that church discipline should be enforced by church authority.

The next step taken by the bishopric, therefore, was to secure edicts under which they could enforce church discipline. This, too, not only upon the members of the church, but likewise upon those who were not. The church having, out of lust for worldly power and influence, forsaken the power of God, the civil power was the only resource that remained to her. Conscious of her loss of moral power, she seized upon the civil. The account of this further wickedness will be given in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ORIGINAL SUNDAY LEGISLATION.

Had

HE church was fully conscious of her loss of the power of God before she sought the power of the State. she not been, she never would have made any overtures to the imperial authority, nor have received with favor any from it. There is a power that belongs with the gospel of Christ, and is inseparable from the truth of the gospel, that is the power of God. In fact, the gospel is but the manifestation of that power, for the gospel "is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." Rom. i, 16. As long, therefore, as any order or organization of people professing the gospel of Christ maintains the principle of that gospel in sincerity, so long the power of God will be with them, and they will have no need of any other power to make their influence felt for good wherever known. But just as soon as any person or association professing the gospel loses the spirit of it, so soon the power is gone also. Then, and only then, docs such an organization seek for another kind of power to supply the place of that which is lost.

Thus was it with the church at this time. She had fallen, deplorably fallen, from the purity and the truth, and therefore from the power, of the gospel. And having lost the power of God and of godliness, she greedily grasped for the power of the State and of ungodliness. And to secure laws by which she might enforce her discipline and dogmas upon those whom she had lost the power either to convince

or to persuade, was the definite purpose which the bishopric had in view when it struck that bargain with Constantine, and lent him the influence of the church in his imperial aspirations.

In the chapter on "Constantine and the Bishops," evidence has been given which shows how diligently the bishops endeavored to convince themselves that in the theocracy which they had framed and of which they were now a part, the kingdom of God was come. But they did not suppose

for a moment that the Lord himself would come and conduct the affairs of this kingdom in person. They themselves were to be the representatives of God upon the earth, and the theocracy thus established was to be ruled by the Lord through them. This was but the culmination of the evil spirit manifested in the self-exaltation of the bishopric. That is to say, their idea of a theocracy was utterly false, and the working out of the theory was but the manifestation of the mystery of iniquity.

Yet this is not to say that all ideas of a theocracy have always been false. The government of Israel was a true theocracy. That was really a government of God. At the burning bush, God commissioned Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. By signs and wonders and mighty miracles multiplied, God delivered Israel from Egypt, led them through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness, and finally into the promised land. There he ruled them by judges, to whom "in divers manners" he revealed his will, until Samuel the prophet."

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In the days of Samuel, the people asked that they might have a king. Their request was granted, but only under the following earnest protest: "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith

ISRAEL REJECTS THE LORD AS KING.

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they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.

"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots, and he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.

"Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and be rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city."

God chose Saul, and Samuel anointed him king over Israel. "And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have

:

hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you: and I am old and gray-headed; and, behold, my sons are with you and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it to you. And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man's hand. And he said unto them, The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found ought in my hand. And they answered, He is witness.

"And Samuel said unto the people, It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt. Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the Lord of all the righteous acts of the Lord, which he did to you and to your fathers. When Jacob was come into Egypt, and your fathers cried unto the Lord, then the Lord sent Moses and Aaron, which brought forth your fathers out of Egypt, and made them dwell in this place. And when they forgot the Lord their God, he sold them into the hands of Sisera, captain of the host of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them. And they cried unto the Lord, and said, We have sinned, because we have forsaken the Lord, and have served Baalim and Ashtaroth: but now deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve thee. And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelt safe. And when ye saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign