Trusting in Human Law by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1914

Trusting in Human Law

By C. M. S.

Laws are good and necessary, but the church that trusts to human law to accomplish the work which Christ sent her into the world to do is nourishing a false hope. Some of the States have recently passed laws which are in themselves good, and have repealed others which were in themselves bad; and for every passage of a good law and for every repeal of a bad law we rejoice. The anticigarette laws, the antigambling laws, and all laws that prevent fraud and deeds of violence are good. The laws which make divorce on light pretexts easy, the laws which permit gambling, pool selling, and liquor selling, are bad. We could wish that every bad law on the statute books of our land were repealed, and that every good law that ought to be enacted might be enacted at once.

Nevertheless, we are not pinning our hope of a renovated humanity upon the passing or repealing of human laws. They may make the way we travel more convenient or more fearsome, as the case may be; but they cannot change the hearts of men, planting good there and uprooting the bad. Only the power of Jesus Christ in the life of the individual can do that. All who base their hopes on anything else are doomed to disappointment.

We have had numerous illustrations recently to the effect that the passing of good laws is not generally due to the awakening of conscience on the part of the legislators themselves. They have yielded to the pressure of an insistent demand on the part of bodies of their constituents, or to the effect of long rolls of petitions. They have passed the laws demanded, fearing lest they fail of re-election, or their party fail of maintaining its dominance. The States in which these "good laws" have been enacted have had many opportunities to learn that the passage of a law does not mean its enforcement.

We are living in an age of disregard of law, and the lawyer who can most skillfully manipulate law to the advantage of his client is the one whose services are most eagerly sought and command the highest remuneration. Good men may compel time-serving legislators to place good laws upon the statute books, but the power of money and the inclination of the human heart to do evil nullify the intent of the best lawmakers in the world.

He who looks today for any striking reformation in the land by the enactment of law is cherishing a vain hope. The greed for gold is blinding the finer instincts of the race till the conditions which Inspiration has said would characterize the last day are seen about us on every hand:—

"They all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net. That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire; so they wrap it up. . . . The day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity." Micah 7: 2-4.

That "visitation" is the second coming of Christ; and that "perplexity" is the consternation of the wicked when they see him whom they have rejected; and the conditions here brought to view are the conditions of this present day. Good laws may be passed, but lawlessness is ever increasing and will continue to increase; for it is declared that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived."

This being true, the only hope of any worth is the Christian's hope in Christ. Everything else is vanity, and, in the end, disappointment and death. We must not pin our hope to man, or to the laws that man may make; but in perfect submission to the will of God and faith in him, we have an anchor whose hold no stress or strain of storm can break. In that is hope; in that are life and joy and peace.

The last deception that comes upon the world, the one act that finally ranges the whole world, except God's handful, on the side of error and against God, comes through the enactment of human law. In that culminating act, federated religion demands and gets a law to compel all men to conform to a human standard in religion. As "a law without a penalty is only an opinion," this law carries a penalty, and the penalty is death. It makes conscience an outlaw save where conscience may be in harmony with that human demand. That being so, it makes all men outlaws who have a conscience that is true to the name. That final act of federated religion

destroys the last hope of any further good being accomplished in the world through the continued existence of the race. So long as Christianity was standing up against the foes of God and against the foes of conscience; so long as nominal Christianity was standing for the rights of man in religious things, souls could be won out of the world. Persecutions might be bitter, and souls hard to win out of the forbidding surroundings of this world; but it is not until Christianity, as expressed in federated religion, outlaws conscience that Heaven declares, "It is finished." When that act has been done by the church, God can do nothing more for the world but to take his faithful ones out of it and let the fires of the last day do their work of renovating the sin-stained world and preparing it for the occupancy of the people who have learned righteousness, in whose hearts God's law had been enthroned.

So man's trust in human law is a trust that is sure to fail. Man's hope of accomplishing the purpose of Christ in the world through the enactment and enforcement of human law is a false hope. It is a hope which, if adhered to, sets a federated world finally against its Maker, and ushers in the "day of vengeance of our God." It is a fearful thing to be thus deceived; it is the tragedy of all tragedies; for it shuts heaven against both the deceiver and the deceived, and brings the world to the judgment bar of God to hear the fearful sentence of the great Judge.

Today federated religion is laying plans which will bring about those conditions and result in that overwhelming catastrophe. In the chief city of the nation a campaign is now being inaugurated on behalf of federated religion that points directly to that culmination. Every similar campaign that is now being or has been inaugurated in other parts of the nation will be vivified and strengthened by this campaign at the seat of the nation. Every triumph in that line is a stronger lure to the ruin that waits for the completion of the campaign. Every victory won in the campaign for religious legislation and against the rights of conscience is a defeat for those who win it, and will make more bitter the great deception when its full meaning is understood. He who asks for human laws to enforce religious practices or customs and thereby oppress the consciences of his fellow men is playing with fire, and persistence in that course makes it certain that he will suffer the fires of the last day. It is the most dangerous business one can engage in in this world, for its success means the eternal ruin of those who succeed in it.

C. M. S.