to death on "Tyburn Tree." His wife knelt at the

feet of King Charles II as he came out of St. James's Palace one day,

and pleaded for her husband's life; but the king scornfully rejected her

plea, and said that the man should hang. Bogue says:

"For once the king remembered his promise, and Mr. James was

sent to join the noble army of martyrs."--_"History of

Dissenters," Vol. I, p. 155._

Nothing daunted, the number of Sabbath keepers increased. In a letter by

Edward Stennet (between 1668 and 1670), it is stated.

"Here in England are about nine or ten churches that keep the

Sabbath, besides many scattered disciples, who have been

eminently preserved in this tottering day, when many once

eminent churches have been shattered in pieces."--_Cox,

"Sabbath Literature," Vol. I, p. 268._

Francis Bampfield was formerly an influential minister of the Church of

England, and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral, but later pastor of a

Sabbath-keeping congregation meeting in the Pinners Hall, off Broad

Street, near the Bank of England. Calamy said of him:

"He was one of the most celebrated preachers in the west of

England, and extremely admired by his hearers, till he fell

into the Sabbatarian notion, of which he was a zealous

asserter."--_"Non-Conformist Memorial," Vol. II, p. 152._

He was arrested while in the pulpit preaching, and in 1683 died of

hardships in Newgate prison, for the Sabbath of the Lord. An old writer

says that his body was followed to burial by "a very great company of

factious and schismatical people;" in other words, dissenters from the

state church.

Thomas Bampfield, his brother, Speaker of the House of Parliament at one

time, under Cromwell, published a book in defense of the Sabbath of the

Lord. In fact, many published the truth in this manner, and doctors of

divinity and even bishops wrote replies.

"Sabbatarian Baptists," these English witnesses to God's Sabbath were

first called in those times, and then "Seventh Day Baptists." In 1664

Stephen Mumford, from one of these London congregations, was sent over

to New England. He settled in Rhode Island, where the Baptist pioneer of

religious liberty, Roger Williams, had founded his colony. In 1671 the

first Sabbatarian church in America was formed in Rhode Island.

Evidently this movement created a stir; for the report went over to

England that the Rhode Island colony did not keep the "Sabbath"--meaning

Sunday. Roger Williams wrote to his friends in England denying the

report, but calling attention to the fact that there was no Scripture

for "abolishing the seventh day," and adding:

"You know yourselves do not keep the Sabbath, that is the

seventh day."--_"Letters of Roger Williams," Vol. VI, p. 346

(Narragansett Club Publications)._

Through the following century numbers of Seventh Day Baptist churches

were founded in America.[F]

Sabbath keepers were springing up also on the continent of Europe, in

Bohemia, Moravia, Transylvania, and Russia, where here and there Bible

believers saw that tradition had made void one of the commandments of

God. Then, as the events at the end of the long period of papal

supremacy had moved Bible students to the earnest study of the

prophecies, and as the predicted signs of the near approach of Christ's

coming began to appear, there arose the great advent awakening in the

earlier decades of the nineteenth century.

The prophecies regarding the work of the Papacy in seeking to change the

law of God began to be understood, and it was seen that the last message

of the everlasting gospel was a call to turn from human traditions to

the New Testament standard--"the commandments of God, and the faith of

Jesus." Rev. 14:12. Then began the great movement for Sabbath reform and

the proclamation of Christ's second coming, which has given rise to the

Seventh-day Adventist people, with a work spreading through all lands,

leading thousands every year to keep the Lord's blessed Sabbath day.

Soon Christ is to be revealed in righteousness and judgment. One burden

of God's message for the last days is:

"Thus saith the Lord, Keep ye judgment, and do justice: for My salvation

is near to come, and My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man

that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth

the Sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any

evil." Isa. 56:1, 2.

Through all the dark centuries, the Lord had somewhere a little remnant

keeping the light of the Sabbath truth glowing. They, too, overcame by

the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, loving not their

lives unto the death. Now, with the clear light shining from the open

Book, it is for Christians everywhere to turn from tradition to the way

of God's commandments and the example of Jesus Christ.

[Illustration:

"Closing Sabbath! Ah, how soon

Have thy sacred moments passed!"]

FOOTNOTES:

[F] In connection with this topic of Sabbath observance in colonial

America, it is of interest to note that Count Zinzendorf, the leader of

the Moravian missionary movement, was a believer in the sanctity of the

Sabbath of God's appointment. In his life, by Bishop Spangenberg, it is

stated that the Sabbath question was discussed by Zinzendorf with the

Moravians, on his visit to Pennsylvania in 1741. The record states:--

"As a special circumstance it is to be remarked that he determined, with

the church in Bethlehem, to celebrate the seventh day as a rest day. The

matter was previously fully gone over in the church council, with

consideration of all the reasons for and against it, when the unanimous

agreement was reached to observe the day Sabbatically.... The Count had

already long held the seventh day of the week in special

honor."--_Zinzendorfs "Leben," band 5, pp. 1421, 1422._

The Bethlehem congregation evidently did not follow the practice long.

"But as for himself," says Spangenberg, "with his house, he adhered

firmly to this aforementioned practice until his end."--_Id., p. 1437._

THE LAW OF GOD

I

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

II

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of

anything: that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or

that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to

them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting

the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth

generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of

them that love me, and keep my commandments.

III

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord

will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

IV

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor,

and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy

God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy

daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy

stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the Lord made heaven

and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:

wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.

V

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land

which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

VI

Thou shalt not kill.

VII

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII

Thou shalt not steal.

IX

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

X

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy

neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,

nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

[Illustration: CHRIST'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT

"Whosoever shall do and teach them ... shall be called great in the

kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:19.]

THE LAW OF GOD

It is a common saying, "The majesty of the law." It means that the

character and genius of a government are embodied and expressed in its

laws. The words of Inspiration declare to us the majesty of the law of

the Most High.

The Character of God's Law

The infinite perfection of the divine character is reflected in it.

"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Ps. 19:7.

As God is holiness and justice and goodness, so also is His law.

"Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and

good." Rom. 7:12.

Its Office

The law of God gives knowledge of the righteousness of its great

Author.

"Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart

is My law." Isa. 51:7.

It marks every departure from righteousness as sin.

"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the

transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4.

It is not a code merely for the regulation of outward conduct. It is the

moral law--the primal standard of righteousness established by the

Creator for His creatures. There is not an impulse of the inmost soul

that is not reached by it. It is the word which, living and powerful, is

"sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder

of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of

the thoughts and intents of the heart." Heb. 4:12.

Face to face with this holy law, we hear in it the voice of God saying,

"Be ye holy; for I am holy." Every soul must confess its guilt before

the searching power of God's law. All things are naked and open to the

eyes of Him with whom we have to do. "Guilty!" we confess. Left alone

with our guilt, there could be no ray of hope.

"The threatenings of the broken law

Impress the soul with dread;

If God His sword of vengeance draw,

It strikes the spirit dead."

Thank God, we are not left alone; help is laid upon One mighty to save.

"But Thine illustrious sacrifice

Hath answered these demands,

And peace and pardon from the skies

Are offered by Thy hands."

God's Law from the Beginning

The law of God existed from the beginning. When Adam sinned, he

transgressed this holy law; for "sin is the transgression of the law."

God's law was not committed to writing until the days of Moses, when the

Lord began to make His written revelations to the children of men. But

from Adam to Moses the precepts of the law of God were teaching

righteousness and convicting of sin.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin;

and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (for until

the law [the giving of it at Sinai] sin was in the world: but sin is not

imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to

Moses.)" Rom. 5:12-14.

The declaration of this scripture is: Without the law there can be no

sin. But sin and death were from Adam to Moses, in whose day the law was

spoken on Sinai; therefore the law of God was in force from the

beginning. Its precepts were witnessed to by every preacher of

righteousness raised up by God in the days before the deluge and in the

patriarchal age following. Of Abraham the Lord says,

"Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My

statutes, and My laws." Gen. 26:5.

The Lord called His people out of Egypt, that they might keep his law.

His message to Pharaoh was, "Let my people go, that they may serve Me."

Ex. 9:1. He delivered them from bondage by His mighty arm, and cleft the

Red Sea to lead them forth to obedience, as the psalmist said,

"He brought forth His people with joy, and His chosen with gladness:...

that they might observe His statutes, and keep His laws." Ps. 105:43-45.

In Egyptian bondage the children of Abraham must have lost much of the

purity of God's truth; yet the Lord held them under obligation to know

His law--the Sabbath precept particularly--before they came to Sinai, or

ever He had proclaimed the law in their hearing. He tested them in the

matter by the giving of the manna, as He said,

"That I may prove them, whether they will walk in My law, or no." Ex.

16:4.

From the beginning, God's holy law demanded the loyal obedience of every

human being.

Proclaimed Anew at Sinai

The Lord had delivered the people of Israel from Egyptian bondage that

they might serve Him and make His ways known to the nations. This was

according to the promise made to Abraham. To them was committed the

written revelation of God, and through them was to come in the fulness

of time the promised Messiah.

[Illustration: MOSES BREAKING THE TABLES OF THE LAW

"He wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deut. 4:13.]

While the Lord at this time "made known His ways unto Moses," and there

was begun the written revelation which grew into "the volume of the

book," the Holy Scriptures, one portion of revelation was not left for

the prophet of God to speak or for the inspired pen to write. The Lord

proclaimed His holy law with His own voice, and gave to men a copy

"written with the finger of God." Moses said of this:

"The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the

voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. And He

declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even

ten commandments; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone." Deut.

4:12, 13.

This display of majesty and glory indescribable was designed to teach

how sacred and holy is the law, and to cause men to fear to transgress

its precepts. Ex. 20:20.

It was not for themselves alone that the law was committed to Israel.

They were to teach the truth to others. As the New Testament says, it

was greatly to their advantage that "unto them were committed the

oracles of God." Rom. 3:2. But they "received the lively oracles to give

unto us." Through obedience to the divine law, they were to be a light

to the nations.

"Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your

understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these

statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding

people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto

them?" Deut. 4:6, 7.

An interesting comment upon these words is supplied by a speech of

Phalerius, librarian to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt. Urging the

king by all means to secure copies of the sacred books of the Jews for

his great library in Alexandria, Phalerius said:

"Now it is necessary that thou shouldst have accurate copies of

them. And indeed this legislation is full of hidden wisdom, and

entirely blameless, as being the legislation of God; for which

cause it is, as Hecateus of Abdera says, that the poets and

historians make no mention of it, nor of those men who lead

their lives according to it, since it is a holy law, and ought

not to be published by profane mouths."--_Josephus,

"Antiquities," book 12, chap. 2, sec. 4._

Unfaithful as the Jewish people oftentimes were, yet through their

testimony and the dealings of God with them, the fame of the living

oracles was spread abroad among the ancient nations.

One God--One Moral Standard

"There is one Lawgiver." James 4:12. He is ever the same, and His law is

the standard of righteousness for all mankind. There was not one moral

standard before Christ and another after. Christ's death upon the cross

because man had broken the law, is the divine testimony to all the

universe that God's law can never be set aside nor its force suspended.

Jesus opened His public teaching with the declaration:

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not

come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven

and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the

law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these

least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least

in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the

same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 5:17-19.

The moral law of ten commandments is one code, every precept equally

sacred and equally binding:

"Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is

guilty of all. For He that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do

not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art

become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that

shall be judged by the law of liberty." James 2:10-12.

The law of God still speaks with all the force of that voice from Sinai,

and it speaks to every soul on earth:

"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who

are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world

may become guilty before God." Rom. 3:19.

Thus the law of God convicts all men of sin, and would drive every one

to Christ for pardon and for the divine gift of the grace and power of

obedience.

The ceremonial law--the precepts and ordinances commanded for the

sacrificial system--ceased with the sacrifice of Calvary, as all these

ceremonial observances pointed forward to the cross. There can be no

confounding of the moral law and the ceremonial law. The ceremonial law

of types and shadows showed in itself that a primary or higher law--the

moral law--had been violated, making necessary a divine sacrifice if

transgressors were to be saved from death and restored to obedience.

The Standard in the Judgment

The law of God's moral government, which is the rule of life for every

creature, must necessarily be the standard in the great judgment day.

The Scripture states the sum of all human obligation and responsibility

in the words:

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His

commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring

every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good,

or whether it be evil." Eccl. 12:13, 14.

Every son and daughter of Adam's lost race is judgment bound, to answer

before the bar of God the demands of the perfect law. Divine justice

cannot abate one jot or tittle of the requirements of the holy law, nor

by any means clear the guilty. But divine mercy has provided the way by

which God can "be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in

Jesus."

[Illustration: THE GIFT OF GOD

"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." John

3:16.]

[Illustration: CHILDLIKE FAITH

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not

enter into the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 18:3.]

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH

"How should man be just [righteous] with God?" asked the patriarch Job.

