ascended the throne of England declared his determination to make the
Puritans “conform, or ... harry them out of the land, or else worse.”(431)
Hunted, persecuted, and imprisoned, they could discern in the future no
promise of better days, and many yielded to the conviction that for such
as would serve God according to the dictates of their conscience, “England
was ceasing forever to be a habitable place.”(432) They were at last
determined to seek refuge in Holland. Difficulties, losses, and
imprisonment were encountered. Their purposes were thwarted, and they were
betrayed into the hands of their enemies. But steadfast perseverance
finally conquered, and they found shelter on the friendly shores of the
Dutch Republic.
In their flight they had left their houses, their goods, and their means
of livelihood. They were strangers in a strange land, among a people of
different language and customs. They were forced to resort to new and
untried occupations to earn their bread. Middle-aged men, who had spent
their lives in tilling the soil, had now to learn mechanical trades. But
they cheerfully accepted the situation, and lost no time in idleness or
repining. Though often pinched with poverty, they thanked God for the
blessings which were still granted them, and found their joy in unmolested
spiritual communion. “They knew they were pilgrims, and looked not much on
those things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven, their dearest country,
and quieted their spirits.”(433)
In the midst of exile and hardship, their love and faith waxed strong.
They trusted the Lord’s promises, and He did not fail them in time of
need. His angels were by their side, to encourage and support them. And
when God’s hand seemed pointing them across the sea, to a land where they
might found for themselves a state, and leave to their children the
precious heritage of religious liberty, they went forward, without
shrinking, in the path of providence.
God had permitted trials to come upon His people to prepare them for the
accomplishment of His gracious purpose toward them. The church had been
brought low, that she might be exalted. God was about to display His power
in her behalf, to give to the world another evidence that He will not
forsake those who trust in Him. He had overruled events to cause the wrath
of Satan and the plots of evil men to advance His glory, and to bring His
people to a place of security. Persecution and exile were opening the way
to freedom.
When first constrained to separate from the English Church, the Puritans
had joined themselves together by a solemn covenant, as the Lord’s free
people, “to walk together in all His ways made known or to be made known
to them.”(434) Here was the true spirit of reform, the vital principle of
Protestantism. It was with this purpose that the Pilgrims departed from
Holland to find a home in the New World. John Robinson, their pastor, who
was providentially prevented from accompanying them, in his farewell
address to the exiles said:
“Brethren, we are now erelong to part asunder, and the Lord knoweth
whether I shall live ever to see your faces more. But whether the Lord
hath appointed it or not, I charge you before God and His blessed angels
to follow me no farther than I have followed Christ. If God should reveal
anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it
as ever you were to receive any truth of my ministry; for I am very
confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His
holy word.”(435)
“For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed
churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no
farther than the instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot be
drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; ... and the Calvinists, you see, stick
fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all
things. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though they were burning
and shining lights in their time, yet they penetrated not into the whole
counsel of God, but were they now living, would be as willing to embrace
further light as that which they first received.”(436)
“Remember your church covenant, in which you have agreed to walk in all
the ways of the Lord, made or to be made known unto you. Remember your
promise and covenant with God and with one another, to receive whatever
light and truth shall be made known to you from His written word; but
withal, take heed, I beseech you, what you receive for truth, and compare
it and weigh it with other scriptures of truth before you accept it; for
it is not possible the Christian world should come so lately out of such
thick antichristian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should
break forth at once.”(437)
It was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the Pilgrims to
brave the perils of the long journey across the sea, to endure the
hardships and dangers of the wilderness, and with God’s blessing to lay,
on the shores of America, the foundation of a mighty nation. Yet honest
and God-fearing as they were, the Pilgrims did not yet comprehend the
great principle of religious liberty. The freedom which they sacrificed so
much to secure for themselves, they were not equally ready to grant to
others. “Very few, even of the foremost thinkers and moralists of the
seventeenth century, had any just conception of that grand principle, the
outgrowth of the New Testament, which acknowledges God as the sole judge
of human faith.”(438) The doctrine that God has committed to the church
the right to control the conscience, and to define and punish heresy, is
one of the most deeply rooted of papal errors. While the Reformers
rejected the creed of Rome, they were not entirely free from her spirit of
intolerance. The dense darkness in which, through the long ages of her
rule, popery had enveloped all Christendom, had not even yet been wholly
dissipated. Said one of the leading ministers in the colony of
Massachusetts Bay: “It was toleration that made the world antichristian;
and the church never took harm by the punishment of heretics.”(439) The
regulation was adopted by the colonists, that only church-members should
have a voice in the civil government. A kind of state church was formed,
all the people being required to contribute to the support of the clergy,
and the magistrates being authorized to suppress heresy. Thus the secular
power was in the hands of the church. It was not long before these
measures led to the inevitable result—persecution.
