Came up as a 'memory' on Facebook today. 3 witnesses spaced roughly 50 years apart, tell us to beware and we should not be surprised at the state of people, churches and the nation today.
1. "No Sabbath, no religion, is a maxim which you may safely apply, both to individuals and to communities." (Ashbel Green, Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, 1841).
2. [The creation ordinances of marriage and the sabbath] are so wrought into our being that marriage lies at the root of our earthly welfare, and the Sabbath at the root of our spiritual and eternal welfare.
This is so true, that if marriage, which the enemies of mankind want to destroy, and the Sabbath, which the enemies of God want to destroy, were got rid of, all order would be upset and the world be turned into a pandemonium. So true is this, that always wherever the law of marriage and the law of Sabbath have been most faithfully observed the nations have been most mighty and prosperous. You see, then, that in the nature of the case, the Sabbath was designed to be a permanent and universal institution. If, like marriage, it is fixed in man’s nature, and woven into the constitution and order of things, even God himself could not do away with it without making our nature all over again.
W. F. V. Bartlett, “The Sabbath-Day,” in Southern Presbyterian Pulpit: A Collection of Sermons (Richmond, VA: The Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1896), 389–390.
3. “Let us beware brethren: As goes the Sabbath, so goes the church, as goes the church, so goes the nation. Any people who neglect the duties and privileges of the Sabbath day soon lose the knowledge of true religion and become pagan. If men refuse to retain God in their knowledge; God declares that He will give them over to a reprobate mind. Both history and experience confirm this truth.” Minutes of the Sixty-First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, A. D. 1948 (Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1948), 183.
1. "No Sabbath, no religion, is a maxim which you may safely apply, both to individuals and to communities." (Ashbel Green, Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, 1841).
2. [The creation ordinances of marriage and the sabbath] are so wrought into our being that marriage lies at the root of our earthly welfare, and the Sabbath at the root of our spiritual and eternal welfare.
This is so true, that if marriage, which the enemies of mankind want to destroy, and the Sabbath, which the enemies of God want to destroy, were got rid of, all order would be upset and the world be turned into a pandemonium. So true is this, that always wherever the law of marriage and the law of Sabbath have been most faithfully observed the nations have been most mighty and prosperous. You see, then, that in the nature of the case, the Sabbath was designed to be a permanent and universal institution. If, like marriage, it is fixed in man’s nature, and woven into the constitution and order of things, even God himself could not do away with it without making our nature all over again.
W. F. V. Bartlett, “The Sabbath-Day,” in Southern Presbyterian Pulpit: A Collection of Sermons (Richmond, VA: The Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1896), 389–390.
3. “Let us beware brethren: As goes the Sabbath, so goes the church, as goes the church, so goes the nation. Any people who neglect the duties and privileges of the Sabbath day soon lose the knowledge of true religion and become pagan. If men refuse to retain God in their knowledge; God declares that He will give them over to a reprobate mind. Both history and experience confirm this truth.” Minutes of the Sixty-First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, A. D. 1948 (Richmond, Va.: Presbyterian Committee of Publication, 1948), 183.