It has been the vital question ever since Adam sinned, and lost his

righteousness and forfeited his life. The answer of Scripture is:--

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ." Rom 5:1 "By grace are ye saved through faith; and

that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any

man should boast." Eph. 2:8, 9.

In the beginning, life and righteousness were the gift of God to man.

Only the Creator could bestow the gift at the first; when lost, only

creative power can restore it.

Man Cannot Justify Himself

The law of God declares all men sinners. Not only did Adam's posterity

inherit of necessity a sinful nature, but every soul of man has wrought

sin as the fruit of that nature.

"As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so

death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. 5:12.

"There is no difference," Jew or Gentile, bond or free, they are in the

same lost condition; "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory

of God." Rom. 10:12; 3:23.

The sinner finds himself a transgressor, condemned to death by a holy

law. He turns to it with the thought, "I will do what it says, and

become righteous and win life." But he cannot undo the fact that he has

sinned. A holy law can only cry, "Guilty! guilty!" to one who has

transgressed it. The law declares righteousness; it cannot give it. As

the Scripture says:

"We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are

under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may

become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall

no flesh be justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of

sin." Rom. 3:19, 20.

The guilt exists. No deeds that man can do can undo it or cover it from

a righteous law. Not only that, but as soon as the law declares what

righteousness is, the sinner finds that its demands are altogether

beyond the power of his flesh to meet. It calls for a kind of work that

fallen human nature cannot so much as approach. Paul cried out, when

struggling under conviction, "We know that the law is spiritual: but I

am carnal, sold under sin." Rom. 7:14.

The carnal cannot bring forth the spiritual. But the law demands a

spiritual work of righteousness. It is impossible for the carnal mind to

undertake it. The Scripture says:

"The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law

of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot

please God." Rom. 8:7, 8.

But the awakened sinner is yet in the flesh. He finds the law thundering

his guilt and condemning him to death. He cannot wash away the past, nor

hide it; he cannot obey God's law with a carnal mind, and that is all

the mind he has. He is lost, and helpless of himself, but longs for a

way of escape. Paul's cry in the same position is the cry of the

despairing heart that has not found the Saviour, "O wretched man that I

am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Rom. 7:24. Thank

God, there is an answer to that cry, for every sinner.

"Plunged in a gulf of dark despair,

We wretched sinners lay,

Without one cheering beam of hope,

Or spark of glimmering day.

"With pitying eyes the Prince of grace

Beheld our helpless grief:

He saw, and, O amazing love!

He came to our relief."

The Free Gift of Christ

Following that despairing cry of human helplessness, "Who shall deliver

me?" there came the believer's shout of praise, "I thank God through

Jesus Christ our Lord." He is the deliverer; for He "gave Himself for

our sins, that He might deliver us." Rom. 7:25; Gal. 1:4.

The way of escape and salvation is the gift of God's love. "God so loved

the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth

in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

No sinner has need to plead that God may be willing to forgive him; the

Lord's infinite love that gave His Son to die, is pleading with the

sinner to believe and accept salvation.

In order to be the sinner's Saviour, the divine Son of God must take

man's place before the broken law. He came in human flesh, with all its

weakness. "I can of Mine own self," He said, "do nothing." He trusted

the Father, and lived a life of perfect righteousness in human flesh. He

who knew no sin, bore man's sin in His body on the cross. "The Lord hath

laid on Him the iniquity of us all." For man's sin He died, "that He by

the grace of God should taste death for every man." In Him was met the

penalty of the law. But it was a sinless sacrifice. He "through the

eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God." Heb. 9:14.

Therefore death could not hold Him. He rose in the power of an endless

life to be man's advocate and priest and savior, ministering His grace

and righteousness and life to every one who will receive them.

The righteousness that He wrought out for man in human flesh He longs to

put into every human heart. As in His own flesh in Judea He walked and

lived the life of righteousness, so now, by the Holy Spirit, He walks in

human lives today. That means forgiveness, and deliverance from the

power of the flesh, and a new life of power, and righteousness and

justification wrought within by the divine indwelling Saviour. How may

we receive Him with all this great salvation?--By faith; by believing

His promises; "that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." Eph.

3:17.

Christ in all His fulness abiding within,--this is the wonder and

mystery of the gospel, "which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." It

means an ever-present, ever-living Saviour, able to save to the

uttermost.