Eleven years after the planting of the first colony, Roger Williams came
to the New World. Like the early Pilgrims, he came to enjoy religious
freedom; but unlike them, he saw—what so few in his time had yet seen—that
this freedom was the inalienable right of all, whatever might be their
creed. He was an earnest seeker for truth, with Robinson holding it
impossible that all the light from God’s word had yet been received.
Williams “was the first person in modern Christendom to establish civil
government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of
opinions before the law.”(440) He declared it to be the duty of the
magistrate to restrain crime, but never to control the conscience. “The
public or the magistrates may decide,” he said, “what is due from man to
man; but when they attempt to prescribe a man’s duties to God, they are
out of place, and there can be no safety; for it is clear that if the
magistrate has the power, he may decree one set of opinions or beliefs
to-day and another to-morrow; as has been done in England by different
kings and queens, and by different popes and councils in the Roman Church;
so that belief would become a heap of confusion.”(441)
Attendance at the services of the established church was required under a
penalty of fine or imprisonment. “Williams reprobated the law; the worst
statute in the English code was that which did but enforce attendance upon
the parish church. To compel men to unite with those of a different creed,
he regarded as an open violation of their natural rights; to drag to
public worship the irreligious and the unwilling, seemed only like
requiring hypocrisy.... ‘No one should be bound to worship, or,’ he added,
‘to maintain a worship, against his own consent.’ ‘What!’ exclaimed his
antagonists, amazed at his tenets, ‘is not the laborer worthy of his
hire?’ ‘Yes,’ replied he, ‘from them that hire him.’ ”(442)
Roger Williams was respected and beloved as a faithful minister, a man of
rare gifts, of unbending integrity and true benevolence; yet his steadfast
denial of the right of civil magistrates to authority over the church, and
his demand for religious liberty, could not be tolerated. The application
of this new doctrine, it was urged, would “subvert the fundamental state
and government of the country.”(443) He was sentenced to banishment from
the colonies, and finally, to avoid arrest, he was forced to flee, amid
the cold and storms of winter, into the unbroken forest.
“For fourteen weeks,” he says, “I was sorely tossed in a bitter season,
not knowing what bread or bed did mean.” But “the ravens fed me in the
wilderness,” and a hollow tree often served him for a shelter.(444) Thus
he continued his painful flight through the snow and the trackless forest,
until he found refuge with an Indian tribe whose confidence and affection
he had won while endeavoring to teach them the truths of the gospel.
Making his way at last, after months of change and wandering, to the
shores of Narragansett Bay, he there laid the foundation of the first
state of modern times that in the fullest sense recognized the right of
religious freedom. The fundamental principle of Roger Williams’s colony,
was “that every man should have liberty to worship God according to the
light of his own conscience.”(445) His little State, Rhode Island, became
the asylum of the oppressed, and it increased and prospered until its
foundation principles—civil and religious liberty—became the corner-stones
of the American Republic.
In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as their bill
of rights—the Declaration of Independence—they declared: “We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And the Constitution
guarantees, in the most explicit terms, the inviolability of conscience:
“No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office
of public trust under the United States.” “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof.”
“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle that
man’s relation with his God is above human legislation, and his rights of
conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this
truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness
which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in
tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to
human enactments, and that man could exercise no authority over their
consciences. It is an inborn principle which nothing can eradicate.”(446)
As the tidings spread through the countries of Europe, of a land where
every man might enjoy the fruit of his own labor and obey the convictions
of his conscience, thousands flocked to the shores of the New World.
Colonies rapidly multiplied. “Massachusetts, by special law, offered free
welcome and aid, at the public cost, to Christians of any nationality who
might fly beyond the Atlantic ‘to escape from wars or famine, or the
oppression of their persecutors.’ Thus the fugitive and the downtrodden
were, by statute, made the guests of the commonwealth.”(447) In twenty
years from the first landing at Plymouth, as many thousand Pilgrims were
settled in New England.
To secure the object which they sought, “they were content to earn a bare
subsistence by a life of frugality and toil. They asked nothing from the
soil but the reasonable returns of their own labor. No golden vision threw
a deceitful halo around their path.... They were content with the slow but
steady progress of their social polity. They patiently endured the
privations of the wilderness, watering the tree of liberty with their
tears, and with the sweat of their brow, till it took deep root in the
land.”
The Bible was held as the foundation of faith, the source of wisdom, and
the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently taught in the home,
in the school, and in the church, and its fruits were manifest in thrift,
intelligence, purity, and temperance. One might be for years a dweller in
the Puritan settlements, “and not see a drunkard, or hear an oath, or meet
a beggar.”(448) It was demonstrated that the principles of the Bible are
the surest safeguards of national greatness. The feeble and isolated
colonies grew to a confederation of powerful States, and the world marked
with wonder the peace and prosperity of “a church without a pope, and a
state without a king.”
But continually increasing numbers were attracted to the shores of
America, actuated by motives widely different from those of the first
Pilgrims. Though the primitive faith and purity exerted a wide-spread and
moulding power, yet its influence became less and less as the numbers
increased of those who sought only worldly advantage.
The regulation adopted by the early colonists, of permitting only members
of the church to vote or to hold office in the civil government, led to
most pernicious results. This measure had been accepted as a means of
preserving the purity of the state, but it resulted in the corruption of
the church. A profession of religion being the condition of suffrage and
office-holding, many, actuated solely by motives of worldly policy, united
with the church without a change of heart. Thus the churches came to
consist, to a considerable extent, of unconverted persons; and even in the
ministry were those who not only held errors of doctrine, but who were
ignorant of the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Thus again was
demonstrated the evil results, so often witnessed in the history of the
church from the days of Constantine to the present, of attempting to build
up the church by the aid of the state, of appealing to the secular power
in support of the gospel of Him who declared, “My kingdom is not of this
world.”(449) The union of the church with the state, be the degree never
so slight, while it may appear to bring the world nearer to the church,
does in reality but bring the church nearer to the world.
The great principle so nobly advocated by Robinson and Roger Williams,
that truth is progressive, that Christians should stand ready to accept
all the light which may shine from God’s holy word, was lost sight of by
their descendants. The Protestant churches of America—and those of Europe
as well—so highly favored in receiving the blessings of the Reformation,
failed to press forward in the path of reform. Though a few faithful men
arose, from time to time, to proclaim new truth and expose long-cherished
error, the majority, like the Jews in Christ’s day or the papists in the
time of Luther, were content to believe as their fathers had believed, and
to live as they had lived. Therefore religion again degenerated into
formalism; and errors and superstitions which would have been cast aside
had the church continued to walk in the light of God’s word, were retained
and cherished. Thus the spirit inspired by the Reformation gradually died
out, until there was almost as great need of reform in the Protestant
churches as in the Roman Church in the time of Luther. There was the same
worldliness and spiritual stupor, a similar reverence for the opinions of
men, and substitution of human theories for the teachings of God’s word.
The wide circulation of the Bible in the early part of the nineteenth
century, and the great light thus shed upon the world, was not followed by
a corresponding advance in knowledge of revealed truth, or in experimental
religion. Satan could not, as in former ages, keep God’s word from the
people; it had been placed within the reach of all; but in order still to
accomplish his object, he led many to value it but lightly. Men neglected
to search the Scriptures, and thus they continued to accept false
interpretations, and to cherish doctrines which had no foundation in the
Bible.
Seeing the failure of his efforts to crush out the truth by persecution,
Satan had again resorted to the plan of compromise which led to the great
apostasy and the formation of the Church of Rome. He had induced
Christians to ally themselves, not now with pagans, but with those who, by
their devotion to the things of this world, had proved themselves to be as
truly idolaters as were the worshipers of graven images. And the results
of this union were no less pernicious now than in former ages; pride and
extravagance were fostered under the guise of religion, and the churches
became corrupted. Satan continued to pervert the doctrines of the Bible,
and traditions that were to ruin millions were taking deep root. The
church was upholding and defending these traditions, instead of contending
for “the faith which was once delivered to the saints.” Thus were degraded
the principles for which the Reformers had done and suffered so much.
17. HERALDS OF THE MORNING.
[Illustration: Chapter header.]
One of the most solemn and yet most glorious truths revealed in the Bible
is that of Christ’s second coming, to complete the great work of
redemption. To God’s pilgrim people, so long left to sojourn in “the
region and shadow of death,” a precious, joy-inspiring hope is given in
the promise of His appearing, who is “the resurrection and the life,” to
“bring home again His banished.” The doctrine of the second advent is the
very key-note of the Sacred Scriptures. From the day when the first pair
turned their sorrowing steps from Eden, the children of faith have waited
the coming of the Promised One to break the destroyer’s power and bring
them again to the lost Paradise. Holy men of old looked forward to the
advent of the Messiah in glory, as the consummation of their hope. Enoch,
only the seventh in descent from them that dwelt in Eden, he who for three
centuries on earth walked with his God, was permitted to behold from afar
the coming of the Deliverer. “Behold,” he declared, “the Lord cometh with
ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all.”(450) The
patriarch Job in the night of his affliction exclaimed with unshaken
trust: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth: ... in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall
see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.”(451)
The coming of Christ to usher in the reign of righteousness, has inspired
the most sublime and impassioned utterances of the sacred writers. The
poets and prophets of the Bible have dwelt upon it in words glowing with
celestial fire. The psalmist sung of the power and majesty of Israel’s
King: “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined. Our God
shall come, and shall not keep silence.... He shall call to the heavens
from above, and to the earth, that He may judge His people.”(452) “Let the
heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad ... before the Lord: for He
cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with
righteousness, and the people with His truth.”(453)
Said the prophet Isaiah: “Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy
dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.” “Thy
dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.” “He
will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears
from off all faces; and the rebuke of His people shall He take away from
off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in
that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save
us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice
in His salvation.”(454)
And Habakkuk, rapt in holy vision, beheld His appearing. “God came from
Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens,
and the earth was full of His praise. And His brightness was as the
light.” “He stood, and measured the earth: He beheld, and drove asunder
the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual
hills did bow: His ways are everlasting.” “Thou didst ride upon Thine
horses and Thy chariots of salvation.” “The mountains saw Thee, and they
trembled: ... the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of Thine
arrows they went, and at the shining of Thy glittering spear.” “Thou
wentest forth for the salvation of Thy people, even for salvation with
Thine anointed.”(455)
When the Saviour was about to be separated from His disciples, He
comforted them in their sorrow with the assurance that He would come
again: “Let not your heart be troubled.... In My Father’s house are many
mansions.... I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a
place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself.”(456) “The
Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him. Then
shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be
gathered all nations.”(457)
The angels who lingered upon Olivet after Christ’s ascension, repeated to
the disciples the promise of His return: “This _same_ Jesus, which is
taken up from you into heaven, shall _so_ come in like manner as ye have
seen Him go into heaven.”(458) And the apostle Paul, speaking by the
Spirit of inspiration, testified: “The Lord _Himself_ shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump
of God.”(459) Says the prophet of Patmos, “Behold, He cometh with clouds;
and every eye shall see Him.”(460)
About His coming cluster the glories of that “restitution of all things,
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the
world began.”(461) Then the long-continued rule of evil shall be broken;
“the kingdoms of this world” will become “the kingdoms of our Lord, and of
His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever.”(462) “The glory of the
Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” “The Lord
God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the
nations.” He shall be “for a crown of glory, and for a diadem of beauty,
unto the residue of His people.”(463)
It is then that the peaceful and long-desired kingdom of the Messiah shall
be established under the whole heaven. “The Lord shall comfort Zion: He
will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like
Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord.” “The glory of Lebanon
shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon.” “Thou shalt
no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed
Desolate: but thou shalt be called My Delight, and thy land Beulah.” “As
the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over
thee.”(464)
The coming of the Lord has been in all ages the hope of His true
followers. The Saviour’s parting promise upon Olivet, that He would come
again, lighted up the future for His disciples, filling their hearts with
joy and hope that sorrow could not quench nor trials dim. Amid suffering
and persecution, “the appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ” was the “blessed hope.” When the Thessalonian Christians were
filled with grief as they buried their loved ones, who had hoped to live
to witness the coming of the Lord, Paul, their teacher, pointed them to
the resurrection, to take place at the Saviour’s advent. Then the dead in
Christ should rise, and together with the living be caught up to meet the
Lord in the air. “And so,” he said, “shall we ever be with the Lord.
Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”(465)