What abundance of grace is received with His indwelling presence!

_Forgiveness._--"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to

forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John

1:9.

_Deliverance from the Flesh._--The cleansing by Christ's indwelling

power means that the old life of self is subdued. "Our old man is

crucified with Him." Rom. 6:6. "Ye are not in the flesh, but in the

Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.... And if Christ

be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life

because of righteousness." Rom. 8:9, 10.

_A New Heart._--"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will

I put within you." Eze. 36:26.

_A New Life._--"Be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put

on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true

holiness." Eph. 4:23, 24. It is in blessed fact Christ Jesus living the

life in the believer by faith, as the apostle Paul says:

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ

liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the

faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal.

2:20.

_Righteousness and Justification._--"This is His name whereby He shall

be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." Jer. 23:6. Well does the King

James Version print the blessed name in capital letters. It is the great

name of salvation to every believer. By faith we receive Him, and by

faith His righteousness is imputed unto us. His life of obedience covers

all the believer's surrendered life, past and continuous, and in God's

sight the life of the believer in Jesus is justified from all sin. It is

the triumph of Him who was not only "delivered for our offenses," but

was also "raised again for our justification:"

"Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to

condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came

upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's

disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall

many be made righteous." Rom. 5:18, 19.

Christ died and rose again to bring this experience to sinners who have

struggled helplessly under condemnation. As Christ Jesus with all His

righteousness is received by faith, "there is therefore now no

condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the

flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. 8:1.

Praise the Lord! It is all of Christ, and not of any works that we have

done. Therefore it is as sure as the oath and promise of God. We can

lose the experience only as we let Christ go out of the life by

unbelief. God forbid that we should do this; and help us to be quick to

repent and again lay hold of Him by faith if ever we find we have let

Him go and have lost the covering of His righteousness.

"Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;

'Mid hosts of sin, in these arrayed,

My soul shall never be afraid."

[Illustration: THE LAST PRAYER

"That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting

life." John 3:16.]

Christ's righteousness is, of necessity, the righteousness demanded by

the law of God. He lives that law in the believer. This is what

justification is. "Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but

the doers of the law shall be justified." Rom. 2:13. Justification by

faith makes the man a doer of the law by faith, Christ living every one

of its sacred precepts in the believer's life. This is what He died to

accomplish, to bring the righteousness of the law to the sinner who

could never attain to it himself.

"What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God

sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin,

condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be

fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

Rom. 8:3, 4.

Christ writes God's law in the new heart: "I will put My laws into their

mind, and write them in their hearts." Heb. 8:10. It is the rule of His

own righteousness. For before He came into the world to work out perfect

righteousness for us in human flesh, He said, through the psalmist, "I

delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." Ps.

40:8.

It is a perfect righteousness and a full salvation that Christ brings

into every believer's heart. In Him all fulness dwells, "and ye are

complete in Him."

The wondrous plan of salvation is so deep that only "in the ages to

come" will God be able to "show the exceeding riches of His grace in His

kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." Eph. 2:7. But thank God, even

here below sinners saved by grace may "know the love of Christ, which

passeth knowledge."

"The wonders of redeeming love

Our highest thoughts exceed;

The Son of God comes from above,

For sinful man to bleed.

"He knows the frailties of our frame,

For He has borne our grief;

Our great High Priest once felt the same,

And He can send relief.

"His love will not be satisfied

Till He in glory see

The faithful ones for whom He died

From sin forever free."

--_R.F. Cottrell._

[Illustration: THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST

"Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Matt. 3:15.]

[Illustration: THE FORD OF JORDAN

"John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much

water there." John 3:23.]

BAPTISM

THE MEMORIAL OF THE RESURRECTION

Baptism is the divinely appointed memorial of the resurrection of

Christ. The great fact of the gospel is that "Christ died for our sins

according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose

again the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3, 4), to be

our great High Priest and Saviour.

Baptism is a profession of faith in the Saviour, who went into the grave

for us, and rose again to life. It is the great object-lesson to teach

the truth that the sinner must die to sin and the world, and have a

resurrection by the power of divine grace to a new life of obedience.

The ordinance is the sign of an actual experience, the means by which

the believer confesses the work of grace in the soul.

The Scriptures teach the essential conditions necessary to baptism:

"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He

that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Mark 16:15, 16.

"What doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest

with all thine heart, thou mayest." Acts 8:36, 37.